Friday, December 28, 2012

Gathering Supplies

I can't even explain how difficult it has been to not just dive in and start hammering out quilt blocks a week early! Good thing it snowed more than a foot over 3 days and I have a driveway the size of Alaska to shovel to keep me busy instead. I am tempted to invest in a snow blower, but I know the second I do, it will stop snowing for the season.
Anywhoooo...
I braved the snowy roads in my little Camry yesterday evening with toddler and dog in tow to browse the local fabric stores for fabric for the Farmer's Wife Quilt (hereafter abbreviated as FWQ). I first stopped by a local quilting store that I have never been to and bolted for the door as soon as I saw the prices. $10/yd and up, YIKES! I then headed to my trusty Hobby Lobby and picked out a few lovely $4 to $6/yard swatches instead.
Now here's the story behind me wanting to piece a quilt this year: When we got married almost 5 years ago, I bought some wonderful 600 thread-count Egyptian cotton off-white sheets for our bed at Ross. They have been our favorite sheets ever since.  A couple of months ago I noticed a huge hole/worn out place/threadbare area that I'm pretty sure is a result of our washing machine trying to eat the sheets. Now there are two large areas like that and so I had to retire the sheets. The top sheet is ship shape though, so I plan on using that as the back to the FWQ.
About a month ago we moved into a new house and there were absolutely no window coverings, so I found these beauties on a yard sale group on Facebook for our bedroom. It matched our maroon bed skirt and sheets, and our dusty purple duvet cover perfectly. It is even off-white and will even match our retired sheets. So I'm using these curtains as my inspiration for colors for the FWQ.
 As you can see there are areas with lime green, green, maroon, purple, gray, cream, off-white, etc.
Here are the fabrics I have assembled. At the top you'll see the sheets, then a row of white and off-whites with cute prints on them (see close-up picture for those next), a row with sage green with polka dots, off-white with green swirlies, lime green with white Moroccan-style white designs, gray with silver damask, gray with white polka dots, maroon with pink paisley, and another maroon with floral swirlies. Then a row of purple fat-eighths ranging from light to dark.
Here is a close-up of the whites and off-whites. It's still hard to see the white-on-white prints, but on the off-whites you can see the white prints.
Here's hoping that I can hold-off on starting for 3 more days!

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