Black and White and Spoiled All Over!

I have been trying to be really good and not buy fabric unless I absolutely had to have it for a current project. As a result, my stash has been thinning quite noticeably by me, but I was fine with that. I have a lot of fabric, so a thinning stash isn't worrisome to me. When Mother's Day came along, I asked for black and white fabrics. Before Mother's Day, I had a total of three white fabric with black prints in stash, two of which were only fat quarters. I had a dozen or so fat quarters of black with white designs, most of which will be used in a quilt I need finished next year.

 

 

The thing is, there are several quilts I have in mind to make that require black and white fabrics, so  thought it was a good thing to ask for, since I honestly didn't have enough in stash to do a quilt with black and white fabrics dominating. Turns out my kids didn't get me black and white fabrics, but DH and I went shopping to the odd fabric store in town that has cotton fabric for $3.99 a yard. You never know what they'll have, they are like a fabric closeout place, but I found quite a haul of black and white fabrics!

 

 

Here they are in all their glory! Oh will I have fun playing with these once my current quilts are finished!

The funny thing about buying fabric is once you buy some, you tend to buy more. Overall, I was actually good, but there is still a lot of new fabric in the house. Most of it won't be here long though! I ordered a border fabric for a wedding quilt I'm making. I also ordered two fat quarters of fabric to use in the quilt center. All the rest of that quilt is from stash, backing included, so a total purchase of three and a half yards for a 110" square quilt, not bad.

One of my nieces is having a baby, and I am actually going to use some nine patches I made a while back in the baby quilt, but I wanted a musical fabric for the alternating squares, and I had nothing in stash in the appropriate colors. I found a flannel on ebay I think will work nicely, and I'm hoping the piece I bought will be enough to back the quilt too. I may have to piece something else into the back, but that piece of fabric will be completely gone in that quilt.

My oldest daughter is expecting baby #3, and they aren't finding out the gender. For her first two, I made gender neutral quilts, but this time I was really hoping to make something gender specific. We talked it over, and she wants a yellow/gray elephant themed quilt for a boy, and a predominantly coral/teal butterfly quilt if it's a girl. DD#1 lives in South Africa, so it's not just a matter of bringing the correct quilt to the hospital when the baby is born. I think what I'm going to do is mail the elephant quilt before the baby comes, and if the baby is a girl, I'll mail the butterfly quilt afterwards. A yellow/gray quilt could be gender neutral.

Here's the thing though, I had no fabric in stash for the yellow/gray quilt. I ordered everything for it. I did buy the smallest amounts of fabric allowed, so I was still trying to be good.

The butterfly quilt I decided to do in 1930's repro prints. I had exactly one charm pack, and one layer cake of 30's prints in stash. One of these days, I want to make a king sized quilt in 30's repro fabrics. I have in mind an Irish Chain, with Dresden Plates in the open areas. One charm pack and one layer cake wasn't going to make a baby quilt and a king sized quilt. I did NOT want to accrue a big 30's stash, but I needed more than I had. I found a place online that sold fat eighths by color in bundles of 30's fabrics. I bought a few of those, and it will definitely be enough for the baby quilt, and a start to the king sized quilt.

I laid out the quilt I'm making for DS the Elder, and changed my mind on what size I'm making it. I decided to make it a bit larger than I originally planned. Hmmm.... Now that wide backing I bought for it a while back, is no longer large enough for it. I could cut the backing and piece something in...but that seems like a waste of a wide backing. I decided to hold onto the wide backing and use it on another quilt. Now I needed to get 10 yards of flannel to piece a large enough backing. So I did, and I got it for half off too!

I have one more wedding quilt due this year, that I haven't started yet, and it won't be scrappy. I already have the backing fabric for it, and I think I have everything else in stash except for the background fabric. I am so glad all the fabric places had such great Mother's Day sales, because I bought the background fabric for that quilt too.

DD#3 said she could use some more burp rags. The ones I make are from cotton batting, which I have, and flannel. I have some flannel in stash, but it's all gender specific. I've used up all of my gender neutral fabric making burp rags. So, guess who bought some gender neutral flannel? Again, I was conservative on the amounts, but I did buy some.

So, while on the fabric buying spree did I buy any fabrics just to stash? Yes, the black and white fabrics that were my Mother's Day gift from DH. I also picked up four remnants at Hancock fabrics. They price their cotton remnants at $2 a yard, so I always look when I'm there. That's why I don't go there very often. I really find it easier to control my sending when shopping online. I search for what I need, and don't browse online. In a store, I'm more likely to overspend on impulse buys.

Today DH and I went thrift store shopping, and I found some flannels (maybe three to four yards total) I could use for burp rags, bought those too. I also found a king sized polyester batting for $2.99, and I happily bought that!

I think my fabric purchases are done for now. The lion's share of what I'm making is coming from stash, so I'm not going to stress too much about buying what I need. It was more that I didn't want to spend the money, than any bad feelings about it.

I did order something else for Mother's Day too. I'm thinking of selling my Juki sewing machine, so I've been quilting on my Bernina 440. I've done a large queen on it now, so I know I can do without the Juki, even though the throat space is better on the Juki. The thing is, my Bernina and the sewing cabinet my Juki were in do not play well together. I had my Juki in an Arrow Bertha cabinet which has a huge amount of space for supporting a large quilt. I have a custom insert for my Juki in that cabinet, but I've been making do with just the extension table that came with my Bernina to have it in that cabinet. The thing is, even if I bought a custom insert for the Bernina, I can't use the knee lift when it's in that cabinet. They just aren't compatible if I use the knee lift. I had my Bernina in an Arrow Olivia cabinet. I can use the knee lift when it's in the Olivia cabinet, and I have the custom insert for my Bernina for that cabinet. the thing is, with the Olivia cabinet, I lose all that extra quilting space, or do I???? When I bought my Olivia cabinet, there was no quilting extension available for it, but now there is! DS the Elder gave me an Amazon gift card for Mother's Day, and I bought the extension from Amazon, which, since I now did not need to buy a new custom insert, was really not a bad deal.

The extension should be here sometime next week, so I'll have a bit of rearranging to do in my sewing room. For now, I'll just swap the locations of the two cabinets, and just drop the quilting extension on the Bertha cabinet. I've already measured, and with just a bit of tweaking, the cabinets can trade places easily enough. I'll be using the Bertha cabinet with my vintage machines now, and not having an insert when you are using a flatbed machine is no big deal. I just move the machine flush with the front left corner of the cabinet opening, and sew away.

So there you go, I am one spoiled Mama! Hmmm....my birthday is coming up, and I've always wanted to make a Winding Ways quilt in red and white. Maybe I'll ask for red and white fabrics for my birthday!