Stash Sunday a Day Late

My Stash Sunday is a day late.  Y'all know you can't expect me to be timely.

Well, the rush is finally over.  For another year, anyway!  Quiltopia was this weekend and our booth did pretty well all things considered.  Having a show the same weekend that a shop hop starts is rough for attendance, but we got it done anyway.  Every show is different, and it never ceases to amaze me what ends up being the thing no one can live without.  Last show it was a honeycomb panel with bees appliqued on top.  This show?  Fat quarters of Effervescence by Robert Kaufman.  Who knew?

So since this is a guild operated show, there was the green table in back.  The green table is where there is a ton of wicked'y inexpensive books, patterns, fabrics, and projects that the guild members bring to sell.  On the one hand, it kind of sucks for the rest of the vendors because we cannot compete with $3/yard,  but on the other hand...oh the goodies you'll find.  I found a print of flying pigs that my mom has had in her stash since the early-mid 90s.  Seriously...oh the things you can find.  For a fabri-holic this is a glorious and dangerous thing.

One of the weird things I love is heinous fabric.  Heinous. Fabric.  What do I mean?  Ugliness, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder and I have been told on more than one occasion that I need my vision checked.  I tend to really enjoy pieces that make everyone else dry heave, and this weekend was no different.  I found this white and neon (yes, neon) print of like, french drink labels.  It makes no sense.  Neon, really?  And bikinis. Found those. Oh, and a really great bright fruit/flower print with bees.  WHY ARE THE ORANGES PURPLE?! What even is that??  I don't know.  But I had to have it.  So now, I do, to the tune of three yards. 

But what I also inexplicably like are African prints.  Not prints with African themes, though, those are cool too.  I mean from-Africa prints, you know, the ones that have so much sizing on them you could stand them up on end? Those.  There were tons of fat quarters that someone was selling off for $0.50 a pop.  So I ended up with something like 16 of them.  They are GORGEOUS and I cannot wait to use them!  Right now, I have a blessed lull in samples since I rushed them all for Quiltopia, so I have a wee bit of time to myself to do something I want to do.  I have been thinking about what to do, because even though I can't wait to make something of them, part of me can hardly bear to cut them up.   

Inspiration Strikes in the Weirdest Places

Swear to God I have been up to my eyeballs in samples lately.  I mean, I always am, but with Quiltopia coming I am sewing triple time.  I feel like I am barely making a dent.  Probably because I'm not.  There is so much to do.  I wish sometimes I didn't have a regular job on top of all the shop stuff I do.  A snide comment made at a shop hop meeting reminded me that despite being 30, people still view me as that wet behind the ears college kid from 10 years ago who only had a part time job and school to fuss with.  I reminded her that in fact I do have a "real job" at the State and everything I do for the shop hop and at the shop is IN ADDITION TO my 40 hour week...not including housework and my minuscule social life.  Fight me, or whatever.  So I have been busy.  As usual.

I am super behind on the Honey Pot Bee blocks I am (supposedly) working on.  People talk about having "lots of UFOs" to the tune of a bin or two, and I want to laugh and laugh.  A bin. How cute. I have five Rubbermaid totes and counting.  Needless to say, I need to run the frig away to finish some of those.  Maybe when I am retired.  But I really want to do some me-time sewing.  I have so many scraps piling up, begging to be sewn, and I have SO MANY IDEAS.  And people know I love scraps so they send them my way.  Do you think I have the self control to say no?  Of course not.  Like I tell folks, my addiction to fabric could be to something way worse instead, I mean it could be like meth.  I;m sure there is something out there worse than meth but it's all I got.  And, I have seen the show Hoarders...apparently it's not a Hoarders level disaster until you find a dead cat in it.  I have no cats and my dogs haven't wandered into the scrap heap so I think we're good. Nothing to see here, move along.

But one of the things I want to make was inspired by something I see (almost) every day.  The bathroom at the office.  As you sit there, there's not much else to do but stare at the floor and walls.  The floor is boring tile, and the walls are boring tile too (would it kill anyone to move away from white and beige, I mean COME ON).  And they stay boring until you realize you've been staring at a maybe quilt pattern for months.    

Let me just get this out of the way, because I know someone out there is wondering where the picture of these walls are.  I did not take my phone into my office bathroom.  I have no plans whatsoever to take my phone into the office bathroom.  And I don't think I really need to explain all the different levels on which it would be weird to do so.  You're just going to have to «¬­imagine­¬«

It's so simple.  Basically staggered bricks, like where the gap between two bricks matches up in the middle of the brick in the row below it.  You know, like bricks do.  But as I have been sitting in there over the months, different patterns emerge.  Diamonds. Chains.  Variations of shapes and sizes and what if I did it on point or diagonal???? Seriously, no less than six quilt ideas have taken shape just from the amount of time it takes for me to take a leak at work.  Quilts are everywhere, y'all.

Hopefully after Quiltopia is over and after the rush of Thanksgiving and Christmas samples are done I can have a breather for a few weeks and work on some of these ideas.  I mean, the scraps keep multiplying like bunnies in the night.  they will overrun my house.  I wonder if this would then quality as housework?  Hmm.

Pillowcases: Fun Times

So in some of the quilt groups I follow on Facebook post about what people like least about the quilting process.  As much as I bitch about disliking binding, really, it's not the binding itself I mind but the sewing it on before hand stitching.  But even that I don't mind.

What I dislike is what I consider to be boring and repetitive sewing tasks.

Like pillowcases.  I have done so many, I could probably do them in my sleep.  Not that I'd try.  Or want to.

That being said, I knocked out five the other day for samples, assembly line style.

Poke balls, ballerinas, animal selfies, skulls, and chemistry.  I mean, they're cute and fast.  Glad they're off my plate.

That's all I have for now.  New Rick and Morty is on tonight and I am stoked.

The Laboratory is Open

Well helllllllllooooo nurse!  Look who's back.

So I suppose I have some explaining to do.  As many, or maybe several, of you know, I used to have a different but very similar blog, Lovely Frankenstein's Quilting Laboratory.  See, I am exceptional with creative names.  Hey, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, amirite?  But if you followed it before, and if you click on the link, you can see it lost quite a lot of steam over the past few years.  Hell, I haven't updated it in approaching two years.  Lack of steam is an understatement.  

So why was I so jazzed about it for a few years, then...not so much?  Well, I'll be quite frank here.  That's because it became something that wasn't really ME.  I mean sure, Frankenstein and Halloween and quilting...yeah, that's me, like all the way.  

But I was trying SO hard to keep a certain image because of my association with our family quilt business that I edited much of myself out of it - my voice and my opinions - from fear that it would reflect negatively on the business.  Much of the content ended up very different than I would have done it had I just been more real with myself and to myself.  That was a huge mistake, and I own it. It was too clean.  Too careful.  It lacked my natural sass (and swearing).  It wasn't natural. I lost interest, and blamed it on "life getting in the way," which at the time, I thought was true.  We all know about hindsight.  

So I am creating a fresh start with a fresh blog where it will just be me, for better or worse.  For those that know which business my family owns, know that this blog is entirely separate and should not in any way, shape, or form reflect on that business.  Know that what I may make references to the business, this blog is not affiliated AT ALL.  I will be covering a lot more here than just my projects and Halloween posts.  There will be swearing peppered throughout.  There will be projects, techniques, tutorials, puns, memes, and opinions both on and off topic.  Maybe it will change your perception of me, for better or worse.  But let it reflect on me, not the business.  

And if you have an issue, I am willing to discuss it with you, but please do not take it to the business. 

I am finally feeling amped again.  I have ideas...and about 15 (not kidding) projects in the coffers...which makes me ask myself  what the hell I am doing on the computer instead of getting work done.  So I guess that's it for now.  Thanks for reading this far...and if you're still interested in following me down the rabbit hole...