Fabric Organizing & Inventory

Today I'm sharing this inexpensive and effective way I'm organizing my fabric stash.  I have lots of fabric in lots of containers and when I want to use something I usually empty out the entire box to see what I have and then put it all back (or sometimes I don't and the clutter takes on a life of its own!)

So here's what I did:

I cut a one inch or so snippet of every fabric in the container.  Then I sprayed a piece of 8 1/2 x 11 card stock with spray adhesive and stuck them all on. 

 You could also use glue or tape but I liked the spray adhesive because it's tacky. I could peel pieces off and move them around if needed.

*UPDATE* The spray glue does Not stay sticky over time. I've had to go back and re-glue my swatches to the cardstock. Just use Elmer's or other, stronger glue that'll hold up or you'll get this: 

Once I had all of my snippets on the card I slid it into a plastic notebook sleeve and attached it to my container.

Now I can see what I have at a glance.

  Notice the jumbled mess underneath?  I admit I thought about cropping that out. Do you ever see someone's super tidy work space or fully completed organizational project and imagine that they totally have their act together and got it all done in one day? Well, I am definitely not one of those people! I'm just going to work on it a little bit at a time in between other projects. I plan on doing a couple of boxes a week until it's done. 

Mollie Makes Birds

 

So my family and I made it through Hurrican Sandy OK, we didn't lose power or anything.

Being stuck inside all day gives you time to work on projects.  One of my projects is to design a bird fabric for Spoonflower's fabric of the week.  The theme is birds or flight and the winner gets their fabric on Mollie Makes a cool British blog/magazine. 

 

 

Rough sketches of whimsical birds.

 

The contest is palette restricted which means my design can only use these four colors chosen by Spoonflower or Mollie Makes or both.  I like these choices, they're cheerful and soft.

 

 

 

Subtle Design

When I make a design sure I want it to catch people's attention.  It should jump out and say "YO!  HERE I AM!!" (especially if it's part of a Spoonflower contest) shouldn't it?  But sometimes you just want a fabric with a bit of design to make things visually interesting but not so much that it dominates the whole room or outfit or quilt it's going to be a part of.  When you consider what you personally might do with a fabric would you want such a bold design? The above design, called "Circle Star" I think works best as a tone on tone but it can carry a two color scheme as well.  If you are a Spoonflower contest voter and you feel this design is worthy, give it a click in this week's limited palette contest.  The palette is the purple and green and the theme is 'geometric.'  There are a lot of great In-Your-Face designs in the contest this week and I voted for a lot of them, but I didn't discount some of the more subtle designs.  You shouldn't either (and I'm not just saying that because I want your vote.)

Paisley of the Week! It just zipped by...

This week's Paisley of the Week! was actually SOLD before I could post about it!  That's no surprise, really, it was pretty awesome. One of the hottest trends out there right now is the use of zippers as a fancy trim rather than just as a garment closure. Luckily the shop where I found this felted zippy pin, Woollyfabulous, has many gorgeous offerings and all the paisleys weren't gone - yet.    Odile, the artist behind Woollyfabulous takes old wool sweaters felts and upcycles them into tiny works of art filled with color and swirl the zippers just take it up another notch! 

Paisley of the Week! Catkin Paisley Fabric

I am very excited about this week's Paisley of the Week!  While mousing around on Etsy, I found Moona Fabrics an Etsy shop with a great selection of fabric and very reasonable prices.  What caught my eye was this fantastic Catkin Paisley fabric by artist Julie Paschkis.  Isn't it adorable? I think she may be my new favorite designer!  Moona Fabrics has her whole line plus other top designers like Amy Butler and Kaffe Fassett.  All this week, Moona Fabrics is offering a special coupon to you, my readers.  The coupon code word is PAISLEY (of course!) Be sure to also like Moona Fabrics on Facebook, I did!

Blue Shirt + Blue Glue = Batik pt.1

I ruined my favorite blue shirt by being overzealous with bleach in my laundry.  Rather than use it as a rag or a grungy painting shirt I decided to give it a glue batik, a technique I've been wanting to try.  So this is step one, applying blue gel glue.  I have done traditional hot wax batik before and the glue acts pretty much the same only it takes 24 hours to dry.  On the other hand, no burns which is definitely a plus!  So when it dries and I paint it, I'll post the next part.  I'm thinking green and purple.   

Silk Screening



First there was this doodle I did at work.  Then
  I think I must've watched This Video on You Tube about a hundred times.



Then I had to figure out my negative space.  This was more difficult than I thought. A lot of details get lost in trying to solidify your design.

Then I cut out my stencil.  Paper stencil silk screening is not really worth it unless your design is very simple. I spent HOURS cutting this design with both scissors and an exacto knife. I only got about 5 passes with the squeegee before it started to disintegrate.  I did use packing tape to make it stronger but even so, it started buckling after a while.  Next time (and there IS going to be a next time!) I'm going to attempt either the filler fluid or the burn method.

Attempt number one done on an old pillowcase for practice.  I don't think we used enough paint, or maybe I wasn't squeegeeing hard enough.  The top and bottom of the paisleys didn't really show up.  Attempts 3 and 4 were progressivley better.

Finally, I felt like it might work on an actual T-shirt and it did!  

Star Wishes

I'm working on a new collection to compliment this design that I created a while ago.  Looking at my designs, I notice that I tend toward blue and pink a LOT!  I'm imagining another children's theme with this one. 

Pick Me!

I haven't submitted a design to a Spoonflower contest in a while,  but I liked the theme of this contest: Summer Flowers.  It had a limited palette which I like the challange of using and the colors they chose this time weren't too difficult to like.  Purple -n- Blue are always fine with me!  Anyway, if you have a minute to go and vote, I'd greatly appreciate it!  I know that I've not done a Paisley of the Week! this week.  Maybe I ought to change the name to Paisley of the Weak instead?  Next Monday for sure!

Three Cheers...

For the Red White and Blue!

The paisley bandana, one of the most classic paisleys ever.  Navy or red used to be your only choices but now, you can get a bandana in just about any color you can think of.   I love the twist on this one from Wholesale For Everyone with both colors together at once.  Perfect for July 4th!  Go USA!

Paisley of the Week! Turquoise Batik

Gah!  It's Wednesday already and I'm late doing Paisley of the Week!  Let me 'splain.  I have a fave turquiose paisley tee shirt that I was going to do as Paisley of the Week! but then I spilled chocolate on it.  And I've been remiss in doing my laundry this week as well...So enough excuses.

  This week's Paisley of the Week! is this gorgeous aqua batik from E-Quilter.  It reminds me of the beaches in Cancun where I went on my honeymoon.  Nothing but turquoise as far as you can see.  I can imagine capri pants, or a little girl's dress, or a short summer robe or a cute sleeveless blouse.  Lots of possiblities with such a pretty color!

Looky Look

Here's a little looky look at something I've been working on.  From the left going clockwise:  Jungle Parrots, Surfin' Safari, Pinky's Paradise and Hibiscus Orange.  I'm very excited about these four costal looks!

Paisley of the Week! Jungle Paisley Kaffe Fassett

Kaffe Fassett is one of my all time favorite fabric designers.  When I go into a fabric store and see something that immediately grabs my attention and I'm saying "Wow!  That's just fabulous; I want 3 yards of it!" 9 times out of 10 when I look at the selvege it says Kaffee Fassett.   Usually I hoard fabric because it's too pretty to cut, but this particular design, Jungle Paisley in purple, was so fun and exciting that I immediately made a pair of capri pants out of it.  This design also came in yellow and I hoarded that for a while but then I made my Mom a purse cover out of it.  I was hard pressed to give it up too.  That's how much I love ya, Mom--speaking of which Mother's Day is next week! 

Petals

Most of the trees have dropped their petals and we're seeing more green now.  Aqua, in its many shades, is a big color this year.  I would actually love an aqua,  polka-dotted sundress with a white sash.   And a big old pink flower tree too, for that matter.

Daffodils

Spring is almost here!  To celebrate, Spoonflower has made Daffodils this week's Fabric of the Week Theme.  This is my entry, an ogee with an art nouveau/zen flavor.  Well, if that sounds a bit pretentious, it's still an ogee.  It's amazing (and intimidating) how many talented designers enter Spoonflower's contests.  If you get a sec, go and vote for my daffodils :)

Inadvertently Inverted

Sometimes I sketch something and I don't really like it all that much.  I liked the bold lines of this and the fan-flowers but this sketch went ignored for some time.  I always thought it was too un-balanced.  It's all spiky on one side, bubble round on the other.

I've scanned most of my old notebook into my laptop.  When I'm scouting around for inspiration, I'll open one of these scans in Photoshop to see what I can do with it or what elements from it I might use.  By accident, I inverted this sketch and it looked so different--wow!  After deleting the black negative space around the drawing it looked like a stamp or a woodcut and now  I really like it.  I moved some of the smaller paisly elements around and rotated things to spread it out a bit.  I'm still fiddling with it but it's going to be a toile or batik design. 

Are YOU a fabric hoarder?

You can't have your fabric and cut it too!

I used to have this funny little cartoon that I clipped out of Quilter Magazine on my bulletin board:  Two farmers are looking at a silo and the caption reads, "Corn!  Heck no.  That's for my wife's fabric!"

The scenario goes like this: I have a sewing project I want to do. I think about what fabrics I want to use. I look in my fabric closet, pull out several appropriate looking candidates in terms of color or pattern--and then I end up going to the fabric store and buy something new because I can't bear cutting it.

With some people it's shoes.  Or cats.  Or old magazines.  For me--fabric (I also hoard paper but that's a whole 'nother blog entry!)  Some fabric, like the pieces in the pic above, I have had for about 20 years.  That's right, before I had children, before I was married, before I even had graduated from college I owned this fabric.  Someone, I forget who, gave me this lovely bunch.  It was from a set of interior decor samples.  It's heavy, satiny, polished cotton and the picture doesn't begin to do justice how gorgeous the colors are. Often my Mom and I will email eachother with fabric finds from the internet.  She always asks "Oh, what are you going to do with that one?"  My answer is usually, "I just want to have it."  

This particular one above, is my favorite from that group.  It looks like it was done from a colored pencil sketch complete with underpainting and pencil-y texture.  So, how about you?  You have any secret fabric issues?

What Are Little Boys Made Of?

Little Boy fabric is more fun to create than you might think!  The names of these 4 designs are:  Snips -n- Snails, Scissle, Swirled and Wags.  I'll let you guess which ones are which ;) 

Snowed IN!

This is my front porch and it is STILL snowing and blowing here in Central PA.  In the past, I like to take a day like this and sit by the fire sewing or crocheting something that covers and warms up my lap.  Today, I've made 3 small quilts--on my laptop.  These 3 are a taste of the fabrics that I've been designing.  I'm gearing up to send them off to fabric companies to see how they are received.  Wish them luck!

Rain or Shine

OctobriaSugarbelle

Worth One Miilllllion Dolllars....

I have long felt like the Dr. Evil of wannabe fabric designers--hoping that somewhere someone would "throw me a frikkin' bone" in regards to breaking into the textile design industry.  Lizzy House, the designer behind the very hip and cool "Lizzy Dish" fabric line has done just that with an e-book titled How To Enter The World of Fabric Design.  Since I was beginning to think that this world was about as easy to enter as Narnia or Underhill, her book couldn't have come at a better time!  Thanks Lizzy!  Your book's great.  Now I've got some homework to go do.

"Do you like your quasi-futuristic clothes Mr. Powers? I designed them myself....."