Archive for July, 2010

We love the online fabric shop Above All Fabric. The fabric selection is terrific and the site is EASY TO NAVIGATE. They’ve got a VERY thorough collection of all the popular patterns.

You’ll want to come back for their Rewards Program! You must register as a customer on their site, but then you’ll get 4% credit to use on your next purchase. Nice!

But, the best part? Shipping is always just $5.00! WHAT!?!? Okay, here it is again:

SHIPPING IS $5.00.

Check it out here: Above All Fabric.

Like a lot of quilters and sewists, we’re over the moon for a lot of the Japanese prints available.  Often, at quilt guild meetings and block swaps, we notice Japanese fabrics we haven’t seen before.  When we ask, “Where did you find that?” we often get the answer, “Somewhere online.”  Well, we’ve collected a brief list of the best “somewhere online”s we could find.  Wanna find that fantastic Japanese fabric fast?  Try one of these sites:

We like Plum Wreath Blossom from Superbuzzy.

1.  Superbuzzy
This site has a great selection of Japanese fabric. When we were obsessing over new prints in the Seven Islands booth at Quilt Market, they told us we could find everything on Superbuzzy. They sell trims and other fun stuff, too.

Love love love this print from Fabric Tales.

2.  Fabric Tales
They’ve got all the awesome Echino stuff. Plus, they carry some really nice fabrics we’ve never seen before.

Fave circus fabric found at From Japan with Love.

3.  From Japan with Love
Lots of great Japanese fabric. Sent with love. Obviously. Get stickers and paper here, too.

Kokka Large Trefle is coming to Fabricworm this Fall!

4.  Fabricworm
Good old Fabricworm. They never let us down. They seem to sell out of popular prints fast, so be sure to sign up for an alert for when the fabric arrives.

Mwenda had this Alice print we searched and searched for.

5.  Mwenda’s
We found some of the fabric we’d been drooling over at our last quilt guild meeting on this shop. Love the selection.

Sit down at your sewing spot and sew!

It wasn’t too long into my quilt life that my friends and family stopped asking me, “How are you?” Instead, they started asking, “How’s the sewing?” The better question, I told them, was this: How’s all the sewing stuff?

By stuff, I mean the various activities that make up the quilt life: guild meetings, workshops and classes, blog and magazine browsing, fabric shopping and quilt show excursions. There’s a lot of quilt stuff going on…which doesn’t leave a lot of time for quilting. It’s easy to get caught up in the myriad of distractions and lose sight of the reasons I started quilting in the first place: the meditative quality and tactile satisfaction of sewing.

On days when I feel as if the quilt lifestyle is eclipsing the actual work, I take a deep breath and sit down in my designated sewing chair. I sit still and let the pull toward the computer and television pass. I don’t answer the phone. I sit down and sew.

Working on a project is a great reminder that you do not need to go fabric shopping at this time. At least, that is, until the current project is completely sewn. And is there better motivation for finishing a quilt than the promise that you can purchase more fabric? For your next one?

All the sewing stuff is terrific. It’s a reason to get involved with the sewing life in itself. But I aim for balance. The sewing life is pretty empty without the promise of making something. And that requires that you sit down and sew.

The FabShop Network recently posted a blog entry on their FabTalk site about Havel’s Sewing’s 7-inch serrated sewing scissors. Take a look:

http://blog.fabshophop.com/blog/