Fabric Frenzy

I think I am out of acquisition mode for a while! I have recently been very happy to check the mail not only because my walking foot came, but because I have gotten lovely fabric! 

This first bunch is a set of Summerlove fat quarters with a pezzy print thrown in there. I saw a pillow Maureen Cracknell made and pretty much instantly loved the fabric. Maybe it helped that they were birds? I love me some birds. The color combination is also quite nice. I got these *super fast* because Julia who runs Intrepid Thread has an address in San Jose. So close! I'm not sure what these are destined to be yet, but I couldn't pass them up. Maybe a summery pillow for the living room?

This yardage of Amy Butler voile I got a bit ago, but it is still happily gazing at me beyond the sewing machine. It is destined to become a Sun Glow Quilt and Pillow (AB free patterns). I'm second guessing the pillow because I want to have some to save to maybe make a scarf! The fabric is really soft; it will be a shame to cut it, but then I'll have a pretty quilt. I really love all of the Soul Blossoms prints. This line is more or less what got me interested in sewing again. I especially like the Peacock print second from the left. 

These two half yards I bought at an *actual quilt shop*, like one I could walk into. Amazing! (I've been frustrated with finding a good shop that carries lots of modern fabric). On the left is a print from Kumari Gardens and on the right is a beautiful medallion print from Joel Dewberry's Heirloom line. The Heirloom print in particular is one I never would have ordered from seeing it online. It's so much prettier in person! Admittedly, there are a lot of great independent online shops that take actual pictures and post them, but I don't always look through all the listings, y'know? I wasn't really looking for orange, but I like it. :) I feel an Amsterdam-inspired project coming on!

The real reason I went out in the first place was to round out my fat quarters for a Retro Flowers quilt. I had ordered this bundle of fabric from Swell Cloth because they caught my eye, but with no real intended project (ahem, bad habit). Weeks later I decided to join the Retro Flower Quilt Along (my first quilt along!) and poof I had a project for all those fat quarters. But of course I needed 7 more. I pulled some fabric from my stash and went and bought four more. I really wanted to go in person since I was trying to match a specific set of fabrics and, as I mentioned, my computer-eye-for-fabric is less than great. 

These fabrics are a bit unusual for me in that they aren't incredibly bright. Sadly, the quilt shop didn't carry Hope Valley (which several of these prints are from) as I was hoping to fill out the set with more from that line, but I found some I think will work.

After I got home and set everything out together, I debated whether or not to use a white background -- I really like the way a lot of the Retro Flowers quilts I've seen are looking using white -- but decided it would just emphasize the not-white-ness of many of the prints. So I rolled with it and used it as an excuse to go out again and buy some more of my favorite:

Linen! Aren't those selvages great? This is a lighter colored linen than the gray-ish one I used in the Flora Fence quilt (I also bought some in robin's egg blue... shhhh!) but I think it will be a nice substitute for white. I'm thinking this will end up as a picnic-in-the-great-outdoors quilt, so the more natural color palette is perhaps nice. Maybe even a bit 'retro'? 

Seriously, that's it for fabric for a while.