Cataloguing Kona Solids

I plan to use a lot of Kona solid fabrics in my Farmers Wife 1930s quilt-along blocks and when I looked at the piles of fat quarters and half yard I had piled in to a drawer I realised I needed a system.  I do have an old Kona card from years back - many new colours have been introduced since then - they are a bit of an investment but there's no denying they are also very useful.  Plush Addict currently have one on offer if you are looking...

Many fabric shops will add an identifying sticker label to solid fabrics which is a great help.   I don't like to leave these on the fabric though for fear of a sticky mark so I write the colour name on the selvedge at both ends using a Pigma Micron fine permanent maker.  When I use the fabric, I try and keep this bit of selvedge attached.

To stop myself buying duplicates, I started a spreadsheet in XL with the official colour name, my own description if needed, how much I had, plus a column at the end to tick if I wanted more.

It makes me feel organised in an otherwise slightly chaotic crafty space!  

Thank you for the amazing response to the #fw1930sqal announcement.  I have a lovely group of guest bloggers who will inspire you with their blocks and share their different skills, techniques and fabric choices.  You do not need to use 1930s style fabrics -  you can use whatever you like!  If you have an a  system for cataloguing your solid fabrics, please share!

The wheels on the bus

I had some funny responses to my last post, tales of you wondering around in public covered in pins and threads.  The sacrifices we make for our art!

The second boy block for Christine in Bee (A little bit) Japanese was to be a vehicle.  She had put lots of primary bright Kona solids into the fabrics and I just added the Charlie Brown and ruler measure scraps.  I used Kumiko Fujitas bus block in 318 Patchwork (sadly out of print but Etsy is worth a try)

I free pieced it so no freezer paper for this one.  I blew up the image on the scanner and measured the width of the different sections and cut and pieced and trimmed.

It took me a little while to work out the wheels and then when I did it was so easy.  See how it works below.  So easy that I got the direction of the lines wrong and forgot to put the blue road on the bottom half of the wheels and had to unpick and redo them twice.

It looks slightly like an ice cream van to me but the yellow is a reminder that it is a school bus.

Now I am off to school, though not in a bus.  Have a good week!

Name Labels

How cute are these?  Ever since I saw the tutorial at Patchwork Pottery I have been itching to have a go

The print bit is easy, I bought some image transfer paper from ebay and you need a very hot iron and away you go.  Importing fonts, flipping text- it needs to be a 'wordart' object to flip- and borrowing an inkjet instead of  laser printer, installing software for the different printer etc-thank you to my mum and my husband for help on those.

They worked better on a  beige thicker cotton twill tape than on thinner white.  Sometimes the heat of the iron creates a bit of yellowing and you can't see that at all on the beige tape.  One sheet of paper makes a  whole lot of labels so thrifty too!

Quick shout out-UK sewers can at last  now buy Kona cottons in the full range of colour from Mandy at Simply Solids.  Pop over to  Lily's quilts for the huge giveaway to celebrate the launch of this new shop, open to 2nd July,  and look at all Lily's lovely stuff as well.

Fabric bargains- 40 % off Amy Butler, Anna Maria Horner, Tanya Whelan and more at http://www.fivevalleysdesigns.com/ whilst stocks last.

Interested in a quilt-as-you-go quilting bee?- this quilt was made in this method.  Contact Tracy, admin for the group  http://www.flickr.com/groups/beequilted/.  It is a great method if you have a small machine or can't handle the weight of a big quilt easily and fancy some more portable quilting.  Take a look at these tutorials- first with no hand sewing here and more traditional with hand sewing here and there are lots more ways of doing this. 

Enjoying the sun in the UK x