After the great and timely post last night, from Chrissie @ madebychrissied.blogspot.com about her favorite fabric shop in New York….guess where I went today. As I am in New York for the weekend, you guessed it The City Quilter.
It was everything Chrissie said it will be…here are the new additions to my stash….
Tula Pink Fabrics:
A few dot prints:
And finally a few pre-cut fat quarters:
I am linking up with Sunday Stash @ Finding Fifth.
First off – this is a picture heavy post. Today, I am turning 40 and decided to embrace it!! I am celebrating it with a trip to New York to attend Lotta Jansdotter Surface Printing Workshop. We (I took the family along) started the trip out with delays from Tropical Storm Andrea, but thankfully we got to the hotel, even though it was midnight (4 hours late).
This morning, I couldn’t wait to get in that yellow cab and be driven to Brooklyn to Lotta’s workshop. One of those cab’s below will be mine!!
The workshop was held in an amazing space that included the shop, workspace and office. And yes, in the photo below those are shelves of fabric bolts. I made a purchase while I was there, of course – a strawberry journal, a table runner and the 1 yard of the dandelion fabric from her Echo line.
The course, itself, was run by Lotta. I shared the experience with 11 other great people who helped me celebrate. The course took you through working with potatoes, rubber blocks and stencils on both paper and fabric.
I loved Lotta’s teaching style. She made sure that the main goal of the course was just to experiment and go with the creative flow, which was very liberating and stress-free. The four hours flew by….I so wished the course was a weekend course (2 days) – I enjoyed it that much. I would highly recommend anyone coming to New York, to check out her shop at the very least, and if possible sign-up for a class. You will love it.
Potato printing
Block Printing
Inspiration – Pohutukawa flower, the New Zealand Christmas Tree:
Inspiration – Pacific Island tapa clothes. Designs which are typically painted on woven flax sheets:
Fabric Printing
Final Products of Work
Stationary – Pohutukawa and Tapa Cloth Card Sets.
Tote to carry all the goodies home with 🙂
“Sea spray is a spray of seawater that forms when ocean waves crash, or high winds are blowing.” (from wikipedia).
That, I think, perfectly describes this finished HST pillow. It was a dash to the finish, for sure, but I managed to finish my pillow that I am swapping this weekend. I based this pillow off “Crystallized” by Angela Mitchell’s pattern in the Pillow Pop book (page 82). Instead of using the warm and cool color combinations, I swapped the warm for low-volume prints and made the cool color rings a single color within a the ring (not mixed). 
I quilted irregular lines in the low volume portion of the pillow, which you can see more clearly in this close-up.
The back of the pillow I kept simple with using a single Kona Blue fabric. The opening I used an invisible zipper through the middle of the pillow (as I had done in my other two cushions blogged here). 
I am including a picture of the pillow top backing, as you can really see the quilting. The top, I used organic cotton batting with muslin as the backing which is what you see here.
So I love the finish, the hubby wanted to keep it…..I hope my swap partner likes it!!
I blogged previously, showing photos of the making of the pillow – those can be found here and here. I shared the above photos on the “Pillow Pop” flickr group – in case you are interested in joining.
I am linking up with AmandaJean @ CrazyMomQuilts for Finish it up Friday.
Factotum of Arts 