Mosaic Madness

A Little Controlled Chaos
After much consideration and playing around with seemingly endless ways of arranging color, fabric, and design, I think I am going to go with this version of my original layout (referred to as Option 3 in my last post).  I'm still moving squares around here and there and will probably add another row at the top and bottom (to make it rectangular and not cut off the points of the design), but I'm starting to feel pretty good about this quilt top.  I think I will give it to my in-laws for Christmas.

Road Trip

Bolt Neighborhood Fabric Boutique celebrated their 4th Birthday, so I cheerfully braved Friday night rush hour traffic after work with 3 colleagues for huge savings on fabric. Yes, the quilting bug is growing at work, and it's mostly due to Tobey spreading the excitement.  Tobey is finishing up the handquilting on her Gee's Bend style wonky log cabins (I promise a picture soon) and is gathering fabrics for the Three-ring Circus quilt from Material Obsession.  But I digress.

Bolt is very tiny, but well worth the effort, because the fabrics are FABULOUS.  And they are so nice!  The place was packed, but they were very patient and attentive to each customer and maintained good humor even though the line was snaking around the shop and out the door.  The fabrics were ALL on sale -- some as low as $2 - $4 a yard.  I bought 8 yards of fabric for around $35.  We all bought plenty -- especially one colleague who bought several fabrics plus about 20 yards of flannel for pajamas for Christmas. Here's my haul:

Since returning to quilting last June, I discovered Jennifer Paganelli's Sis Boom fabrics and fell in love with the Mod Girls line, especially this beauty.  Unfortunately, I never had any -- until now.  I saw this right away and grabbed it.  No one even took a second look at it as I carried it around the shop in my arms, but as soon as it was spread out to be cut, I could hear everyone behind me in line expressing their admiration.

I can't even tell you how much I adore this fabric -- the colors, the design....  So beautiful!  And I couldn't help but notice what a nice quilt top border it makes (see Material Obsession Two, pg. 183).

I also bought some of this Lecien, just because it's so pretty...

...this striped fabric to match something already in my stash, and these bird cages that Tobey thought we both just had to have.  They really are cute.

Not too shabby!

Two Giveaways
Go to True Up for a chance to win this from Kiyohara and Co.:

Also, the lovely blog, Brown Paper Packages, is celebrating 100 posts by giving away LOTS of Urban Flannel scraps -- really cute!

With wishes, true and kind -- Joan