Sunday Stash on a Monday

Yum!  This is Fleet and Flourish by Maureen Cracknell, (check out that link for the quilt she just made using these fabrics--wow!) a 20-piece fat quarter bundle.  I will confess that in my quilting life of 20 years, I have only ever bought two fat quarter bundles of one fabric line, both of which were on sale.  Yes, there have been a couple others which were bundles put together by Craftsy, not of one line, and at an unbelievable deal.  When I first heard of fabric clubs, it was from Bernie, at Needle and Foot.  She got an Art Gallery 3-month Pink Castle Fabrics fabric club present for her birthday.  Aha! Christmas was around the corner...so I put it on my list.  My sweet daughter Dayna researched the idea, and made my husband buy it for me for Christmas.  We do not exchange gifts, much to my chagrin, but he says if you want something, go buy it.  You don't need Christmas or a birthday in order to get it.  Pragmatic is his middle name.  Still, I love a thoughtful surprise.

Back to the fabric.  I absolutely adore Art Gallery fabrics from the first one I purchased. Unbelievable hand! "Feel the difference" indeed.  I'll admit I would not have bought many of these if I was in a quilt shop, just not feeling the colour combinations here.  But they are growing on me, and since remembering that I wanted to do a Swoon quilt, I've decided these might make quite a lovely one.

Last week I took Dayna's quilt into my LQS to show the ladies and to check out if any of the fabrics I bought were still in stock, as I do not have a speck of the deepest purple left, which I'd like for the binding.  With a little help, I found it!  Only one yard remained on the bolt, and I took it.  They gave me 10% off too.

They absolutely LOVED the quilt, by the way.

Cushion Cover Saga
So you know I made the cushion that is on my Q1 list.  You also know that I inadvertently made it 20" instead of 18.  You know I started making a 20" mate for it since I have to cover two brown and red cushions.  You know that I am using scraps plus leftovers from my Tidal Lace pillowcases.  You saw the start of a plus quilt cushion cover in my last post.  10X10 would give me my 20".

Somehow, I had yet another brainfart, and half way through I was somehow doing a 9X9 grid.

Were I to be doing this in nothing but 2.5" squares it would not be a problem.  However, I was following the "dream big" quilt pattern in Camille Roskelley's Simplify book, and I was using 6.5" rectangles.  Now that I was doing a 9X9 grid, the 4.5" rectangles for the pluses on the end would be wasted.  Can't have that.

Ready for quilting

Live in the moment, yoga teaches.  So I lived in the moment, decided apparently my higher self wanted this plus design for the guest room cushion cover, and went with it.  Really, in the grand scheme of things, I've already admitted to needing now to make 5 cushions covers, 6 if you count Bella's little cushion she's commissioned, so no big deal.

No big deal at all.  Love it.

Ditch-stitched it horizontally while I thought how I would quilt it.  Decided to just do straight lines with the walking foot, so I first ditch-stitched vertically, which makes for a line across the short side of the rectangles.  Wasn't sure but did a row 1/4' on either side of the ditch and thought yep, it works.

For the binding I used a black striped Debbie Mumm I've had forever.  I'm so glad I brought it with me by chance! Did you notice pale green dove fabric left over from Brady's stocking? :-)

I had to include a bit of FMQ, so I stitched out Leah Day's fossil snail design in the centre of the white plus, and FMQ-ed my initials in the bottom right corner.  I used Isacord 4421 polyester in 40 wt for all the quilting on this cushion.

I didn't think I'd have enough of any turquoise or aqua fabric here with me for a back, but look what I found!

Butterfly Wings from Tula Pink's "Acacia" line

I must've bought a yard, probably a sale fabric, to use in my ongoing City Sampler, so I figured I could spare about 14".  I love how well it worked.

In dog world news, Rocco loved his day yesterday. He finally got to meet the two Great Dane girls that glide by our house nearly every morning, off leash, owner puffing on his cigar as they plod slowly along.  Rocco can either hear or smell them ages before they appear; it's uncanny.

They had a very serious nose-to-nose and nose-to-nether-regions first meeting

These girls have easily 100 pounds on little 65-pound Rocco.  Sweet, gentle giants they are.  Molly the brown one is 5 and Minnie, the black one is 3.  They are miniature horses!!

Not quite the size difference as the Great Dane girls and Rocco, but you can see the first cushion is a fair bit larger than this latest one.  I'm so happy with both of them.

I love how even though I have a plan, my Q1 List, and another handwritten list of projects I've brought, to keep me focussed, that I still often wander, yet always with such fun and fabulous results if I do say so myself. :-)
Speaking of fabulous:

I bought these at Aldi's on Saturday. "Product of Mexico"  Red Sun Farms.  That sounds familiar...

If you look under the barcode, near the body of the butterfly, you will see their address: Kingsville Ontario!  They have greenhouses and farms in all three NAFTA countries, which explains the Mexico and Ontario labelling.  Last year we bought Campari tomatoes grown in Kingsville, the year before that, cucumbers from Harrow, our neighbouring town.  Interesting.  Obviously some sort of trade agreement.  I'll gladly take a taste of home!

Linking up with Molli Sparkles.

and also with Main Crush Monday at Cooking Up Quilts because I am crushing on (as my daughters would say) on these turquoises as well as Fleet and Flourish.