What??

I had a pretty productive day yesterday despite the fact that I walked to the mall and sat out in the gazebo for a spell.

However, I was merrily doing some paperwork in the morning when this arrived on my screen. NOOOOOOOOOOOO

FictFact is closed!!!

I used this website to keep my book series in order. You followed the ones that you were reading and then changed the status of each to "read" as you read it. It was easy to then print off a "next books" list when you needed one. I had printed mine off not that long ago. I would print it out about once or twice a year and use that as a guide to finding the next book in a series.

Now it's gone!!!!  All because of some issue with Amazon. Seriously??? Stupid Amazon - just one more reason that I deal with them only when nothing else will do. I refuse to buy ANYTHING from their website unless I absolutely can't find it anywhere else. They are CORPORATE GREEDY and do not care about the little guy whatsoever. I don't care how cheap their products are or how quick they deliver, I won't do it. I'd rather go without or evaluate whether I really needed it in the first place before I'll buy from them.

Now I know that they own a LOT of stuff and I'm probably using some AMAZON feature somewhere. Trust me - they are EVERYWHERE and you don't even know it!

We were able to grab a spreadsheet of our books off of the website, but I opened it up and well - I'm not sure I even know how to interpret it. There must be something else out there. I remember talking about FictFact a while back and I do believe that someone brought another site to my attention, but I don't remember it. If anyone knows of something that keeps tracks of BOOK SERIES, I'd like to know. I already have another database where I keep my books that I've read, but it's NOT the same thing.

Thankfully that's a first world problem and I'll figure something out. I did before but I wasn't as organized as I am now with my books.


So today really is the LAST day that I talk about the Windsor Quilt Show. These pictures have been sitting waiting to be edited for a long time. These are the books that I got in my $1 bag of books at that show. What a great way to obtain some old books.

There might be a couple here that I already have. I won't be able to confirm until the books get unpacked in the basement. I know that the reference books are already packed up.

Two quilt reference books

I may have the one on the upper left, but definitely, do NOT have the one on the right.  I may have both of the ones below. I know that I have a number of volumes of the one on the left, but I don't think I have 1989.

Quilt reference books

I have a feeling that I have the one on the left, but definitely not the one on the right. Hey - better to grab the book - it basically didn't cost me anything. I can give them away or sell them once I've confirmed whether I have them or not.

More quilt books

Same here - I know I don't have the one on the right, but the one on the left? I may already have it.

Two more quilt books

I buy almost anything that I see referencing log cabin quilts. My favorite pattern. 

And more quilt books

Here's the last one. Oh yes - I shoved a LOT of stuff into my $1 bag of books.

One last book

I love these old books. They are mostly picture books of historical quilts. So much of what we see today is NOT NEW. Not by a long shot. Everything has roots in these old historical quilts. My goal when I can no longer quilt or I don't quilt for a living, then I want to explore the history of quilts. I know I shouldn't put that off, but I'm OK with leaving that until later.

I had some takers on the Marti Michell patterns and I started to take the binders apart. The stack on the left is ONE copy of the pattern - each month is tucked inside a page protector. The stack on the right is duplicates of the pattern and EXTRA non-critical stuff for the shop. It's going in my printer paper pile. But what a waste of paper and space within a quilt shop as all that fit into a large binder and it's all duplication.

The pattern has been separated

There's the big binder, along with extra page protectors. I think they could do a better job of being more environmentally friendly.

The big binder that is going to be donated

Did you check out that Quilter's Estate Sale that I posted yesterday???  It was advertised on Facebook. Apparently, all the jelly rolls are gone! Can you imagine? They went from one person's stash into another person's stash. How many will actually get used????  Not my problem!!!

I had a fun phone call yesterday. Do you remember this quilt that I quilted a couple of weeks ago?

Community projects quilt

The person who donated the quilt to the guild called me!! I forgot to ask why she donated the quilt. It's a beautiful quilt and it's big. There's a ton of work in it and it's well put together. Anyway, for anyone interested, the quilt came from a book called Away From Home by Nancy & Oliver Rink. The book tells stories of the girls who worked in the textile mills in Lowell, Massachusetts. I'm so glad she called. I liked the quilt before - I like it even better now. Thanks, Jeanette for letting me know the background to the quilt!

I still have to put the binding on the quilt - hopefully, this weekend. The strips are cut and need to be pieced and sewn on. It won't take long once I get started.

I do have two big jobs to get done by Monday morning and I have three days to do them. I should be OK. I have a class tonight but other than that, the next three days are MINE!!!

And to top that off, I started a new book yesterday. I'm almost a third of the way through. A totally different murder/mystery concept. If you like mystery/crime - it's a good one. It's called Find You in the Dark by Nathan Ripley. 

On that note, I'm out of here to get started on my projects.

Have a great day!!!

Ciao!!!

New art work

I'm back home. I had a fabulous time with the quilters in Port Hope. What a quaint little town. I'm not ready to move............yet! I'll share that work with you in a future post. I'm now way behind in posting pictures!

The other day, I had to get myself off to the optometrist for a check-up. It had been two years and I was thinking my prescription had changed. Not changed much, but enough. Turns out that my distance has improved a wee bit, but not enough to change the lens and my close up is still good, but I tried readers and that made a difference. Not enough to bother changes lens. But I'm going to buy a pair of readers as I don't have any issues with reading, but sometimes when I'm appliqueing, I find that I can't see as well as I would like. Part of that could be the lighting, but part of it is my eyes.

Now I can't remember if he said 1.5 or 1.0. I need to check the prescription again. Well, I went to the drug store to find some and they only had 2 pair at the magnification that I need. Both were ugly! Apparently, the strength I need is not popular. Now I'm on the hunt for low magnification readers. But I want funky ones!

While I was at the drug store, I sat down at the blood pressure machine. Oh boy - I knew it was going to be off when it was working VERY slowly. My blood pressure ranges on the very low end of normal. But I think this is a bit too low. But I felt totally fine the entire day!

My blood pressure

I just checked Google. Looks like this is acceptable blood pressure, but I do need to watch it. Too low is not good if not enough oxygen is getting to the organs. I know for a fact that dehydration is the major cause of my problems with low blood pressure. I don't drink enough! I must remember to drink more - every day!!!

We purchased some artwork for our powder room years ago. Matter of fact, it was purchased for our previous house, but it came with us. Years ago, I found some new fun artwork for the powder room. I even had it framed. It's been sitting downstairs for years. Still wrapped in the brown paper. I know - don't ask me why I procrastinate on everything. I think I was hoping that someday we would get that powder room painted. Never happened.

The old artwork is gone. That was several weeks ago when I bundled up a lot of pictures and prints that we had around the house that we were no longer using. All have been donated and now I have my new artwork hanging in the powder room. Nope - it's still not painted, but I can live with that for the moment.

Quilts blowing in the wind

Another piece of artwork

And a third piece

All of them are by the same artist. Andrew Meredith. I met him in Moose Jaw when The Quilt Patch was hosting their outdoor quilt show. He was selling his prints in a booth in the park amidst all the quilts. The bottom piece depicts some of the quilts hanging in the park. Sadly, The Quilt Patch has closed - it was a fabulous store to visit.

Now I get to enjoy those lovely prints every day. I'm sure there are other things around this house that are languishing in some corner. They need to be brought out and enjoyed or given away!!!

When we were at the Windsor Quilt Show (OH - I said that I was finished with mentioning that show but lots of stuff happened at that show), anyway - we saw a sign for a quilter's estate sale. That's the first time that I've heard it mentioned like that, but technically that's what it is.

There's another Quilter's Estate sale coming up in Brighton and it starts TODAY!!!!!  Here's the link on the Facebook page. The family has done an enormous amount of work prepping for this sale. You need to go back through all the posts to see the pictures. I think the very first one has all the pre-cuts in it. TONS of pre-cuts.

This should be a wake-up call for a lot of us. While it's great to go out and buy, we must buy responsibly. That lady had MANY jelly rolls. Like I said - you need to scroll to the very first picture in that discussion on the Facebook page to see all the jelly rolls she had. She had way more than many stores have!

I've been madly quilting on my domestic sewing machine and having a blast! I've now got a few small projects that need finishing. While I have an urgent task to complete this morning and another quilt that's due in the US by the end of next week, I hope to do some puttering in the studio over the next couple of days. And I have a customer quilt that needs to be finished before I put the magazine quilt on the frame.

Don't forget to check out QUILTsocial today. One more day of fun and games with machine quilting and today it's all about working with invisible thread.

Have a super day!!!!

Ciao!

Running away from home

OK - so technically, I'm not running away from home, but I'm not home. I was invited to speak at a guild last night - the Lakeshore Quilting Guild in Port Hope. What a great group of ladies! And when they started to do the show n tell, I thought that this was the guild show n tell. NO - that was the community projects show n tell. It was pretty neat and then the members show n tell was even more spectacular. Always amazing me at how much people dress like they quilt! Someone was showing some purple quilts and she was dressed head to toe in purple!!! Today, I'm doing a workshop so I just stayed over with a friend. Thanks to Susan and Bob for their hospitality!

This is such a nice little town - it's definitely one that you could retire to if one were going to retire. I'm not ready yet! I'm not sure that I could ever move to a small town. Part of me wants to, but the other part of me is ingrained in the big city. Which is totally silly when I think of how much I "use" the services of the big city.

Yesterday as I was winging my way through the big city to get here, I realized that while I had edited the photos for the blog, I had forgotten to upload them to the internet. So no pictures today.

I did stop at Annie's Quilting shop in Newcastle. It's located in a very quaint little setting which is actually part of the house that sits on the property. I've been there several times in a car and on my bike. I remember the first time we visited the place - it was totally weird as there was a skeleton in the car in the yard. Yep - a skeleton, but probably not a real one! I didn't see the skeleton yesterday, but OK - I did buy a couple of patterns. Hey - I'm allowed!

Annie's Quilt shop

Not that I've been in the shop a whole lot, but I had never noticed the elaborate trim on the inside of the front door. I took a picture to share with you. Apparently, the spot where the shop is located used to be the dining room of the house. There's a "hidden" door that connects the shop to the house. OK - so technically it's not a hidden door, just that the door is now hidden behind the fixtures in the shop. 

They've had a medium in the shop as well which is kind of neat. Would be fun to do a seance in the house. 

Here's a link to a story about Docville.  There's a picture of the owner. OK -- he doesn't look anything like I thought he'd look like. I thought he was an old guy. This guy doesn't look that old. Funny how our minds work. 

There are so many interesting little places like this around that one could spend all kinds of time checking them out. That's my plan this summer - to try and fit in some day trips to small places like this. I just had an ENTIRE week freed up in July and quite frankly, I'm quite happy about it! 

Well, I guess I should get myself moving. Although I've already been up for hours, writing. 

Don't forget to check out QUILTsocial today. More super tips on free motion quilting. And if it means that we can all get one more project finished, then it's worth reading!!!  Oh yes - there's some fun technology stuff today and a behind-the-scenes shot of how I take some pictures for the blog.  

Have a super day!

Ciao!!!

UFO show n tell

Last year, I decided that it was time for us to get our UFOs under control. Goodness knows that we all (OK - a lot of us) have the darn things!!!  I have several very large projects that I would really like to get out of the way. Once I get these larger ones out of the way (which at the rate I'm going will take years!), then some of those smaller ones with only piecing will go much faster!

Our UFO group met on Sunday to see how many of us got our homework done! Let's have a look.


Susan didn't get her homework done. I know how it is - we think we have loads of time and next thing you know - it's the night before the due date and well - there's no way it's going to happen!!!

Since it's summer, Susan decided she would tackle a handwork project for the next due date. These are some English paper piecing blocks that she's working on. I believe she has 20 to make for the entire quilt and has fourteen made so far which impressed all of us!! She started this project last year so that's amazing that she's this far along. The blocks are from a quilt called Mandolin.

Some of Susan's 14 blocks

Susan's goal for next month is to complete one more block. Not that we didn't trust her, but we wanted to know how we would know that she accomplished that goal???  So she sent me this picture of the pieces for that next block. OK - remember - everyone - it has that bright pink near the center!!!

Susan's homework block

Shelly has been working on this poodle quilt for the last couple of months. Her goal for the last month was to get it finished which meant the quilting and a label. It's finished!!! It is quilted, bound and labeled.

The front of the poodle quilt

 All the reject blocks went on the back.

The back of the poodle quilt

The label is handstitched in place

But what blew me away was the quilting. Shelly did this on her domestic sewing machine. She says she cheated by using a paper template to stitch the dog paws. I don't call that cheating at all. It's a way to get the quilt done and that's all we really care about. I'm super impressed because I seriously thought it had been done on a long arm. Awesome job Shelly. The quilt is going to be a gift for someone.

Quilting on Shelly's quilt

Shelly's homework for this coming month is to fix two cushions on her sofa. AH - she inherited a dog that loves to eat and couch cushions are very tasty if you're a dog! She's also going to finish off 6 Christmas stockings. They are in various stages of completion.

Shelly provided proof of what the work she wants to get done this month. That's a LOT of couch cushions to fix. I think the dog needs more food!!!!

Couch cushions to fix

And one more couch cushion to fix

And a third - yikes!!!

Shelly's partially completed stockings

Ronda is working on Amish with a Twist II. She got the four middle sections completed. Yeah!!!
Her goal for next month is to assemble the four corners.

Ronda's homework - Amish with a Twist II

Linda has completed her Luminary quilt! This was part of a challenge at her local quilt. If you check the link to the original pattern, you can see that Linda has changed it up! It looks great. Those colors and that fractured look are awesome.

Linda's Luminary quilt

She used fluffy stuff on the back and the quilting looks great. Gorgeous wavey lines.

The wavey quilt lines

Then Linda brought out not one, not two, but THREE projects that she wants to work on next. Hmm - given the fact that the Luminary quilt was to be completed in March, we all wondered the logic to that. This is one of the projects she brought. It's a raw edge New York Beauty block.

Raw Edge New York Beauty table runner

She likes it so much, she wanted to make another one for herself but in neutrals, as you can see in the photo below.

The start of a new table runner

She also brought a quilt that she had just started that she wanted to make for someone and she was working on another quilt that she had just started in a workshop. We all voted that she work on the quilt that is going to be a gift. That's her priority. However, I'm noticing that Linda isn't technically working on UFOs????  I know she has UFOs. I just know it. We'll have to quiz her next month about her choice of UFOs!!!! Hey - as long as things are getting complete - that's OK, but we should be focusing on those UFOs in addition to our other projects.

Elaine completed her top for the Post Cards from New Zealand. I think that was the name - anyway, the kit had been purchased while she was on vacation. Now the quilt top is done!!! Looks awesome and so interesting to see the native New Zealand images on the fabrics.

Postcards from New Zealand quilt top - DONE

Now she's pulled out Stitcher's Garden. Some blocks are done but as you can see, there are holes. Her goal for next month is to get those four center blocks together. She has to put a frame around each block and sew them together. I love the nice bright colors on this one.

Elaine's Stitcher Garden in progress

Lynne's goal was to get this machine embroidered piece done. And it's finished - completely. It's from Anita Goodesign and made with fleece. It was made in sections but you can't tell that from the picture.

Lynne's machine embroidery applique wall hanging - DONE

Her project for the coming month is a Sew-Along by Border Creek Station that she participated in last year. The blocks are all finished but she needs to sew them together. A wee glitch in the pressing was discovered and we found a fix for that. That does bug me when a pattern designer includes a pressing plan with the pattern and the pressing plan is WRONG!!!!  Don't believe everything you read in a pattern!! So her goal is to do some unsewing and then get one row of the quilt together.

Let's Be Friends Sew Along blocks

Sharon got her quilt top done!!!! It's so exciting to see the tops get finished or the quilts get completely off the UFO list. Sharon was also working on Stitcher's Garden. Her goal was to get the borders on and there were a lot of them.

Stitcher's Garden - top is DONE

 We had discussed the borders in the last UFO class and gave our opinion and Sharon went home and made it all happen!!!!

The borders look gorgeous

Her goal for the upcoming month is to finish one block from a Piecemaker's Calendar quilt that she started years ago. I think it's the train quilt from 2000.

Let's see - oh yes - we have Diane who participates via correspondence!

I'm certain that Diane had two goals this past month. I'm going to have to get her to e-mail me the details - no more verbal stuff. There's way too much going on in my head to remember. But doesn't matter - she has a quilt top done and that's good enough for me. This was the July Shop Hop quilt from last year I think.

July shop hop quilt

Again - I can't remember what her homework was. I'll have to get on her case about that! But Diane is a machine - if she says she going to get it done - she usually makes two quilts instead of just one!

Liz wasn't here either but had her homework completed. Her homework was to get the center of the quilt together. Here's the center.

The center of the quilt - DONE

Here's a picture of the quilt top so you can see that's a fairly big piece above.

A picture of the quilt top

 Here's her homework for the month. She needs to make FOUR of these blocks. I know she mentioned something about trying to get the quilt top together, but I'm going to hold her at making the four blocks.

Make four blocks for next month

Let's see - Laura and Dede weren't here and neither of them had their homework done.

OK - so I didn't have my homework completed either.

My partially completed homework

I made a valiant effort, but I had other homework to get done for my classes. Lesson learned!!!  Make sure all the homework is completed before goofing off!!!  My homework for next month is to finish these two blocks. Oh - that's all I wrote down. I think that's the important thing - don't choose to do too much. Look at your time and then decide on a goal based on the time.

And that is it for UFO group this month. It's pretty exciting to see these UFOs get completed and I think they wouldn't be advancing at all if it weren't for the UFO group. We've even decided to meet in the summer! That's how dedicated we are to get some stuff completed. We now have $80 in the kitty but that's OK. I think we'll all get the hang of it and hopefully, that's all the money that will be in the kitty at the end of the year.

We've got THREE weeks until the next meeting. Good luck to everyone!!!!

Yes - we'll be running the UFO club next year. Depending on the number of people, we may need a second group. 10 - 12 is just a perfect number.

Have a super day!!!


Ciao!!!!

Don't forget to checkout QUILTsocial today as well.

What was lost is now found!

We had a great UFO session in the morning! More details on that later this week.

After the group left, I made my lunch and went out to sit in the gazebo. I know - that was the kiss of death for me.

I abandoned all plans to do some work inside. It was so nice - I was outside in a T-shirt and I was warm. I couldn't let that opportunity pass me by. I was going to work on my laptop but I didn't.

Instead, I plugged in my audiobook and grabbed my chair. But not before I grabbed this as well.

So this is a quilt top that I made in my early twenties. All the roses are done with liquid embroidery. The cotton on the painted squares isn't that great of quality and there is a lot of deterioration on the hand embroidered squares.  I believe the blue fabric is polyester.

I took out all the quilting when we were on our road trip to Nashville. But the top has sat around since then. So I got out my trusty seam ripper and I was off to the gazebo.

Quilt top being disassembled

Why am I taking it apart? It's a queen sized quilt and I used to have it on my bed. I know I had a picture around here somewhere and my dog at the time used to sit on it so he could look out the window. Check out this blog post where I talk about ripping the quilt apart and check the date!!!  There's also a picture of the dog sitting on the quilt.

I'm going to salvage the good squares. They will be reinforced with a thin stabilizer on the back and the quilt will be put back together again. This time with cotton and hopefully I can get a lap quilt out of it. I think those squares are worth saving. They are a style of quilting that we did back then and well - I want it!!

But the moment I put it on the floor of the gazebo to take a picture, guess what happened? I had helpers. Instantly! Now how do they know that?

Thanks, Mom!!!

Yep - dirty feet and all!

And when I tried to get her off without dragging her off and damaging the quilt more - this is the sass that I got.

Ah no - I'm not getting off and not sharing!

Silly girl!! I did manage to get her off and shoo both of them out of the gazebo, but let's just say that they are Mom's girls.

I managed to get all the rows taken apart. There is more ripping to do, but that's all I got done and I'm pretty happy with my progress. Hopefully, the next part won't take that long. Then the squares will be soaked to clean them up - well those that I rescue. Then to find some new fabric and sew it back together again.

Needless to say, it won't be assembled the same way that I originally sewed it together. Actually, now that I think of it - this quilt did see a repair job a while back. I'm not sure when that happened or why. The dog probably ate a hole in it or something.

I must have used the shortest stitch length on the machine (or so it seemed) and all the seams were pressed open. ACK!!! It wasn't fun to rip that apart.

Seams pressed open

While I was in the gazebo, I checked my e-mail and oh shoot, someone sent me a reminder of something they wanted to look at. Instead of waiting, I popped downstairs to get the tool immediately as I knew that I would forget.

I wasn't a 100% sure where it was, but I looked in the logical spot and there it was. But before I found the tool, I was looking deep into this corner.

The pegboard with tools

OH MY GOD --- look what I found!!!!  There are my TWO STUFFING FORKS. I was pretty darn sure that I had bought those - I remember the diamonds on the packaging and the handles. But I had no idea where they were. Now I know!! I still have a couple of geckos to stuff and I want to try them out!

Stuffing forks

Yahoo!!!!  So while I didn't get any work done that I was supposed to be doing, I did get something accomplished. And yes - I finished the audiobook, but it was in the wee hours of the night when I couldn't sleep.

I'm blogging this week on QUILTsocial. It's all about machine quilting this week. Loads of great tips.

It's Monday sewing and I'm excited although I can't stay long today as I have a couple of commitments. And I'm hoping to order the new floor for the basement today. Yeah!!!!

On that note, I'm out of here!!!

Have a super day!!

Ciao!

I'm blown away!

No - not by the weather, although the nasty weather we had yesterday was  - well it was just nasty. The rain came down in buckets, winds, lightning and thunder, and just craziness.

Thankfully, I was inside all day teaching so I was totally oblivious to it except when I left the store. Thankfully my car was parked right outside the back door!

The ongoing classes were in the morning. The show and tell from both classes was mind-blowing! Both groups are so creative that I was stunned.

I'll get those pictures up this week. I'm impressed beyond words.

Today we have our UFO meeting and well - I'm going to have to cough up $10. There's no way that I'm going to get my two blocks completed. I've got one almost done and the other one is partially completed. Totally my fault - bad planning. I did have a sewing day a couple of weeks ago and I should have been working on my homework. I had time. Oh well - live and learn and let's move on.

I found this when I was cleaning up something this past week. I've touched so many bags and projects that I've lost track of where I'm finding things. I do remember that someone bought this for me. The big question is who??  Anyway - you know who you are and THANK YOU. It's now added to the license plate collection.

One more row by row license plate

When I was madly cleaning up the kitchen table the other day, there were a few things sitting there that needed repair. One of them was my drying rack. I had broken one of the legs when I brought it in the house. No big deal - I found a splint for it and some nice bright orange duck tape. It's all good now. 

The drying rack is fixed

Then I had this pattern box. The box was in good shape. It's just that the glue holding the corner together came unglued! I didn't want to throw the box away as I needed the box. So I got out the trusty bright orange duck tape and fixed the inside.

Inside of the box is fixed

But that orange duck tape would have looked a bit obvious on the outside, so guess what? I found shiny silver duck tape in my tape drawer and you wouldn't even know that the box was repaired. Now the patterns are back in the box and looking much neater!!

Outside fixed with silver duck tape

 I did manage to find a home for some of those Marti Michell patterns yesterday. Make sure if you want something that you send me an E-MAIL!!!!  If you send me a comment, I don't always know who you are!

Today, I have three more patterns. These are all Marti Michell as well - but this time they are mystery quilts. I don't think I even know what they look like. Again - these patterns require a specific set of Marti Michell templates. Yes - you could still make your own templates from freezer paper if you really want the pattern.

Requires Templates sets A & C

Requires Template Set M

 Here's a link to the set M so you can see what it looks like. It's based on a five by five grid. The templates really, really make cutting fast.

Requires Template Set L

Here's a link to the Set L. It's based on a 7 by 7 grid. Again, cutting for these shapes speed up the process.


I have more stuff, but I'm really not sure how much information is there that isn't already in the template sets. I'm going to check it a bit closer and see. Those ones might just hit the recycling bin.

By the way, those mysteries come in a big white cardboard envelope. If you want the pattern and it needs to be shipped, we can even use that envelope as a shipping envelope. They aren't thick and wouldn't cost much to ship.

Here's an article on textile waste in our landfills. The article is about clothing, but guess what? As quilters, we also produce a HUGE amount of textile waste. I'm shocked at what people throw away. I cut up my batting strips to make rugs and the rest goes into pet mats. I use up small fabric scraps to make scrappy quilts and the smaller scraps go in the pet mats. We need to be more responsible about what we buy and how we use it. I always laugh when I hear people talk about quilting as a hobby is expensive. Well - if we made quilts from scraps, it would essentially be free. Think about it - do you really need that new fabric collection that is going to sit in your stash and NEVER be used??  That's a total waste of money and works out to be very expensive. 

Quilt Market just happened last week in Kansas City. I'm not sure how many fabric companies that would have attended, but let's say that there are about 50 companies in the US. I know - sounds incredible, but there are a lot of fabric companies out there. Let's say that each one introduced 300 new fabrics (that's an average). And let's say that for each fabric, they printed 2,000 yards.

Now let's do the math. 300 (new fabrics per company) X 2,000 (yards printed per fabric) X 50 companies = 30 MILLION.  Yes - the equivalent of about 30 MILLION yards of fabric was just released to the North American quilting public. I'm just talking about the QUILTING industry here.

It gets better - those companies release FOUR times a year. so let's do some more math. 30,000,000 X 4 (releases a year) and guess what? That's 120 MILLION yards of fabric released to the North American market EVERY YEAR!!!!!  Let's say the price of each yard of fabric is $15 (average) - that's $1.8 BILLION.  Yep - that's expensive. But that's why I'm buying WHAT I NEED - not stockpiling.

If you stockpile - then yes  - it becomes expensive. If you buy what you need - it's NOT an expensive hobby at all. No worse than any other hobby!

I think we need to send a message to these fabric companies that they need to SLOW DOWN. Our North American market cannot handle that much new fabric each year. But the moment that a company sees they can make money off of us - they push as much fabric out the door as they can. Many employees of fabric companies are NOT quilters and all they see is the DOLLAR, not the fun, nothing but MONEY.

Now where the heck did that come from???  Oh yes - the article on the textiles in the landfill. We all need to become much more responsible. I'm converted now and I wish someone would have knocked some sense into my head years ago - like TWENTY years ago! I wouldn't be dealing with the issues that I'm dealing with now!

On that note, I'm out of here to do a bit more work on my homework.

Have a great day!!

Ciao!!!