Mail Call

Are you familiar with "haul videos" on YouTube where people share the results of their shopping trips?  It kind of felt like that around here today, so here's my version!

I had all kinds of goodies in the mail today.  From Stitchin' Heaven, the foundation papers and instructions for Judy Niemeyer's Prairie Star:

The people at Stitchin' Heaven are super nice.  I called them right at closing time because I always get the time zone in Texas wrong, but they very kindly stayed and answered all my questions, and then sent this out for me the next day.  I love their newsletter too!  Now that I am such a paper piecing fan I had to try this quilt.  It will be for my dad, but in different colours, which I still have to work out.  It will be a few months before I get started on this.

And for the other kind of paper piecing, the pieces for my Botanic Roses quilt arrived today from Paper Pieces:

I also ordered these huge 3" hexagons (6" across) for yet another project:

The 1/2" hexagons are beside them so you can see the scale.  The customer service from Paper Pieces has also been excellent.  They gave me the heavily discounted sale price on the large hexagons even though I placed the order before the sale started.  I think that is really admirable, and I am planning another order from them soon!

From Nordic Needle I received my perle cottons for Sedona Star:

I had a weird exchange with Nordic Needle this time, which I'm hoping was just an aberration, because they've always been good in the past.  These are Size 8 DMC perle cottons, which were actually finer than I expected.  They will probably be excellent for quilting, but I am considering ordering some of the heavier ones for the seam treatments and embroidery.  I really want something chunky that will show up well on the quilt.

And to top it all off, my issue of Inspirations 74 arrived today:

As you can imagine, I haven't had time to even open it up yet!  But, I think this will all keep me busy for a while!

Connecting Threads

All right, maybe this is a stretch, but for Book Review Day I am going to talk about the March 2012 Connecting Threads catalogue, which just came in the mail yesterday.

Already well used!

I have become totally addicted to Connecting Threads.  I first bought some fabric from them a couple of years ago - the Wrap It Up collection - and I was not impressed.  The colours seemed grey, and there was a strong chemical smell.  But I kept getting the catalogues, and they have so many great easy patterns, and for Canadians especially the prices are awesome, so I tried them again last fall.  Big improvement!  Saturated colours, and no unusual smell beyond the normal new fabric smell.  Some of them shrink quite a bit in the wash, but then again, so do many "premium" fabrics.  I don't know if I would make a complex heirloom project with these fabrics, but for fun, practical throws and bed quilts they are excellent.

The new fabric collection for this catalogue is Sweetgrass Prairie, which has a lot of small calico prints, including a lot of good light prints.  I find it challenging to find a good selection of light prints these days, so I am very tempted by this collection.  I particularly love this quilt, designed by Mari Martin for the collection:

Sorry about the glare!

It's not a great photo, but you can see it online here.  I love the way this quilt is scrappy yet unified, and I like the fresh colours. This would be a great pattern for a lot of my really old stash calicos as well.  I'd be able to mix old and new.  Argh, I'm so tempted!

If that wasn't enough, I also really like the Pearadise collection by Jenni Calo:

I could use the two dark prints for my Collector quilt, which still needs more darks. I love the scattered apples and pears in the middle, and the dots and cross hatched blenders would be useful too.

Sigh.  I have a huge backlog of quilts that I already have fabric for, and there is no way that I need more.

I do want to reiterate what a great deal Connecting Threads is for Canadians, though.  Americans can find reasonably priced quilt fabric all over, but in Canada it is very dear, and the shipping and duty charges can be painful for imported fabric.  Connecting Threads has a flat rate $7 shipping charge to Canada, and they pre-calculate the duty, so it is extremely reasonable to buy from them.  They also have many great deals on notions and supplies.  Other international readers are out of luck, though, because I think they still only ship to North American addresses.

Me?  I guess I'll keep thinking about it for now...