Fabric Friday - American Made Brand

I couldn't be more excited. This week I received my first shipment of American Made Brand fabrics. Have you heard about them? 

American grown cotton, spun into yarn here in the United States, woven into greige goods at one of our oldest weaving mills, and then on to an American dyeworks. I notice their latest marketing materials read "farm to fabric" and "not just made here, grown here", but I really love an earlier tagline.. "from dirt to shirt".

This may not sound so impressive until you realize how dramatic the decline in our textile industry. This may well be the only all cotton product (farm to fabric) produced in the United States. Oh we still grow lots of cotton. The South was built on cotton. But now over 70% of the cotton grown here is shipped overseas to textile mills with cheap labor, and (in some cases) questionable work practices.

Making the fabric here must make it really expensive, right? Not the case. Hawthorne Threads is selling it for $7.25/yard. Some high volume online stores have it for even less!

American Made Brand has a challenge on right now for quilts that will be displayed at International Quilt Market at the end of October. Unfortunately I just saw the notice and submissions (i.e. photos of finished quilts) are due by August 15th. Ah well. I didn't really need another deadline. 

What am I going to make with my treasure trove? Well a few more fabrics showed up that tell more of the story, and it might have to do with a couple of adorable youngsters that need more "grown up" sleeping bags.

And what girl doesn't need a pink camouflage flannel lined sleeping bag. I'm also going to have to incorporate a figure skate into this somehow. Hard to believe, but I searched high and low and couldn't find any figure skating themed fabric that would work with pink - hardly found any period.

I'm planning to use Kam Snaps instead of a monster zipper. That way they can open the bag out flat and use it as a beach or picnic blanket for years to come.

I thought this Amy Butler print might work too, but you know what? I'm just not an Amy Butler kind of girl. 

For the grown up young man, I'm thinking Star Wars. After all, even my 40 something husband still thinks Star Wars is cool. Might have to applique an X-Wing Starfighter on the carry bag!

And the best news? Thankfully these gifts won't be due until Christmas!

And goodnight to the Old Lady whispering "hush"

Don't you love Margaret Wise Brown's classic bedtime story? The illustrations by Clement Hurd

are brought to life in a new collection of licensed prints by Cloud 9 Fabrics. When I saw the fabric being offered by one of my favorite retailers, I thought immediately of a friend with a new baby and decided I needed to make something for her.

In the past, I've made quilts for baby showers, and then followed up with a gift when baby is born of some bookends and a starter collection of board books. Goodnight Moon is always among them. 

This time I decided to make something that would work as a baby quilt, but also hold up to rougher use as a playmat as baby grows through toddler stage.

And I love that Cloud 9 produces only organic cotton fabrics using low-impact dyes, so you know it is safe for baby.

How is that for bright primary colors?

There's little bunny....

and pesky mouse.

Clementine Glory. What a perfectly  Southern little girl name!

 

I used this dark teal solid for the back, which coordinates with the prints, but also won't show stains as much as a lighter backing. We are talking children playing on the floor in a house with dogs.

If you are looking for a quick and easy gift for a new baby or a toddler, this is it. This play mat is made up in the wonderful “Goodnight Moon” collection from Cloud 9 Fabrics. The design is a very simple large block patchwork that even the most novice quilter can easily master. Consisting of only three sizes of blocks, it’s also really quick. You can cut and pieced the top in an afternoon, and the quilting design (a simple diamond grid) is just as straightforward. No special skill required. Find the pattern here.

Memory Quilts

I've been thinking about the idea of memory quilts lately. A friend told me a story about a quilt the kids in her family used when one of them was sick and grandma watched them. There were stories about all the different pieces of fabric in the quilt. I imagined stories about a dress made to wear to a special dance, and new curtains for the kitchen of a house the family doesn't live in anymore.

As I skip around the internet and look at other memory quilts, I find many with photographs printed onto fabric. Others are made of Grandma’s dresses, Dad’s ties, or hubby’s old band t-shirt collection. In one example a Mom took all of the baby clothes, blankets, etc. that were too precious (or stained) to pass on. She cut four inch squares out of these and stitched them together to make the sweetest memory quilt of her first child’s first year. What a treasure.

For my memory quilt I decided to sort my scraps into nine colors (black, brown, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet) and to further sort them into dark, bright, and light (just like Mom taught me to sort laundry). That makes for one bright quilt top. I’m about half way through the brights.

Sadly, I’m taking an enforced hiatus from this project since the tendon in my shoulder is acting up and aggravated by hand stitching, but I hope to get back to it in a couple of months. It has little bits and pieces of almost all of the sewing and quilting projects I've attempted in the past ten years. That’s how long it has been since I picked up needle and thread again after a decades long break.

Since then I've made table linens and bags for family and friends as well as quilts for all their babies. The quilts for the little ones have been used from the nursery to the floor as play mats, and I have tried to make them big and sturdy enough to fit as the coverlet on a toddler bed to get a few more years use. I like to imagine that one day these same children will visit Aunt Kay and seeing my quilt with over 2,000 tiny hexagrams exclaim, “I have a quilt with that material!” Then I can tell some stories. 

I Spy With My Little Eye...

Looking for a last minute children's gift? I found a tutorial for these adorable "I Spy" bags over at Craftiness is not Optional and quickly make them up for all the little people in my life. Similar in concept to the game we played as kids, each fleece bag has a few dozen small items buried in the pellets. As you read the items off the list on the back, the child will push the filling this way and that to make the item they are hunting visible in the see-through vinyl window.

We have a neat little store nearby called Richard's Variety where I found most of the items to fill the bags, but I bet the dollar store and your junk drawer (come on, I know there's a marble rolling around in there somewhere) would yield up quite a few. Best of all, it only took me about an hour to whip up three of these. So up and at 'em crafters. Still plenty of time to make a few of these for the kids, grandchildren, or as in my case, an "odd"son (sorta like a godson, but different), a great niece, and a great nephew. Happy Holidays!