Vintage Fabrics Swatch Book

I've been collecting old/vintage fabrics for some time now. I use them as inspiration for work and enjoy simply re-folding and re-stacking them on occasion while the lovely colors and patterns make me smile. After looking at images of antique textile sample books in the online digital collection of one of the major museums (I think it was the Met, but I can't remember), I decided I should create my own book of swatches. Since they have no monetary value to speak of, mounting them in a book seemed like a fine option to me.

i love books + i love textiles = i love love books of textiles

I began by hand sewing them into an acid-free sketchbook, but that was taking far too long to hold my interest, so I've settled on using acid-free glue to mount them. I thought I would share a few pages with any fellow fabric lovers out there.

I'm sorting them by color.

At first, I was going to nicely square up and pink the edges of them all, but many are so small that I would loose a part of the pattern (or repeat if it existed)  if I cut any portion of it off, so I decided to mount them in whatever shape and edges would preserve as much of the pattern as possible. 

Initially, I thought I would just mount all the 30's, 40's, and 50's fabrics together, but then I decided to include the 60's and 70's. Now I'm just calling it my collection of 20th Century Fabric Swatches.

Some of these fabrics I purchased, some were given to me or passed down from others, and I've also taken many from old "cutter" quilts I've found at the flea market, antique malls, and thrift shops. 

I still have many fabrics that I've been unable to bring myself to cut, such as whole flour/feed/sugar sacks.

This is one of the cutter quilt tops I've taken some swatches from. It's not in the greatest condition, but it has a wonderful assortment of  un-faded fabrics. I have taken swatches from old quilt pieces and it's amazing how colorful the fabrics were before the quilts were used and washed again and again. The original color hidden in the seam allowances is a fun surprise!

One of my favorite recent finds was this shoebox of 2" fabric squares which have been hand cut and were obviously destined for some lovely project. There is an assortment of fabrics, but the all appear to be early 1970's and older. They aren't quite big enough to use in my Hexie Charm Quilt, but I won't be able to resist turning them into a postage stamp quilt after I take one of each fabric out for my swatch book.

So, that's what I'm doing with my old fabrics. I've got hundreds of additional bits and pieces I need to press and mount, but I'm just going to take my time and enjoy the process.

Is it June already?

I've been absent from the blog for a long while now, but I have been keeping very busy.

On my agenda for this week:

* finish up new curriculum, patterns, and samples for my sewing summer camps,

* start working on designs and developments for NY Home Textiles market in September,

* teaching three separate 3-hour private sewing classes in the studio,

* spend a day volunteering in the conservatory at the Botanic Garden where we are busy propagating plants for next year's butterfly exhibit,

and, * get my house and garden cleaned up to host a dinner party for a few friends on Friday night.

Next week, I'm teaching two sewing camps in the studio, so I'll have four girls from 9:00 until noon and four girls from 1:00 until 4:00 each day. I know we will have a great time, but I also know I'm going to be exhausted when it's over!

Here is a peek of what's been going on in my sewing room.

  

I've started pulling together fabrics for my dream quilt. Floral, floral, and more floral.

My sweet hubby put some great shelves up in the sewing room above my sewing table a while back, and I love them!

I like having my stuff organized, but out where I can see it.

I refinished a large curio cabinet for my quilting fabric and I love it too. The closet is still full of fabric, and there are probably about 10-15 big plastic totes in the basement/storage of fabric too, but at least this fabric is out where I can enjoy the wonderful colors.  

This is where I'm sitting right now, writing this post instead of working on that 'to do' list above. I guess I need to get back to my list.

I hope your summer is gearing up to be full of fabulous fun! 

Too fabulous not to share.

source

Planner Dependence

I guess I'm just old fashioned, but I just can't find a virtual replacement for my Moleskine. A quick Google search will reveal that I'm not the only one who can't seem to make the switch to digital. I've been working on my planner for 2013 and thought I'd share since I like getting peeks into OPP.  That's "Other People's Planners".

 

I've been keeping some form of diary/journal/planner for years. I dug out the old ones that I could find this morning to see what kinds of things I used to record. Not much has changed about the things I record in my planner, but I did figure out why I'm so tired all the time. I was working 70 hour work weeks in 1997!

I did realize that most the years I kept a planner, I didn't keep a personal journal/diary. That stack of Moleskines contains years of daily journals. Some years, like in 2007, I wrote almost a full page every day of the year. Other years, like 2010, I hardly wrote anything in the entire journal. (Maybe it's because I bought a red Moleskine in 2010; I think I need to stick to classic black.)

In the past couple of years, I've been having more fun with my planners. I figure if I'm going to be looking at something multiple times a day, it should be fun to look at. This year, I used a Moleskine XL Monthly Planner with a soft cover and I'm in love!

Not only does it contain my calendar, but I've used it to journal, take notes, record ideas, sketch, make lists (gift lists, shopping lists, to-do lists, books I want to read lists, wish lists, etc.), copy scriptures and quotes, remember passwords, write down recipes, and log my freelance work hours to name a few. 

It's also a good place to doodle.

For 2013, I'm going with a completely blank XL Moleskine with a soft cover. With the blank pages, I can customize it to be exactly what I want. I spent some time yesterday thinking about how I wanted to organize it and drawing in the monthly calendars. I've never used a system (like GTD or the Action method), but I made myself some "action stickers" and printed out a GTD work-flow to see if I like using them. I love that paper/washi tapes are getting so easy to find, because it's a fun way to add some color and pattern to your planner. I also bought some really neat paper tapes at Daiso in San Francisco like Post-It notes on a tape roll. (I wish I'd bought more!) My favorite pens for my Moleskines are Pigma Microns. 

I've got an iPhone and an iPad, but I still can't give up my paper planner, I've tried. I've got organization/productivity apps like Evernote, Notability, OneNote, Toodledo, UPad, Time Optimizer, the Moleskine app, Errands, and Mindjet in addition to the calendar and reminders on the iPad, and I don't like any of them.

So far, the only things I can't get my paper planner to do is make a noise to remind me to do something and back itself up. Other than that, the battery never dies, it boots up instantly, and requires no wi-fi connection. I think I remember things better when I've gone through the act of physically writing them down. 

So, who else can't seem to break their paper habit?