Berry Patch Pattern Planning

Photo by Quilt Mod

Recently I was looking for inspiration on how to quilt up to my Terracotta Greenhouse quilt and I found a blog Swatch and Stitch talking about Robert Kaufman's Spring 2018 Quilt Market setup. It had a pattern in the Berry Patch fabric line called Berry Patch. It's a cute strawberry quilt. The pattern is a free download from Robert Kaufman's website.

Photo by Robert Kaufman Fabrics

I immediately wanted to do this quilt. I decided to shop my stash and see if I can find some great fabrics for this quilt. The quilt uses a background fabric, fabric for the stems and two charm packs. I have several charm packs I've not done anything with and really wanted to use one of them but picking one was the hard part.

I decided to pick my background first then figure out what I wanted my strawberries made out of. I chose this cream-colored textured fabric for my background. It's got some pattern but it's light enough to let the strawberry fabrics stick out. For my charm packs, I found a Pineapple Fabrics pack and a Robert Kaufman Blueprint Basics pack. I still have to pick a fabric for my stems. I'm thinking I had a green that would work but I've changed my mind. I'm going to look at more of my fabrics and see what else I want to add to it.

Even though I'm planning this quilt, I am still quilting my Greenhouse quilt, so I can't start anything with this yet. I'm already excited to start the next project.

Tea today was the Mango Dragonfruit drink from Starbucks. I know it's not really a tea but it's so tasty. This photo is actually from when I was running around downtown Knoxville to visit the farmers market. I know I go to looks like I go to Starbucks a lot but most of these photos are from the bookstore I love to visit.

Panels

I've a collection of a few panels. I can't help myself. I see them in the store or in magazine samples and I want to do THAT quilt so bad. I get them and pull together some accent fabrics. I take them home with all the intention of working up a great panel quilt. And that's as far as they get. I

 have the fabrics and panels in my stash and they get buried with the next one. I will admit to having a bit of ADD when it comes to thinking of, starting and finishing quilts. My finished ones are very few and far between compared to what I have waiting. So here are some of the great panels I have, excluding what I went over in a few of my recent posts.

• Natural Thicket by Gingiber. Woodland Critters that's what drew me to it, but Alas I don't know what to do with this thing. I've got it in the pile to find ideas for.

• Geisha Woodprint blocks. This is one that I got from a friend. She got it in a thrift store in Florida but I believe it's by Kona Bay Fabrics. Every time I go to their website it says it's inaccessible so I can't look up manufacturer information. This is another beautiful panel that I've not made up my mind on what I want to do with it. Hopefully I'll come up with something soon.

• Cat-i-tude by Ann Lauer for Benartix. I have a couple of fabrics already picked to go into a project with the panel. I just haven't planned it out. I love cats and the jewel tones in this one is gorgeous. This was one of the panels I got from my recent shop hop post. 
• Van Gogh Iris Panel by Robert Kaufman Fabrics Another much beloved artist. I do love when paintings are turned into something I can use. I don't know what I'm going to do with this either but I have two panels to play with once I figure it out. 

• Haunted House Panel. This is one I got as part of a shop hop back in 2016. It was a fun trip with mom with 4 shops in Oak Ridge, Knoxville, and Chattanooga. I got a quilt pattern at my last shop on this trip and have started it. So this is a bit of a WIP. I'll have more details about the fabrics and the panels once I get the WIP post started for this one. 
  
• Day at the Museum Impressionist panel. I actually only saw the degas square when I had to have this. My cousin has a print of one of Degas's paintings at our house. I've always loved his techniques. Again don't know what I'm going to do but it will be fun when I figure it out. 
  
• Santoro Gift of Friendship Panel by Kori Kumi. I found this one while on a shop hope and couldn't pass up how cute it was. I did start trying to figure out what I wanted to do and then got distracted and put it away. I was unhappy with what I had started to do and unfortunately haven't had the motivation to go back. This is slightly a WIP but I need to give myself a fresh look. I love these sweet panels and want to do something with them.
  
• Santoro The Traveler By Kori Kumi. Another so cute panel, this one I split the panel with my mom so I only have half the squares. I picked it up at my local shop. I want to do a separate project with it and not use it with the other Kori Kumi I have. I think I picked up more accent fabrics that was part of it's collection. 
  
• Crab Shack Panel by Two Can Art for Andover. This one I got lots of fabrics to do something with because I had picked it up on a shop hop and making a project with the panel had been on my mind. I just don't know the lay out yet and I've always tried waiting until I finish a project to start it. Then I forget that it's there waiting for me. I put it in my reorganized project piles so hopefully it will get something done to it this year. This will have to be another project planning/ WIP post soon.

Today's tea is Harney & Son's Royal Palace tea. I made a mistake of getting a glass at Barnes and Noble Cafe and then had to have it. I did end up buying two tins because they had a special on two for $15 when they're regularly $10 a piece. It's a Earl Grey with lemon. I've never had lemon in my earl grey but I do like it. This one is part of their Historic Palaces Collection. It is part of a charity that takes care of the royal palaces.

Pre-Planning Projects 2019 Pt 5

I'm hoping my busy year doesn't overflow into next year. This one is a project where the fabrics took the lead. I got these cute fabrics from Mountain Creek Quilt Shop and knew I had to do something with them.

 I play a game called Ingress. Most people know of Pokemon go. It's the precursor to Pokemon Go. There are two teams Enlightened and the Resistance. I'm one of the Enlightened and they're nicknamed frogs. So when I saw this cute from fabric I had to have it.

The mushrooms were part of the same collection and matched perfectly with it. The rest just spiraled out of control from there. Rarely do I pick the fabrics first then find a project to fit them. This is what I've done here. The floral I have is only an eight of a yard so it's going to be an accent piece. The solids are fat quarters I got as a prize for 2017's row by row quilt. I believe I have enough of the first three fabrics to make up for the shortage of the others.

When I was looking through my Modern Patchwork magazine for the other two projects I came across one that I think will fit these fabrics perfectly. I had not planned on doing this one but I think I can make the fabrics fit it so well. I may have to go back to my stash for more.

It's called Jams and Jellies by Gosia Pawlowska. Their sample is bright and colorful. I will most likely make mine a lot smaller then the one here. I am going to work on the logistics of that problem later. I'm kinda glad all of them come from the same source. It means I'm getting a lot of use out of this magazine.

Also check out Gosia's Flicker account. She has lots a beautiful work there.

Tea today was my Jasmine Silver Needle loose leaf tea. I got it from Teavana before they closed the store in our local mall in early 2018. This is going to last me a bit longer still. The sample picture is not mine, I did swipe it from Tevana's site.. I didn't get that much. It's a smooth Jasmine tea and one of the fancier ones. Because the store was doing random sales for stuff I caught it at 75% off one day. I almost wish I went ahead and got double what I did but I think I got a 4 or 6 ozs of the stuff when I bought it. These leaves are so light and airy that's a lot of tea.

Pre-Planning 2019 Projects Pt. 4

Man I've done lots of posts in the last week. I am going to try to keep this up for a while instead of falling off for over a year. This one is another quilt out or the Modern Patchwork magazine from June 2017. It's the quilt featured on the cover. It's so neat looking on the cover display. It's called Shape within a Shape by AGF Studio. When I was looking at the fabric requirements I found the number of different fabrics they used is very daunting. They have 17 different fabrics.

I scoured my stash and probably could have kept looking since I didn't go through everything. Several I picked are from my New Orleans trip and some that Karen gave me. A few I had from local stores. This may change when I sit down to actually start this quilt. I want to try to do a quilt as I go with the large squares so hopefully I won't have one that I'm tugging and pulling through the machine.

I want to have large finished quilts but sometimes the work going into them is intimidating. I still face this challenge head on.

The photo on the right is right next to the window so it's hard to see the fabrics. I'm going to post a few close up shots. The black with the street cars, martini glasses, the brown shifting stripe and the large shifting square fabric is from New Orleans and Pensacola.

Tea today is going to be another find from my local asian grocery store. Master Kong Teas are imported from China and to be honest some of them are expired in the store. I have never had any problems after drinking them but to be fair I didn't notice they were expired till after I drank them. They make all kinds of flavors. I love the Jasmine fruit tea. It is a sweetened tea so I shouldn't be getting much of it but it does have a nice peachy flavor. They will sometimes spot light pop stars or actors.

Pre-Planning 2019 Projects Pt. 3

The next project that is a must is to use the cute Foodland samples I got from Mountain Creek Quilt Shop. I have gone through various ideas with this one to a table runner or table topper or another wall hanging. I want to use a pattern I saw in Modern Patchwork from June 2017. It's called City Planner by Heather Black. I plan on not making it as big as theirs and probably change the design a bit. on the upper and left side. The pattern will be a good basis to get what I want and use the variety of squares. The changes will only make is smaller and not really alter the fact it is her design.

The accent fabrics mostly come from my stash. With the solids and neutrals as the back ground. I was trying to pull another pink fabric in because one of the samples has a pink back ground but I may leave that out and put it with something else. I want to see how big this over all design ends up being. If I don't use all the Foodland pieces I know I can add them to another project.

To complement the fabric I'm sharing a tea I got last summer also. My local Barnes & Nobles sells the Harney & Sons teas. I picked up one of their limited stock tins. Now it's still available on the website if you want it. It's just not usually carried in my local store all year round. I love this White Peach Matcha. It's got a really good peach flavor that's I think pairs very nicely to the matcha. The bags have matcha powder in them so when you pull them out of the tin it can get on your fingers if you're not careful. I only have a few bags left so I plan on ordering this one online when I run out.

Pre- Planning 2019 Projects Pt. 2

My friend Karen gets lots of great fabrics from thrift stores for me. I would say a good chunk of my stash is actually from her. A few years ago she sent me lots of bits of asian print fabrics. Many of them small cuts. Lots of them are from people who have passed away and the family has donated them to the thrift shop.

Thanks to my bing watching of YouTube videos about Nippori Fabric town I decided to look through the fabrics recently. I found several panels that I want to make into wall hangings. The accent pieces come from this stash along with a recent purchase from my shop hop post.

I plan on doing two as of right now and I have another panel I need to plan out also. These two I'm actually going to use similar fabrics and a lay out. One is a panel of two ladies walking and the other is two panels of a beautiful kimono.  I found a nice pattern call Side Lights from Mountainpeek Creations I want to use. I plan on giving one to Karen when I get done with this.

Tea today has been a Lemon Zest Tea by Browne & Ashley. I got this in a tea collection for Christmas. This is the second time I've ever gotten this collection and the tea's are good. This one doesn't have much of a lemon flavor but it is a nice green tea. I like keeping the tins to use for sewing notions and pins.

Pre Planning 2019 Projects Pt 1.

On my trip to New Orleans last year I picked up some of the Gustav Klimt fabrics. I got two panels and two of the other fabrics to use as accent pieces. This was a 35 fabric line and there was a lot to choose from.

Of the panels there was one hanging on the wall as a completed project at Uptown Needle but they had already sold out of that. In fact the panel I did get from there I took from the wall as a display of the fabric. It was the last one. The other panel I got from A & E Fabrics. I decided to accent this project with a solid black back ground and a tan fabric I had in my stash. The tan has threads of gold which will pull all the gold from the panels. 

Sample Project for Kaufman's Website

I plan on making two wall hangings out of this project. Robert Kaufman's website had lots of free projects using this line and there are several on there that I'm considering. I don't really want to get too complicated or big with the piecing of these one because I think the fabrics shine for themselves. The two panels I got were always my favorite of his paintings so I'm thrilled to get to work with them.