Posts Tagged ‘Fabric Project’

We had another lucky fabric find in Amsterdam. The person we stayed with, Joel, happened to live just across the canal from a very big market. As we were waiting for our laundry to finish we thought we’d take a little walk, sit by the canal and write some postcards, and wander through the market. This proved to be an awesome idea. We got our postcards written and then set off through the market.

There were all types of stalls in the market. Clothing, food, and fabric! Justin was able to get some things he needed for our upcoming dance camp and then we took a look in the fabric shop. There weren’t too many choices of fabric suitable for quilt-making, but we were really happy with the one we selected. It’s a little whimsical, just like Amsterdam.

We also had success finding a post office and mailing our recent fabric purchases (and the postcards)!

Fabric from the Netherlands

See previous editions starting here!

In our post on Strasbourg I mentioned that we had bought some fancy cheese to have for dinner one night.  This turned out to be a giant stroke of luck since on our way to find some bread for the cheese we happened to walk right past a shop with little bits of fabric in the window!  We took a look and the designs in this shop were really awesome.  There were many of the fabrics which I would have liked to take and include!  However, we wanted one that was at least plausibly French and there was a clear winner:

France Fabric

This may be one of my favorite bits collected so far.  I absolutely love the colors, the daisy pattern reminds me of a different Daisy, and every time I look at it I will get to think about delicious cheese!

It really seems as though we’re honing our fabric gathering skills because, in my opinion, we just keep getting better and better fabric!

There wasn’t much question about what kind of fabric we should try to get from Scotland.  It had to be a tartan.  I wasn’t sure how easy it would be to find, but we were lucky.  As we walked down the street in Edinburgh we noticed a little kilt shop, and right outside there was a large basket of odd bits of tartan which were left over from making the kilts!  This was perfect since we just wanted a little piece and we could pick colors we liked.  This isn’t a pattern related to our family or anything, but we thought it was pretty sweet.

Scotland Fabric

And the England fabric is even better!!!  My aunt, who I will speak about in the post about Oxford, allowed us to pick through her fabric and take a piece that we like.  I’m so pleased about this because when I see it in the quilt I will think of her.  The design seems to fit what I think of when I think about English designs as well, so this is one of my favorite bits collected so far!

England Fabric

So I know it’s been an incredibly long time since our last post, and a LOT has happened since then, but since we’re in a very, very pretty place right now and I need to get out and do some sightseeing those summaries will just have to wait a little longer.  We’ve had a rotten time figuring out where to go and especially where to stay recently, to the point that we’ve wasted hours putting together plans only to have them go bad, internet not working in multiple locations, and on and on and on.

So today we’re going exploring!

But I do have a long overdue set of pictures of the fabric we bought in Spain for the wedding quilt.  This is some of my favorite fabric yet!!!  It really reminds me of Spain and although I’m not sure where it was manufactured it wasn’t in the USA.  The colors are pretty amazing too.

Spain Fabric

While Justin puts together posts about our recent jungle trip and we try to get some photos from Machu Picchu uploaded I thought I’d give an update on our wedding quilt fabric search.  Unlike Chile and Argentina, Peru produces TONS of beautiful textiles.  The only unfortunate thing is that they are not really materials designed for quilting, but we picked the closest things we could get.  We ended up with an incredible tablecloth and two placemats which we will cut up for the quilt.

This fabric with the white background is the tablecloth.  We took a really quick picture before sending it off, and didn’t get the best part – it has animal designs woven in some of the strips.  It is beautiful and will be hard to cut up, but we loved the colors and the designs.

Peru Fabric Number 1

These two are the placemats.  They are much more characteristic of the colors in Peru.  Very bright and cheerful.  The background fabric of one is green and the other is red.  Should make for an amazing quilt block!!!

Peru Fabric Numbers 2 and 3

Since we’re about to set off on a 24 hour bus trip from Santiago to San Pedro de Atacama, a town in one of they driest places on earth, I thought I’d schedule a post about one of our ongoing projects.  My mother is a quilter and quilting teacher and author and she is awesome at what she does.  Check it out!

Since Justin and I were married recently she has offered to make us a wedding quilt and so of course we wanted to find a way to make it unique.  We had the bright idea to buy fabrics in each of the countries we visit and send them back to her, so that at the end of the trip she will have fabrics from all different parts of the world to work into a quilt.  Then when we look at it we will be reminded of our travels, our wedding, and my talented mom!  Pretty sweet.

We had an easy time in New Zealand.  There was a specialty quilting fabric shop in Christchurch and all we had to do was pick patterns we liked and that seemed the most “New Zealandish” to us.  We picked ferns, prints that reminded us of Maori designs, and some green and browns.

New Zealand Fabrics

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