Packing Charm

My Spoonflower fabric is back!
I can't remember if I've told you about Spoonflower before, but it is a fantastic idea - you can be designer of your own fabric. You upload your picture to the website, order your fabric, and bob's your uncle, two weeks later it arrives on your doorstep!
Of course, I was too shy to design something, and let's face it, I'd have had to read 28 books, flick through 39 magazines, draw 82 sketches, spend a fortune on absolutely necessary watercolours or pastels or expensive designer's felt tip pens in order to create my design, and then muse over it, have a few artistic crises of confidence, one or two small breakdowns, and once finished I'd have had to leave it a while, brew it a little, stir it up, let it steep, all much like a cup of tea, and it would have taken me 47 weeks.
And anyway, it was a bit more which came first, the chicken or the egg than that. It wasn't so much that I wanted to design some fabric; it was more that I saw something Isla had drawn and was so struck by it that I felt I wanted to use it for something. I didn't know what, but I stuck it in my pinboard for keeps. Then up popped Spoonflower via my bloggy wanderings one evening, and that, I thought, is it.
And here it is! Isla drew this on that Crayola Colorwonder paper, and I think this makes for brilliant colours - it's the turquoise that clinches it.
It is, quite clearly, a submarine, people. So she very solemnly informed me. You can see her original next to the fabric...Now I just have to decide what to do with it - it's a fat quarter, which is a quarter of a yard, but cut in a way that enables quilters to get maximum shapes out of it. Or, you know, something like that. Anyway - now I will have to wade through my books to decide what to make - something for Isla? For me? Use it with other fabrics in a big project? A small one? Beanbags? Pencil roll? Something new and as yet undreamt of?
For goodness sake. Help me out will you please, you crafty people out there - patterns for a very cool fat quarter please! Leave your comments below. Inspire me. Or it will take another 47 weeks. Seriously, I'm that lacking in ideas.
These little lovelies however, came with a purpose in mind - they are a tiny charm pack, which is a great lazy devil's way to buy fabric - lots of little squares already cut for you - they are going to become a newborn baby I was cuddling the other day's quilt. I will probably tile them diagonally with turquoise plains inbetween for contrast. Or red. Or orange. Or both. Or something. With a really bright jolly border. I think it will be a little play mat for him to sit on.
See what I did there?
He's a newborn. Right now he just sucks on boobs and poos and wees and doesn't sleep at night and cries and stuff. Not much sitting. But he will do, when he's um, like, 6 months or something...!
Well, these quilts do take time, now, don't they.
This morning for example, instead of making things with fabric, I was pulling Virginia Creeper off a shed prior to its dismemberment for relocation to a more loving home, and analysing paving slabs and discussing greenhouse bases. Then I was diagnosing scanner problems with a printer manufacturer. Then I was cooking bolognese sauce.
It all just gets in the way of the fabric porn doesn't it?
But just to keep you going for the evening, look at these gorgeous puppies - Kaffe Fassett reds, ooooh....now astonishingly, I think I do know what to do with these and that is a big summer picnic rug, nothing bonkers, because as you have probably gathered, I'm really no great quilter. But I will square up some pieces, stitch them together, and shove a waterproof backing on it. Wouldn't that be lovely for sitting on in the summer, with a nice drink of something summery like er, an iced coffee or a, um, a, blimey, I can't even remember what one drinks in the summer.
Let's just say a nice cup of tea then, because I will drink tea in all temperatures, if you could just bring me out a cup please. Lovely.
Come join me on the lawn for the fabric porn!