April 10: hand printed fabric (and more!)

My birthday was last week and my lovely wife managed to spread out the gift-giving over an entire week.  I got my last two packages yesterday, and they might have been the best yet!

I'm super excited about this hand printed fabric from Maze & Vale.  I've been reading her blog for a very long time, and when I saw her feather and cloud prints, I just had to have them!  I'm not sure what I'll be making from these, but definitely something special.

Leslie, who owns/designs/runs Maze & Vale also hosts hand printed fabric swaps.  I've always wanted to participate, but I keep talking myself out of it.  Well, hopefully next time, I'll jump right in!  She inspired me so much, that one of my other birthday requests was the awesome printing book Printing by Hand by Lena Corwin.  I received Printing by Hand, along with Hexa Go-Go by Tacha Bruecher, the Heather Ross Prints book, and Alabama Studio Style by Natalie Chanin.

If you haven't heard about the Heather Ross Prints book, the way it works is, there are a variety of projects, all of which use Heather Ross's various designs.  The AWESOME thing about the book is, there's a disk in the back, so you can print your own copies of her designs!  I jumped right in and printed some fabric (which I don't seem to have a photograph of - maybe I'll get a picture of it once it's in a project) along with these really cool little notebooks:

 Hexa Go-Go is an English Paper Piecing book that focuses on - you guessed it - the hexagon shape.  However, I was so excited, I ordered a bunch more EPP shapes.  I have 7 new shapes/sizes - all of which we now carry at Quilting Adventures.  In this stack there are chrysanthemums, diamonds, hexagons, honeycombs, kites, 1/2 hexagons, and squares, which will make 4 different designs/layouts.  I can't wait to get started!  My Pinterest board has some of the different layouts...

Last, but not least, I received this awesome hounds-tooth pattern Moleskine notebook/sketchbook from my friend, Abbie.  She also gave me a really awesome assortment of Sharpie pens, with which I've been journaling.

Needless to say, I've got some really awesome things brewing.  Once I slog through my to-do lists (taxes, among other things), I will definitely be jumping into some new projects using all of these different books and techniques!