Stash Saturday 4 - Beads

My Favorite beads, glass ladybugs, they are a bit larger than 1/4". I sew them on a lot of my floral quilts, sitting on a flower petal or climbing a stem. I get them at the local annual Gem & Mineral Show at the Fairgrounds, but the dealer hasn't had any the last few years, so now I am kind of hoarding them.

My stash of beads, in clear plastic divided boxes, there is a second smaller stack to the right of these. I have extra boxes, but no where to put them. You can clean up your room, get extra shoe boxes, but if you have no where for the shoe boxes to go, then it does not help. This is the position I find my self in, more stuff-no room for the stuff.

The first two boxes are basic seed beads, tubes and small bags, plain, iridescent & crystal. Also rocailles, gold and silver metallic, small pearls, and the next size larger than seed beads. I use these in flower centers, as a scatter across a large area, or to fill in an area.

Next I have even more seed beads in larger quantities, and the out of place plastic lobster? He has been sneaking around from box to box, trying to find a home. I have an assortment of "Good" beads, specialty items, pieces from old earrings, vintage beads, and charms, small rubber animals, I sew on as embellishments, like beads. The variety is endless, lots of miscellaneous stuff and one of a kind items. I also have boxes of sequins, jewelry findings, miscellaneous, wood beads, plastic crystals, the only thing I DO NOT have is pony beads. I hate them!! I also have several shoe boxes of sea shells, many of them already drilled, but I do drill others with a small diamond drill bit, I add them to my undersea, tropical fish quilts.

Then I have a shoebox of even better beads, strands of turquoise, rose quartz, hematite, pearl, lapis, stuff for making necklaces and jewelry. There are beautiful glass and shell pendants, as focal points. Most of these I got at Shipwreck Beads just outside Olympia, Washington. Click here for Shipwreck Beads. If you ever get a chance to go, please do, it is an amazing warehouse full of the most delicious stuff! You can order online, minimum order $25, which is very easy to do. I add beads to lots of my art quilts, it is the first thing I go to, to embellish anything. They add texture, sparkle, detail and color. Once you start collecting it is hard to stop. I'll never use all my beads, I have to accept that, just like I will never use all my fabric, if I live to be 200. But it is a palette of choices, to have a variety on hand, when you need just the right touch to make your quilt spark!

Stash Saturday 3 - Threads

I have a lot of thread, just like every thing else, this is a set of nice cotton DMC threads in a plastic case, that I got from my Mom.

The wire baskets with some of my rayon spools, was a garage sale find. It holds the larger size spools, that they don't make racks for. The smaller Sulky spools, I could use up in one project, as I love to use rayon thread to free motion quilt, so now I buy bigger spools. I always say, if a picture is worth a 1000 words, then it is certainly worth a 1000 yards of thread. When I thread paint a photograph on fabric, I will often use 4 or 5 colors on one flower, 4 shades of green on the leaves, and 4 different blues on the sky background. Changing bobbin threads to match helps give a smooth line of color on the top.

My pride and joy is my huge thread rack that some nice man made for his wife. I got it for $5 at an estate sale. The bottom 1/3 is my specialty threads, metallics, holographic, and smaller spools of rayons. The middle third has my cheap poly and cotton threads, that I use for matching bobbins, I have a shoe box full of extras too. The top third is a lot of top stitching and buttonhole threads, for when I was sewing Teddy Bears, fine lace thread, and miscellaneous stuff. I also have a BIG box of embroidery floss, yarns and fibers. I also have a box of vintage rayon embroidery floss, it is so shiny and slippery. Threads are like your fabric palette, you need to have the right thread, as I almost never use a contrasting color.

Stash Saturday 2 - Green

"THEY'LL SELL YOU THOUSANDS OF GREENS. VERONESE GREEN, EMERALD GREEN AND CADMIUM GREEN AND ANY SORT OF GREEN YOU LIKE, BUT THAT PARTICULAR GREEN...NEVER!" PABLO PICASSO 1966 I love this quote, it explains why we, as quilt artists, have so much fabric! You have to have your color palette. We can't just mix paints like Picasso to get what we envision. My fabric is sorted by color, in this photo are most of my sections of greens. I do have some more, but that should not surprise you. The top two stacks are just batiks, then other batiks, then the bottom stacks are dark green to light greens. I have turquoise, teal, & blue/green separate. Most of my fabric selection is in quarters, long or fat, and half yards. If I need more for a border or backing, I'll go buy it. Buying smaller amounts, I can get more variety to my palette.

I LOVE lime green! Wow, it gives a spark of light to darker foliage, sunny highlights, and spring sprouts. One of the older issues of Australian Quilter had a quote, that one of the featured quilt shops said "Lime is the new neutral" The photo of the store had a whole long row of lime green fabrics. I used to be a blue/green person, all my leaves matched in color, just a little different in value or print. My older applique looks boring to me now. Nature has an unlimited palette of greens, to show the world. Mix and match, bright lime moss, with rich dark magnolia leaves, shadowy oak foliage and grass green. Then you can reach out to play with blue greens, gray greens, muddy green, avocado green, olive green, & pastel green. Do not limit your green choices with only the greens you like. It will make your art work more dynamic, to use a large variety. I save my scraps in a plastic 4 drawer set, one drawer alone for greens, when I need a leaf to applique I go to my scraps, why cut a new piece of fabric for a 2" square. I am a scrap saver! At $10 or more a yard, I'm being economically thrifty, that's what quilting is all about, using scraps to make something beautiful.

Stash Saturday

MY STASH IS HUGE!!! Not just fabric, but embellishments of every sort. I literally have shoe boxes, pizza boxes and open shelves stacked clear to the ceiling! I do NOT waste space in my sewing room. My fabric is sorted by colors and fabric types. I have my Bali batiks separate, also my nature realists fabrics, my undersea prints, and my "Objects" stash. The objects fabric stash is a collection of fabric that I use for fussy cutting. If I need a crocodile, I have fabric to cut that from, baseball, got it, pink flamingos, monopoly money, painted car flames, birds, butterflies, feathers, and snake skin prints. I even have some Elvis/blue suede shoe fabric. It is the real fun stack of fabrics. Sunflowers, cows, dice, fish, etc... Also I have boxes of beads, buttons, trim, silk flowers, rhinestones, needle felting fibers, wire, ribbon roses. It is all labeled, but not always handy to get at.

I have a selection of vintage buttons, not as many as a serious collector, but LOTS of buttons to go through. The first pic is some brass buttons, I found in my Mom's button jar. She does not have just a mason jar, she has a five gallon glass pig!! She filled it up on trips to the flea market in California, 30 years ago. When my Mom was moving to Seattle, a friend who is in the button society, came to visit, we dumped all Mom's buttons onto cookie trays on the dinning room table, and went through them one by one. Suzie did not believe me when I told her how many there were. We each got a huge pile of buttons, Suzie got some very special ones that she bought from Mom, I got lots of fun stuff, as I am not a collector, just an embellisher. We had a ton of fun, and Mom reminisced about some of her or Gramma's dresses that some of the buttons came from. The vintage Rhinestone buttons came from the PIG and my sister's finds on E-bay. She had wanted me to decorate a jean jacket with them for her. I finally used some on her jacket and got it back to her. I also have a separate stash of Mother of Pearl buttons. Some donated to me, there are some newer plastic ones, but most are made from real shell. I have decorated Christmas ornaments with them in the past. Using a glue gun, I put MOP buttons all over a silver or white ornament, and a big button on top, put the hanging wire back in, and add a wire ribbon bow at the top. They make great presents to your sewing buddies. I have the MOP buttons in a replica Singer tin, with 3 drawers and little brass window frames for the name tags on each drawer.

Well I hope you enjoyed the visit with some of my buttons. Check back next week to see what else is in my stash.