Wednesday, August 26, 2015

What's On The Bookshelf Wednesday - Unicorns, Frogs and Princesses, Oh My!

Hi, all!

Welcome back to What's On The Bookshelf Wednesday!!!  I have had so much fun re-discovering books I had forgotten I had - I hope you're enjoying them as much as I am!

I'm sure we've all got particular fabric designers that we just love - because of the colors they use, or their design aesthetic - whatever it is, most or all of the fabrics they design appeal to us.  When I first started quilting, Heather Ross was one of those designers.  Her fabrics are so cute and whimsical, they appeal to my "silly side".  But oh my goodness - they were so expensive, with people selling fat quarters of out of print fabrics and even scraps from pajamas for ridiculous prices!  So most Heather Ross fabrics were way out of my reach, budget-wise.  But wait - there's hope for us all!


This is our book for the day - "Heather Ross Prints - 50+ Designs and 20 Projects to Get You Started".  


Yes, there is a DVD jam-packed with lots of beautiful Heather Ross designs - there are even her cute mini-bus campers right on it!



Full-size pages of her prints, too, that you can tear out and photocopy for use in different projects...




And lots of great projects to make, 
like beautiful napkins for your table... 


...or personalized notepaper!


The visual index in the back shows 
the designs available on the disk...


There's also a great section on how to digitally design your own fabrics, if you've ever wanted to try your hand at it.  And once you have your own design, you can use Spoonflower.com to print it out!

The only drawback to this book, in my mind, is that there aren't any quilt-y type projects in the book, but the H.R. designs more than make up for that.  Imagine printing some of her darling motifs to use as the center of economy blocks, or in hexie flowers?  Mug rugs, coasters - - - all of these could be done using printable fabric and your inkjet printer right at home.  

And I have a cute Heather Ross story to share with you.  A couple of years ago my daughter was cleaning out her fabric stash, slowly coming to the realization that with two children and a third (adopted) on the way, she wasn't going to have time to sew much in the next decade.  She was handing me pieces of fabric to put into my stash, and setting a few aside to keep "just in case she got time to sew".  She pulled down one print and said, "I just love this print, but I have no idea what to make with it - I think I'll keep it anyway."  I looked, and lo and behold, she had two (uncut!) yards of Heather Ross's Goldfish In Bags fabric!!  


She had no idea what she had until I showed her the obscene prices that it goes for on Etsy and eBay - today I saw a piece 4.5" x 6" for $5!  She finally gave up on sewing with it (about a year later) and now it resides in my stash - where I look at it and pet it and think that I really don't know what to make with it either - but it's so pretty!!

So that's what's on my bookshelf this week.  Have you looked at yours lately?

Hugs!

Sarah

PS:  There's still time to enter my One Million Page Views giveaway - entries close Thursday 8/27 at noon CST.  Click on this link to go to the post to enter!!

3 comments:

  1. My latest book is Rebekah Smith's applique book--I love looking at her beautiful wool creations

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  2. I was cleaning out some sewing things from several years ago from when I was knitting and wanting to make some project bags. Apparently I also bought two, pristine, uncut yards of goldfish. It feels wrong to use it, but also wrong to sell it.

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  3. Surely the fact that something is listed on line at an outrageous price doesn't mean anybody is going to buy it! I've bought a few Heather Ross prints, and even made a baby quilt with some of them, but I didn't pay any more than you pay for all new designer prints these days.

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