alewives fabric shop | Night Quilter

A couple weekends ago, I traveled to one of my favorite “local” fabric shops, Alewives Fabrics, about an hour and a half drive away. I went primarily for the Color for Quilters Class and my first ever Maine Modern Quilt Guild meeting, but also, of course, for the fabric. I knew that in a store like Alewives, I could easily buy enough fabric to fill my trunk, so I went to the class intentionally with the idea of building the greens in my stash, but without a giant fabric shopping list. (If anyone wants to fund my fabric buying budget, I’ll be happy to give you my paypal email address and you can direct deposit as much as your generous heart desires–haha)

I couldn’t resist the feathers on blue or the yellow newsprint fabric, so I let those slide into the mix. I also bought my first ever (gasp) Cotton and Steel. Here’s the (mostly green) fabric goodness I took home with me (from left to right):

1/2 yard of What a Gem by Allison Cole for Eugene Textiles
1/2 yard of Wee Wander by Sarah Jane for Michael Miller Fabrics

and fat quarters of:

Collage “Newspaper Stripe” by Carrie Bloomston of SUCH Design for Windham Fabrics;
Unknown (but awesome) Fibonacci Fabric in green;
Vagabond Parquet Moon Dial by Parson Gray for Free Spirit Fabrics; and,
XOXO in Picnic Gold by Cotton and Steel House Designer for Cotton and Steel

While I was looking through Alewives’ awesome fat quarter bins, I stumbled upon the amazing Fibonacci fabric. Not only was it green (my color of choice for the day) but it is totally math-geek friendly. As a complete closet–or maybe not so closeted–math and science geek, there was no way I was going to leave that shop without buying the Fibonacci Golden Ratio fabric.

I have no idea what I will do with the fabric yet, but I sure am happy to have it in my stash! If anyone knows any of the designer/manufacturer information for this fabric, please let me know.

I’m linking up with Molli’s fabulous Sunday Stash.

As I swooned over all of the Quilt Market photos flooding Instagram this past weekend, I also immersed myself in a new pool of quilters. I was fortunate enough to attend my first ever Maine Modern Quilt Guild meeting! This month, the meeting took place at Alewives, an AWESOME modern fabric shop co-owned by Rhea Butler, and one of my favorite “local” (if a 1.5 hour drive each way counts as local) quilt shops. Rhea offered a Color for Quilters class, and the Maine Modern Quilters made it the feature of their meeting. I had such a fun time, both meeting the wonderful Maine MQGers, but also taking in Rhea’s color theory knowledge and insight.

I was so impressed with the Maine MQG and how friendly and welcoming they were. I immediately made new friends and felt comfortable there, admiring other works in progress, being inspired by the sample BOM blocks made by Karen, and just getting to know my fellow Maine modern quilters. I do hope to make it to another meeting of theirs, even if my attendance isn’t regular (they typically meet over 2 hours from my home, which would require over 4 hours of driving to attend a meeting). Here are some fun photos from the day:

betsy from maine modern quilt guild — Betsy leads the meeting, guiding us through the items of discussion for the day.

Karen shows her November BOM block samples.

A color challenge: discussing whether this fabric bundle "works" or does not work, guided by Rhea. — A color challenge: discussing whether this fabric bundle “works” or does not work, guided by Rhea.

Rhea provided a lot of insight into color and its role in planning a quilt. I learned a lot about general color terminology, such as value, shades, tints, and hue, but also confirmed that I am personally drawn to tertiary colors (fuchsia, cornflower, turquoise, lime, cheddar, tangerine) as opposed to primary (red, yellow, blue) or secondary (orange, green, purple).

I discovered that Rhea has a very different quilting style than I do; she likes her quilts to be “delightfully schizophrenic”, while I am still very focused on smooth aesthetic flow and “safe” color choices. Rhea has convinced me to be a bit more adventurous though, and try some improv or unexpected color and fabric combinations. I may even try the Denise Schmidt-inspired method of throwing scraps in a bag and randomly pulling them out and sewing them together (yikes!).

Rheas quilt: delightfully schizophrenic. — Rhea’s quilt: delightfully schizophrenic.

After the color class, I enjoyed browsing Alewives‘ awesome fabric selection, and taking in the eye candy that abounds. Here are a few sneak peeks at the gorgeousness that is Alewives. Stay tuned for some more tomorrow; color inspiration will come from the fabric shop this week!