Every day is a sprint.

I'm guessing that the same is true for many of you. I sometimes wonder if it has always been this way. I have dim memories of times when I could sit and read a book—very dim memories. I don't necessarily think that my life was better then, but there are days when I wish I could focus on one thing without knowing how many other things I also need to be doing. OK, enough of that 🙂

I was in Monterey and Pacific Grove, CA, last week to teach for the quilt guild. Monterey is such a great place to be. The people were wonderful, the weather was lovely. On the way to dinner one evening I spotted this in the sidewalk. It made me smile. 

While there, I got to visit one of my all-time favorite shops, The Back Porch. Of course, I shopped…

I didn't shop for anything in particular and the stacks reflect that.

In the same way that I did after my last shopping trip, I thought I'd tell you why I bought what I did. The first two fabrics that went in my pile were these:

Both are linens from Kokka. The penguins are designed by Nancy Wolff, the telephones by Melody Miller. They are not inexpensive fabrics but I have used similar fabric before and I am always sorry when it's gone. (FYI: Linen and regular cottons are not a problem to combine in quilts. They sew together well.)

The penguins have text on them! You know how I love text…

These two cottons are both designed by Stella but I didn't realize that when I bought them. One of my students had used the light branch fabric as a background and I really liked it. The concentric circles didn't make me think of tree rings until I saw the two fabrics together.

Besides the fact that the Kokka linen is expensive, I'll bet that many of you don't buy it because you aren't sure how to put it with other fabric. Here are some ideas:

I would not have normally have thought about putting the tree fabric with the penguins but it works! I would add more fabric, but this is a nice start.

The more delicate, feminine floral looks really good with the telephones. It makes me think of myself as a teenager. I probably add some light fuschia and teal, possibly a lot of cream, and a deep dark burgundy.

The orange tile print from Kaffe Fassett is pretty nice with the telephones too. In fact, it surprised me…

And I like it even better with the yellow and orange fabric by Thomas Knauer for Andover—although I would use the yellow in very small doses. 

What else I would add? Probably blue, more aqua than true blue. 

I'll share more in a couple of days. Until then, I hope you have a nice holiday weekend!