12 Days of Jennifer Paganelli Inspiration

I am excited to be Day 10 of 12 days of inspiration by Jennifer Paganelli! Seriously, we could go on forever on how Jennifer and her fabrics inspire us! Pictured above is my JP stash & I could come up with so many combinations using her fabrics. It's so distracting! I met Jennifer online through Flickr, I think. She had commented on something I made that had bits of her fabrics in it and I was blown away at her kindness. I soon discovered that her style was my style and we were fast friends. I love how she loves to mix color and pattern and everything she does is happy & colorful.

I designed my sewing room around her fabrics. Wait, that picture doesn't look lived in! See below for a true, working sewing room!

Anyway, you can see how much Jennifer inspires me. She is kind and generous to everyone and so supportive to the handmade community, I am truly amazed! For my inspiration piece, I decided I wanted to feature something I've been making lately. Mug rugs are not new items, but I really love finding colorful & artistic mugs and designing mugs rugs to match. They make great gifts as I don't think they have to match a person's home. They are a stand alone gift!  Here are some mugs I purchased from Anthropologie

and one from Cost Plus

And here are the mug rugs I made to match them

I used a West Indies print called Matilda and bordered it with Claudia and then Jane and made a binding out of Sally. All I need to do is pop some Starbucks Via packets or some tea bags and I have a cute gift set.

For this one I used Claudia in the center and then did a log cabin style around it in Dana, Maggie, Danielle, Matt's Tux, Nikki, Matilda and Velentina. The binding is Luca. I love how most of the fabric names are people's names! I still have 2 more mugs to match up, and I'm looking forward to it since there is only 7 days until Christmas! Yikes! The mug rugs take about a half hour if you're using scraps. The center square is approximately 3" & then I add 1 1/2 to 2 1/2" strips until I think it's done, around 8-9" finished size. Here is the list of bloggers and the days that they posted or will post:

December 09 Sew Pretty Dresses
December 10 Sweeter Than Cupcakes
December 11 Sweet Baby Jamie
December 12 Hickity Pickity  Handmade Dress Haven
December 13 Tabbo Designs 100 Billion Stars
December 14 Heavenlelgh Blessings Boutique
December 15 Scientific Seamstress
December 16 Sweet Baby Jamie
December 17 Hold It Right There
December 18 Sew Fun By Monique
December 19 Small Town Girls Clothier Marie Madeline Studio
December 20 Granny B's Clothesline Lilac Lane by Melissa Stramel

Wall of Wow!

Sorry I haven't been blogging much lately~ I've been folding all these fabrics neatly in my new room. It was unbelievably fun to be able to touch & refold each one to fit on these shelves. My husband bought them at Borders since they were closing our local store. They are 6" deep and perfect. I can now find everything!! They are by designer, line & color. They are really overwhelming in person, but I'm getting used to it! I took some close ups and I think I was just too excited because they all came out blurry! :) I will take some new ones later. Next up, skirting my work tables.

My Fabric Closet

How do you store your fabric?? I'm taking a poll. I have reorganized my fabric closet several times. I started out by color, but as my stash grew and my orders increased, I needed to quickly identify if I have a certain fabric. Next, I grouped by designer, then color. Recently I have been going to designer, then print, then fabric line. For some designers I have many colors, same print. For example I have almost every color of Jennifer Paganelli's Casey Scroll. I put all of those together. For Amy Butler, I have it organized by fabric line. Sandi Henderson is more like Jennifer Paganelli. Tanya Whelan I have by fabric line, then color. I have almost every Darla fabric, a few of Ava Rose & Barefoot Roses and a few of her newest, Delilah. Then there's the orphans that don't have a bigger group or maybe I purchased them for their color. They have their own group by color. For my new sewing room, the local Borders bookstore closed up and my husband bought 6 of their shallow bookshelves. They are 6.5" deep. One whole wall in my new room will house these bookcases & hopefully I'll be able to spread out my fabrics better to see what I have. All this rearranging has lead to a hope of selling off my extra fabrics I don't need or use. I don't want to trade necessarily because I have most of what I need. I may just post my extras with a wish list and maybe I can get more of a certain fabric I need. What is your favorite source for fabric swaps?? I will also donate some to our sewing group at church. I think most of my fabrics are a little more wild than they normally use. :) Any helpful info to the above questions would be treasured!!