Picnic Fun
January 3, 2008 by Kathy
I just managed to take a shot of our picnic lunch before leaving for the ocean yesterday on New Years to bike ride along the coast before running out of battery! The fabric on the outside is from a new Moda line called “Simplicity” (I thought you might like that name Mary Jane!), and I used some leftovers from Barefoot Roses for the inside, which seemed to be a good match. I picked up this little charm packet with the squares already precut so it was fast and easy to put this together. I saw a model in the store that quilted the patches 1/4″ away from the seams instead of stitch in the ditch which I really liked. I’m not sure when this fabric will come out in yardage but it looks like all the spring/summer fabrics are finally starting to arrive little by little. I also saw a collection from Moda called Urban Indigo that had a 
very pretty cornflower blue that was very vintage inspired and a very unusual blue for quilting fabric that I really liked as well to make this apron out of. In case you see a pretty packet of squares you’d like to have fun with, here is a link to the pattern I used for this tote bag. They made theirs with braided handles and a front/inside pocket that I skipped for the sake of time and afterwards I’ll put a self adhesive velcro fastener on the inside to keep the sides together. It made a nice little picnic basket for a day at the beach and now some yarn for these mittens are happily resting inside waiting to be enjoyed for another day. The mailman finally delivered Pacific Coast Highway today. I had Google searched all the patterns from the book and loved the bright colors. I liked the color pallette Alice Starmore worked with when she made these designs, they seem brighter and more cheerful than the palette she is working with today. I am a spring/summer person when it comes to color so I feel fortunate to have these photos of Fair Isle in a spring time palette from this wonderful designer. A big bonus was several cable/fisherman sweaters that I had never seen before that were probably the prettiest sweaters in the entire book.
My bloglines keeps losing your blog/s, so I’m crossing my fingers it doesn’t do that any more!
The picnic basket is adorable. Wish I had the patience.
If I had to choose only one AS book, it would be Pacific Coast Highway! There’s something there for everyone.
Gorgeous color choice…I would pick the same…thanks for sharing! Always a joy to read your blog!
What cheerful colors in your pretty bag! Thanks for all the great links.
Love that little bag and those Moda fabrics–very sweet! Happy New Year to you! :o)
It seems that you always manage to find the most beautiful fabrics. I love the combination with the lining, it is such a great pattern and colour combo. Exactly the same fingerless gloves pattern I have printed out some weeks ago to see how gloves are worked. I´ve never made one, or maybe I just can´t remember. And now I am looking forward your colour choice and your advices about the written design. But before I will also do some google-search, I am too nosy about the designs in this book.