Join the Mystery Quilt Dash now through May 14 and quilt shop hop online to receive parts of this free quilt pattern. You won’t know what the quilt is until you get all the parts. You will also see great prices for your favorite fabrics and notions in the quilt shops that you visit to collect parts of this quilt. The Dash is free and you will be entered into a drawing for prizes from the shops that you are visiting.

I invite you to also check out the Quilt Block Dash which starts on June 3 for a free quilt pattern “Watermelon Crawl”.  I will post the quilt here shortly before the Dash starts.

Enjoy a little mystery!

Phyllis

I promised to show some of the spectacular quilts on exhibit at the Houston International Quilt Market in the first part of my Houston Quilt Market blog post. These are just some of the amazing quilts exhibited. I’m always awed at the beauty of the quilts and the talent involved to create them.

Monarch: About to Fly by Gloria Hansen of East Windsor, NJ. This quilt is a digital painting based on a photograph of a Monarch that she took before it flew away. The techniques are digital painting, machine piecing and quilting.

Etherium Botanica Bromeliads – by Deborah Beatty of San Jose, CA. This quilt is based on her photography. The technique is digital painting, machine and hand piecing, machine quilting, and hand painting.

Desert Daze – by Debra Crine of Marco Island, FL. This quilt was inspired by beautiful colors and landscapes of the southwest, with southwestern motifs added after the design was complete. The techniques used were paper piecing, fusible applique and machine quilting.

In My Mind – by Eun-Suk Lee, Cheong-Ju-Si, Chung-Buk, of the Republic of Korea. This quilt was created to show a red line of hope leading to the clarity that traditional Korean patterns have a place in modern quilting and to be a Korean artist in a Western art form.

Heidi’s Schlowers – by Andrea Brokenshire of Round Rock, TX. This quilt was inspired by the beautiful Cattleya Orchid and a child trip with her sister to Disneyland. The techniques were hand painted silk applique fused on a pieced batik confetti background, machine quilted and thread painted.

Apple Blossom Dance – by Maggie Weiss of Evanston, IL. Powdery spring blossoms inspired this quilt. The techniques were torn fabric, applique and machine quilting.

3-D Sunflowers – by Martha DeLeonardis. Design source – a vintage sunflower block quilt. The techniques used were turned edge woven fabric, machine pieced, applique and quilted.

Tree of Life – by Allison Lockwood of Shell Beach, CA. This quilt was inspired by the Tree of Life that is an important symbol in nearly every culture and a trip to Thailand. Techniques are hand appliqued, hand quilted, embellishments applied by hand.

Synergy – by Nancy Sterett Martin and Karen Sistek of Owensboro, Ky. They were inspired by a photograph of a close-up of a poppy in creating this quilt. The techniques are hand painting on silk and machine quilting.

Tree – by Kathy York of Austin, TX. This quilt was inspired by the thought that if buildings could dance, they would upon the sight of such a lovely tree. The techniques were fusible applique, machine and hand quilting, and hand embroidery.

Prairie Grass – by Frieda Anderson of Elgin, IL. This triptych was inspired by the mid-west fields and prairies of Frieda’s hometown area and swaying in the wind on a spring day. The techniques used were fused collage and machine quilting.

Flowers for Me Diptych – by Lynn H. Woll of Tacoma, WA. This quilt was inspired by a bouquet of flowers that Lynn bought for herself when she was feeling down. The techniques used were raw edge applique and embellishment.

Mae’s Dance – by Carolyn Crump of Houston TX.  Mae Jones, a quilter from Florida, passed away a year ago. Her family gave Carolyn Mae’s sewing machine, fabrics and quilting tools. Carolyn used the machine to make this quilt and named if for Mae. The dancers symbolized the power of needle and thread. The technique used was machine quilting.

As you can see, there were some spectacular quilts on exhibit. There were many more that I did not get pictures of due to time constraints. I hope you enjoyed seeing these few.

Phyllis

As I think all quilters know, Quilt Market and Quilt Festival were just held in Houston the end of October through early November. I attended Quilt Market, which is open to the trade only, although I wish I had the time to stay over for Festival. I will give you some of Market from from my viewpoint now and will show some of the gorgeous and spectacular quilts exhibited in Part 2.

I was really excited at market at the debut of my new fabric collection with Quilting Treasures, “Bee Yourself” (you can see pictures of the fabrics in my earlier post). This “Bee Yourself” Quilt and Tablerunner were displayed in Quilting Treasures booth. (The fabrics will be available December 2012).

In addition, a preview of my next fabric collection “Tricks and Treats” was also shown in Quilting Treasures’ booth.  I know we just had fun with Halloween since Market, but its never too soon to start planning for the next one. This fabric will ship early next year so that it can be in the stores in time for your Halloween sewing.

Market started for me with a Schoolhouse presentation held Friday before Market opened. I discussed and showed wonderful projects that you can create with printed fabric blocks, whether they are “leftover” from your quilt project or bought just to make some of these projects. They all make great gifts. Since “Bee Yourself” has 12 blocks, I created several models using them.

Andrea Rekrut of Quilting Treasures was my lovely assistant in helping show the models. This project is a tablerunner using 4 blocks.

A placemat uses 2 blocks.

A pillowcase uses fabric and blocks from Quilting Treasures’ Dinosaur Train fabric, which is in fabulous colors.

The patterns for all of these projects, including the quilt, will be available on either Quilting Treasures website or here on my blog sometime in December when the fabric ships to stores. I will announce when they are available and will provide links.

I was in Gutermann of America’s booth during part of the show. Some of my Schoolhouse projects decorated the booth walls.  In addition, other quilts and projects I made were also on the walls. The quilt above the thread cabinet is from the “Celebrate” fabrics that I also designed for Quilting Treasures that debuted in May. They are great to create projects for birthday celebrations for both boys and girls, young and mature (I don’t like the word old).

After Schoolhouse, I attended a meet and greet, Fabric 2.0.  It was packed. I was standing in the middle and this is the view from one direction. Melissa Schulz of Kathy Davis Studios is standing at the front of the picture in the orange dress.

As I walked the show, I saw some fabulous new products that I want to share with you.

I can always count on June Tailor to have some great new products and that held true again this year. The Creative Covers come in 3 style shapes and can be used to create stand along blocks or use for applique.  I love the look of an open block quilt like these.

Another new cutting ruler from June Tailor is great for centering designs for cutting for tee shirt quilts. I have a bunch of tee shirts that I want to make into an quilt and this ruler will be a great aid. Also, a lot of fabrics have designs that you may want to center when cutting. I do.

Gutermann of America has some wonderful new treads, recycled polyester from water bottles.  It amazes me how you can take a water bottle and recycle it into something wonderful. It’s really treasures from trash and a great way to recycle and eliminate all the water bottle waste. 10 spools of thread can be created from one water bottle. I sewed with it and love the way it sews.

Expo International is always a fun and fabulous booth to visit with all their trims and embellishments. It would be so boring if we didn’t have trims to embellish our projects with. I was extra happy this year as they used some of my quilts to decorate their booth.

Before I leave you, I want to show off another fabric collection that will be out early 2013. “Letters to Santa” is by Janet Wecker Frisch of Tidings of Great Joy for Quilting Treasures. Its pure vintage Santa and is beautiful!

Quilt Market is always such an inspirational show and this year was no exception. As you can see, exciting colors of fabrics, threads, buttons, trim, etc were everywhere. Check back as I’m working on another post to show you some really beautiful and amazing quilts in the exhibits.  They were just spectacular!!

And, there will be a “Bee Yourself” fat quarter giveaway shortly, so be sure to check back and enter!

Have a colorful day!

Phyllis

For some reason, black cats are symbolic of Halloween. I wonder what the story was that created the Halloween black cat icon. As the “mom” to a black cat, I always make sure my black kitty is inside well before dark on Halloween. A few years ago, my husband overheard some really young kids that were out trick-or-treating early say as they tried to quietly pass by our house “this is the house with the black cat”. Since there were not many houses with really young kids close around, it made me wonder how notorious our black cat is. My husband did stop them and gave them some candy.

And I have to say that my black kitty is not scary by the wildest stretch of imagination – he’s so sweet and affectionate and loves attention. I hate it that he’s lumped as a superstitious “black cat”.

Since Halloween is approaching, I thought I would have a give-away of a fat quarter bundle of my “Meow Meow” cat fabrics. You can see by the colorfulness, that the inspiration from my black cat resulted in fun and bright fabrics filled with cat antics. You can see the entire fabric collection on my website.

To win the fat quarter bundle, just leave a comment and tell me your favorite black cat or Halloween story, cat story, or say “hi”. I will draw a name from those leaving a comment on Oct 31 – Halloween evening between giving out candy, and post it the next morning  I’m sorry but the drawing is open to residents of the US only.

Have a happy and safe Halloween and give a black cat a hug!

Phyllis

Fall International Quilt Market is almost here! I love Quilt Market and am looking forward to the trip to Houston next week. And I’m especially excited because I have a new fabric collection debuting with Quilting Treasures and wanted to give you a sneak peak at them. “Bee Yourself” features 12 blocks of happy “bee-isms” along with coordinating fabrics.

When I started designing a fabric collection all about bees, the first thing I thought of after I got past the fuzzy bee itself was “Quilting Bee” and then “Sewing Bee”. After these popped into my head, it formed the whole concept of the collection. I thought of many more bees to incorporate as I created the illustrations for the blocks, including “Honey Bee”, “Worker Bee”, “Spelling Bee”, “Queen Bee”, “Bee in a Bonnet”, “Fashion Bee”, “Just Bee Cause”, “Busy Bee”, “Bee Mine”, and the title bee, “Bee Yourself”. In “beeing” yourself, you can be any bee you want to be.

It was really fun to create all these bees. The ideas just kept coming and I have an almost endless list of more “bees”. My brother and sister-in-law jumped in with suggestions of their favorite bee-isms. I am thrilled with how the collection turned out and am now sewing and quilting several bee projects for Quilt Market.

The fabrics will be ready to ship to the stores in December, a good time to snuggle up with a sewing or quilting bee and become a busy bee during the cold weather. (Ok, I quit with the bee-isms!)

I will be posting some free patterns here shortly with fun ways to use “Bee Yourself”. Quilting Treasures will also have some free project patterns available on their website when the fabrics are out. I will update you when all the patterns are available.

If you are attending Quilt Market, which is open to the trade only, I want to invite you to attend my Schoolhouse event on Saturday afternoon at 4:55 in room 362D. I will be presenting some great ideas and there will be a free gift for everyone. I hope to see some of you there.

I will also be in Gutermann of America’s booth (#537) a bunch of the time and would love to meet you so please stop by. Some “Bee Yourself” projects will be in their booth as well as in Quilting Treasures’ booth (#1056).

Have a great day and “bee yourself”!

Phyllis

I love all things related to sewing and quilting! My mother taught me to sew at a very early age on an old Singer sewing machine (it wasn’t THAT old  with the foot petal operation although my grandmother had one). I have my mother’s tins filled with old buttons, etc, a bunch of vintage fabric scraps and her doll pin cushion, all of which I cherish. I used my love of sewing to create a fabric design using my favorite sewing notions  interpreted with a bit of whimsy that I showed you in my last post.

Periwinkle Blue Sewing Notions iPhone 4 Case by phyllisdobbs

Yellow Sewing Notions Laptop Sleeve by phyllisdobbs

Pink Sewing Notions iPad Case by phyllisdobbs

Orange Sewing Notions iPhone Case iPhone 5 Cover by phyllisdobbs

I will be busy sewing and quilting this weekend, getting ready for Quilt Market with my new fabric collection (sneak peek coming soon), a Schoolhouse event and new patterns that I will be posting here. Enjoy your quilting and sewing and remember how its “Sew Fun”!

Phyllis

I love fabrics and I love designing fabrics almost as much as I enjoy eating. That says a lot as I love all food groups! This has been a busy year with fabric design for me. My “Celebrate” fabric collection by Quilting Treasures will help create a cheerful birthday celebration. My newest collection will debut at Quilt Market at the end of the month that will be quite the “buzz”! A sneak preview will be coming very shortly.

In addition, I have fabrics in the Cranston Village V.I.P. line this year with more coming for this line as well with some really great colors.

“Sewing Notions” is a fun design for anyone who loves to sew or quilt. I thought of all the handy items that I frequently use while sewing and threw them into this fabric design. I took a little liberty when designing – my sewing machine does not really have polka dots.

The other 3 fabrics in V.I.P.’s line are “Bird Patch“, “Coffee Cups” and “Texting Lingo”.

Back to work – this is a busy month in preparing for the International Quilt Market in Houston in 3 weeks where I will also be conducting a Schoolhouse event.  More to come shortly on that.

Phyllis

I love the fresh vegetables of summer, and when I can get them locally grown, its even better. I finally went to a small farmer’s market that is a couple of miles from my house and now I’m going every Saturday. Valleydale Farmers Market (Facebook page)  is a small market in a church parking lot and all of the vegetables and fruit are locally grown – none of that stuff imported from foreign countries that deteriorate in the transit time. I don’t have to look any further as the assortment is so varied, I can get everything I want. I buy okra, cucumbers, green tomatoes, red tomatoes, peaches, peas, butter beans, peppers, squash and corn. One of the vendors has fresh catfish that I want to try.

Kim, a friend of mine who used to live close by, moved about 40 miles away to a farm a couple of years ago. I went to her stand first to visit with her and her children and bought a bunch.  She’s known for her homemade preserves and relishes and its well deserved.

Boozer Farms has the most colorful stand with all the various types of eggplant.  I’m going to try the different varieties of eggplant as well as the squash.

Here are some of the other stalls. I didn’t take as many pictures as I wanted to.  I guess it was because I was getting tired from carrying all my purchases. I had a market basket with me and it was quickly filled and very heavy.

I will have to miss attending this coming Saturday as I’m leaving tomorrow for the Atlanta Gift Market. But you can be sure that I will be there the following Saturday and each one afterwards until it closes at the end of the summer. The peaches are the absolute best and I buy some each week. I’m going to miss having them to munch on after I return home from Atlanta as the ones I bought this week have been eaten already. Bummer, but I will look forward to my next veggie trip!

I am growing some tomatoes and peppers myself in a tiny garden, but it won’t be enough to prevent me from buying more.

Phyllis

Woohoo!  A favorite part of my job is when I receive a box of my fabrics! A just heard the door bell dingdong and went downstairs to see what the UPS guy left. The UPS or FedEx guys are the only ones that ring my doorbell in mid-afternoon, so I knew it had to be one of them.  There sat a huge box that was waaaaaaay too heavy for me to even move. So I looked to see who it was from, then went to get a pair scissors to open it. It was filled with my new fabric collection “Celebrate” from Quilting Treasures.

I can’t wait to get started on more projects using the fabrics! You can see what the fabrics look like plus some free patterns that are available for download from Quilting Treasures in my prior post. The fun colors are great for birthday celebrations for all ages.

Stay cool!

Phyllis

Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head bring back childhood memories for me.  It was a fun toy that I loved playing with.  Hot Potatoes from Hasbro, a new fabric line from Quilting Treasures is delightful. It was even more fun with Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head as an adult – designing several sewing and quilting projects with the fabric collection.  I designed and created the Hot Potatoes quilted play mat, large tote bag, half apron and potholder. The potholder is potato shaped and can hang from the apron.  The projects were featured in Quilting Treasures booth at the Spring International Quilt Market held in Kansas City.

I also designed additional pieces for this collection.  All will be free patterns for download from Quilting Treasures website.  The fabric will be available soon – August 2012. Please check back to see all the Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head projects.

Phyllis