I knew four of my Sweetheart Ballerina fabrics were going to be in Hancock Fabrics stores. But while running errands, I ran in Hancock’s to buy some notions I needed and there they were! Thank goodness for my cell phone so I could take some pictures. I pulled out the fabrics and took pictures and then I neatly rolled them up and put them back on the shelves.
The black and green prints above are a small cow pattern based on the black spotted cow ballerina in the collection. To see the pink spotted cow fabric (not shown) made into an adorable little girl’s girl dress, please see my prior post. And for a tote bag, made with the 2 pink fabrics above, check out this post.
To see the full collection for “Sweetheart Ballerinas” from V.I.P. by Cranston, please visit my website. And if you are in Hancock’s, please look for them.
Don’t you love surprises! Receiving a new book is always wonderful but this one has 3 quilt projects of mine in it. 5-10-15 + Fat Quarters, published by House of White Birches is a beautiful book filled with projects that you can complete with pre-cut fabric bundles.
Now, wouldn’t you just love to make this dog coat for your dog? It’s made with “It’s A Dog’s Life” fabrics I designed for VIP by Cranston Printworks. (Just a note to tell you that some fabrics of this collection are in some Walmart stores as precuts). The pattern is easy to make so you can have the best dressed dog in the neighborhood.
OK, now that your dog is dressed, you can move onto making a cozy quilted pillow for a favorite child or each of your favorite children, since I’m sure you have more than one. This “chick pillow” is made with a full size pillow so it will fit nicely on a bed. Three pockets to hold little treasures are appliqued with a chick on each pocket. Can’t you just imagine the surprises that can be tucked away in these pockets for safekeeping until the next morning! (no snakes or snails I hope!)
Now its time to move onto some serious quilting and make a table runner for yourself or as a gift. A “Warm Breeze” tablerunner is made with Jim Shore’s Angel Among Us fabrics by Quilting Treasures. I had the good luck to meet Jim Shore a couple of months ago (see my prior post).
Since you have now had a few days of sewing and quilting, take a break, eat some ice cream!
I hope you enjoyed looking at these quilt pictures and I would love to see any that you make with these patterns. Check out the book and you will be delighted as I was with all the fun projects made with precut 5″ charms, 10″ squares and fat quarters.
The colors of the fabrics used in this quilt – turquoise, lime green and purple – are my favorite colors. So I was “in heaven” while designing and sewing “Gypsy Wind” for the book ”Patchwork Comforters, Throws and Quilts” published by House of White Birches. The fabrics are Marie Osmond’s “Gypsy Breeze” collection by Quilting Treasures.
41 colorful and exciting quilts are shown in this book along with patterns and instructions. It is a book quilt lovers will cherish.
And if you love these fabrics as much as I do, please check out my earlier post where I met Marie Osmond at the International Quilt Market with another quilt I designed using these fabrics for Quilting Treasures’ booth.
I wish you a day filled with your favorite colors.
Its always fun to meet someone who you really admire. At the Atlanta Gift Market last month, I had the good fortune to meet Mary Engelbreit in the showroom of Katherine’s Collections. Mary was there for a personal appearance. I have always been a fan of Mary’s as well as appreciate her as a trail-blazer for art licensing.
The past couple of months have been the most hectic of all. Preparing for two major trade show events in January required hours and hours of work. Attending the shows, Atlanta Gift Market and CHA (Craft and Hobby Association) were almost like vacations because while they were technically work, I could lay down my paint brush and ignore my computer for a few days. Plus, its always such fun to meet up with friends.
The day before the CHA show in Anaheim, Brenda Pinnick and I went to Laguna Beach for some much deserved R&R. We shopped and had a great lunch while watching the Laguna Beach surf (which was very high due to the recent rains).
Although the shows are over, work continues with work from the shows as well as the work that was still in progress before the shows.
And, I am happy to say that I just finished a new fabric collection and am really excited about it.
I hope you are all staying warm in all this cold and snowy weather.
I love hearing from readers of my blog with projects they have made with my fabrics or designs. Its always fun to see the projects! I just have to show you the adorable dress Jessica made for her equally adorable daughter Raelyn. In this case, it was a special honor for me, as Jessica made the dress for Raelyn’s birthday dress for her 2nd birthday.
Jessica chose the pink cow print fabric from the Sweetheart Ballerina fabric line that I designed for Quilting Treasures. Raelyn loves cows and also had a pair of new pink cowgirl boots (aren’t they just too cute!). Jessica made the dress to match the boots but also made it reversible as well. She used the green ballerina fabric for the reverse side.
It looks like Raelyn had a wonderful birthday and is a fabulous model as well! Thanks to Jessica for sharing the pictures.
Have a wonderful day and many more happy birthday’s to Raelyn!
I just attended another spectacular International Quilt Market in Houston and wanted to share some of it with you. Quilt Market is a trade show filled with fabulous quilts, fabrics, fibers and all sorts of quilting supplies and embellishments as well as being a fusion of colors. Here is a bird’s eye view of a small part of the show floor.
There are always some great quilt challenges and exhibits at Market and here are some that were spectacular. I just loved this quilt made by Maureen O’Doogan from Tallahassee FL. Its fun and whimsical and great colors!
There was an exhibit of kaleidoscope quilts by Paula Nadelstern. They were simply amazing. Here are a few of them along with a close up.
Another huge and fascinating exhibit was the Fabric Forrest, a German exhibit to represent the Black Forrest. The quilts were tall and slim and were hung to represent trees. One of the amazing aspects of these quilts was that they were double sided with both the fronts and backs equally as beautiful. My photo’s didn’t do them justice with the colors because of the space and lighting.
Now for a brief pause before I continue. Not everything about Quilt Market is about Quilts. I just have to show you the gorgeous red shoes my friend Jill (with Quilting Treasures) was wearing. Aren’t they awesome! Some serious Shoe Envy here!
Games are really hot right now, especially board games. I think I could change my middle name to “opoly” because of all the work I’ve done with “opoly’s”. I designed and made this Monopoly quilt for Quilting Treasures booth. They debuted the Monopoly fabric line at Market.
The DMC Corporation showcased their Quiltopoly and Stitchopoly games in their booth. I designed the components of the Quiltopoly board and game last year. Cilene (with DMC and a friend for many years) and I are posing in front of the game display.
In addition to all the beautiful quilts and colors of Quilt Market, Its always fun to catch up with friends including Brenda Pinnick and Debra Quartermain, and many others. I’m already looking forward to the Spring Quilt Market!
I just finished the pattern and instructions for this free apron pattern available for you to download. I am showing 2 aprons in different color combinations with different accent embellishments. Both aprons are accented with large dog block pockets on the top part of the apron. One apron has an additional small pocket and the other is appliqued with a bird and dog bones. The aprons are easy to make and can be completed in 2-3 hours tops.
The fabrics that the aprons are made with are the Its a Dog’s Life collection that I designed for Quilting Treasures by Cranston Printworks.
I just love aprons and am delighted that they are so popular. I remember when my grandmother and aunts wore aprons daily and seeing all the aprons now brings back wonderful fond memories.
For products to coordinate with “It’s A Dog’s Life fabrics, please visit my Zazzle store.
I hope you enjoy the patterns and sew away. I would love to see a picture of your finished apron.
My life has been going to the dogs recently, but in a good way. I’ve been sewing and quilting with the whimsical dog fabrics that I designed. The collection, It’s a Dog’s Life, is available from VIP by Cranston Printworks. I recently designed and made this quilt, which will be featured on a segment of Martha Pullen’s Sewing Room on PBS.
The pattern is available on Quilting Treasures website for downloading the free pattern in PDF format.
I taped two segments for the Martha Pullen’s Sewing Room yesterday for the Warm Company ( they make the fabulous batting and fusible web that I use in all my quilting and applique projects). The taping was exciting and Martha is such a warm and nice person. Well, not just her, everyone who works for her is the same way, so it was a very enjoyable day. Of course, I carried my camera and took photos during the day. The project featured on one segment was a quilt, which I made using the fabrics that I designed, “Its a Dog’s Life” for Quilting Treasures on which I demonstrated a stipple quilting technique. Martha’s assistants, who are great at setting up the sets, are arranging the quilt.
For the second segment, I designed this apron shown here with Martha. It also is made with “Its a Dog’s Life” fabrics and features applique. The fuchsia fabric used for the main part of the apron features dog bones, so I appliqued dog bones around the bottom. Since the block and yellow fabric also feature birds, I appliqued a bird at the top above the pocket. I know I’m short, but standing next to the apron which was raised for viewing by the camera, I look even shorter.
The segments will be shown this fall and winter (2009-2010), so please watch for it on your local stations. I am working up instructions for the quilt and apron and will post the free patterns here shortly.
The International Quilt Market in Pittsburgh this month was wonderful as usual. Color was everywhere as new fabrics were displayed (including mine – Its a Dog’s Life with Quiting Treasures). The mood was upbeat throughout the show and buyers were doing just that – buying. I took loads of pictures of great vendors as well as my friends But, if you read my last post, you know that my photo files were corrupted on the disk (the file names are all goofy symbols and Windows doesn’t know what file types they are- so if anyone can tell me what happened, I would love to know).
I am really excited about something that I purchased at the show (actually its being purchased through my local dealer). I bought Bernina’s digitizing software, “DesignerPlus Version 5″ so that I can turn my art images into machine embroidery.
I plan to start with the motifs from my fabric collections. I also want to create designs to put on some of my projects featured in magazines and books.
Call me a nut, but I actually love learning new software, until I get to a frustration point! The good thing about this software is that my local shop (Robin’s Sewing Shoppe) will give me lessons on using it, in addition to the demo I received at Quilt Market. So, any frustration points can be resolved locally!
But the next step is that after getting home, I have decided that I want to upgrade my sewing machine. That actually means starting new since my machine can’t be “upgraded”. I’ve been visiting the websites of ALL the sewing machine companies to see which one has the features I want. Boy, now that’s frustration! Some of the websites have much more information than others and its frustrating looking at one that has very little information on the features of their machines. Then when I find a feature of one machine that I really like, I look back at all the sites again to see which ones have that feature. And I love features! Unfortunately, the $$’s go up with each feature so I am going to have to tone it down.
So now, I’m off to visit local dealers to make a decision on which machine I want and to see if I can find one in my budget.
WELCOME! I invite you to visit with me in my studio where I create illustrations for licensing onto fabrics, gift, garden and textile products. I also design quilts and sewing patterns. My new quilt book with Leisure Arts is due out Spring 2012.
I would LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU, so please leave a comment or email me. I appreciate your visits.
Phyllis' Zazzle store features products created with her fun and whimsy art!
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Cupcakes are such a trendy craft theme right now, so check out these cupcake crafts to make in this free ebook created by Maria Nerius.These 31 Cupcake Inspired Creations feature something for everyone, from sewing patterns and paper projects to painting and beading.
