If you are like me, you have a lot of clothing hanging in your closet that you no longer wear. But there is something you still love about these pieces – the color, fabric design, etc. Repurpose or upcycle it to give it a new life. I repurposed a pair of capri pants made with fabric that I loved into a decorative pillow for a guest blog post on FaveCrafts for Earth Week. I had never worn these pants and think that I bought them just for the fabric.

Although I chose to make a decorative pillow, you can make many different type projects using this technique. I added detail to the pillow top by sewing multiple wavy lines of both non-metallic and metallic Gutermann threads vertically to quilt the fabric to a piece of cotton batting.  I used different shades of both turquoise and coral threads in addition to a black thread. I also sewed turquoise, red and yellow beads randomly and to the flowers. Please visit the FaveCrafts blog post for full tutorial instructions as well as additional photos.

In addition to your closet, you can locate fabulous finds at thrift stores or yard sales to repurpose. I’m a fabric junkie so I always keep my eyes peeled for fabrics, as well as sweaters and other items I can sew into something else or use in other type of crafts.

Phyllis

I’m excited to give you a sneak peak at my newest fabric collection “Celebrate” from Quilting Treasures, filled with cakes and cupcakes. It will be available for shipping to stores in June 2012. As you can see, the colors are bright primary colors that are perfect for both boys and girls. The designs are also great for all ages, from kids to adults, after all, you never get too old to celebrate! It was really fun creating these designs but it did activate my sweet tooth! Fortunately, all the cakes and cupcakes were created with paint so no calories!

This design is the main design of a patch panel. Other fabrics in the “Celebrate” collection will include lots of fun designs and stripes all in bright “celebration” colors and all coordinated for delightful quilting and sewing projects. Think of a celebration or birthday quilt, or a banner or table runner for a birthday party.  There will be several free patterns available from Quilting Treasures when the fabric is in. Plus, I will create some patterns to post here on my blog for free download – I already have several ideas formed and just waiting to sew them. I just love designing patterns to go with my fabrics.

I can’t wait to show you all the fabrics when they are out!  And it won’t be long – I can’t believe June is so close already!  Meanwhile, I’ve been working away on the next fabric collection and am just as excited about it! Its still on the drawing board, but I’m loving it.

So please check back for fun fabrics and lots of free patterns and think cake and cupcakes. And here’s to a little celebration in your life each day.

Phyllis

Its so exciting that my new quilt book Asymmetrical Quilts from Leisure Arts has been published and is ready for shipping. Instructions and patterns for 9 quilts are included in this book, all with an off-centered design. I created each quilt to be unique and all are made with wonderful fabrics. The designs use a combination of traditional and nontraditional blocks in nontraditional arrangements, with several of the quilts adorned with whimsy applique.

My copies are on the way to me and I can’t wait to get them. It was a lot of work putting this book together, but I enjoyed every second of it. The photographs were all taken in the wonderful studio of Becky Stayner.  I will be showing some of the photos I took of the photography sessions so check back to see these and her studio (hint – its in a really quaint house).

I owe a special thanks also to Lisa Mullins of  Wandering Stitches Quilting Studio for an amazing job in quilting the quilts. She added the touch of whimsy where needed to keep the theme of each quilt.

I hope you will check out the book and find that you can’t live without it!

Phyllis

I just received a copy of a beautiful new quilt book Bed Runners & More and am trilled that I have 2 quilts featured in this book. Bed runners add such a dramatic decorative touch to a bed and bedroom! Published by House of White Birches and edited by Carolyn S. Vagts, this book has instructions and patterns for 9 bed runners with some coordinating shams for different looks for the bedroom. The theme of the book is seasonal, with bed runners for the different seasons of the year.

I designed Summer Blossoms runner with 2 pillow shams. I adore and love these hot and spicy colors in the Penny Lane fabric collection from Quilting Treasures. They definitely say “summer time”! This runner is 81″ x 27″ and the shams fit regular size pillows. The fuchsia flowers are appliqued.

My other quilt is Warm Splendor made with the beautiful warm and cozy fall colors in the Cornucopia fabric collection by Quilting Treasures. The size of this bed runner is 77 1/2″ x 30″ plus the prairie points on each end. Both of these quilt runners are easy to make and make great projects for a beginner quilter as well as the experienced quilter.

I hope you look for this book for the other fabulous projects included. It was fun designing my projects as well as sewing and quilting them, so I hope you will give them a try!

Happy Quilting!

Phyllis

I just received a copy of Quilted Gifts from your Scraps & Stash, by House of White Birches.  Its a book filled with all types and sizes of quilted projects, from quilts, backpacks, pot holders to pillows and much more for 40 great projects for you to make. I’m delighted that one of my quilt designs is included in this book.

Daisy Pocket Quilt is the perfect size to use as either a wall hanging or bed quilt. The diagonal striped blocks are pockets so that kids can store their favorite items while adding a splash of color to their room. I used the bright, colorful fabric “Kids go Green” by Kari Pearson from Quilting Treasures to compete the quilt. The quilt is pieced with the large daisies fused and appliqued. I hope you will make one for the kid in your life – its an easy and fun quilt to make.

Happy Quilting

Phyllis

Sew a quick Christmas apron in just a couple of hours and wear it tonight! Aprons are fun and trendy to both sew and wear! I designed this free apron pattern to wear for Christmas cooking and enertaining. Designed for an earlier post here on my blog, I wanted to share the apron pattern  again. Its so easy to make.

To start sewing, download your free Christmas apron pattern here!

Thinking of Christmas aprons brings thoughts of all the wonderful smells of food cooking, cinnamon, and other spices. I also think of the citrus smell of oranges.

Enjoy both sewing and wearing it!

Phyllis

I have more photos to share with you of the beautiful and amazing quilts at the Houston International Quilt Market. I showed half of my photos of these fabulous quilts from the exhibits in my prior post. The quilts are fun, imaginative, colorful and unique in their original designs.

Word Gets Around was created by Louisa L. Smith, Loveland, Colorado. She had collected fabrics with text and manipulated all the fabrics by hand painting, dying and over dying to obtain the color she wanted. She created the curved movement of the quilt which is a play of “words” to create the title.

Memories Stick, created by Charlotte Noll, Lauderhill, Florida, is created using the quilt pins she collected. She wanted a quilt design that can be rearranged and appended as she continues to collect pins. Each pin has an embellished pillow and is connected to the others with safey pins. Each pin reminds her of the wonderful times when she collected them. Techniques used were fused and raw edge machine applique, machine quilted, digitally machine embroidered and hand beaded.

Fantasy in Paradise was created by Laura Steiniger, Tucson, Arizona to depict fantastical birds-of-paradise flowers. I love birds-of-paradise. The techniques used were machine applique, machine decorative stitches, machine quilted and hand embellished. The black background really makes the flowers pop.

New York City Lights, created by Ellen Yamaguchi, New York, NY, is heavily embellished with beads and charms. The beads were used to emphasize the swirls. She also added old New York City subway and bridge tokens and landmark charms to add interest. Techniques used include cut and assembled blocks using One-Block Wonder technique.

Colorplay 1: Pink, created by Twelve by Twelve. This was one of the quilts in an exhibit showcasing quilts by Twelve by Twelve, a group of 12 quilt artists who embarked on an art challenge together. For 4 years, each made 12 x 12 inch quilted art pieces on a particular theme. Each of the quilts displayed featered the 12 art quilts on that theme. Check out their website to see all of the collections they created as well as learn more about their challenges.

Woody by Bonnie Ouellette, Seneca, South Carolina, is embellished with glass beads. The tecnhiques inclue hand quilting and hand beading.

Garden Pool was created by Sandra Marietta, Palmetto Bay, Florida and is inspred by her Friday trips to Fairchild Tropical Garden. Techniques include fused and machine applique, fabric painting and machine quilting. Materials include various threads, batik and other fabrics, tetile paints, and was crayons.

“Austin tatious” by Barb Forrister of Austin, Texas features beautiful dimensional flowers. Techniques include dyed, painted and applique.

Saturday Market Delectables by Tina McCann, Depoe Bay, Oregan, was inspired by a trip to the farmers’ market and watching people carry various bags and baskets stuffed with food. The techniques include Nuno, needle and wet felted, machine pieced, free motion quilted, hand stitched and beaded.  This quilt is very dimensional so I wanted to show a closeup of one section to show all the detail.

A Starlit Night was created by Soon-Joong Kim, Seoul, South Korea, using the compass and kaleidoscope techniques. The quilt  was inspired by the earch and the rest of the planets.

In an Orderly World was created by Linda R. Syverson Guild, Bethesda, Maryland, and was inspired by an Art Deco design.  The techniques used were pieced, needle punched, hand and machine appliqued, machine quilted and hand beaded.

Ancient Weaver was created by Ann Horton, Redwood Valley, California. The inspiration was the Mayan weaving traditions that are honored with Spider, the industrious weaver as the center of the wheel of life. Techniques are machine piecing and quilting, and commercial and original digitized machine embroidery.

I hope that you enjoyed seeing a few of the many quilts on exhibit. You can see part of the exhibit hall below, and this picture was taken less than halfway down the main hall of the exhibit.

I am already looking forward to my next trip to Quilt Market.

Phyllis

I’m still in awe of all that I saw at the International Quilt Market in Houston and want to share more of the photos I took of products and colors from Market in a continuation from Part 1 of my prior post on Quilt Market.

This gorgeous dress in the Pfaff booth stopped me in my walks. This fuchsia dress has beautiful machine embroidery embellishment by Pfaff sewing machines. It was simply stunning and fit for Cinderella to wear to the ball! And look at the embroidery on the black coat next to the dress.

Not all products at Quilt Market are sewing and quilt related. Karyn Kozak exhibits with her beautiful FIMO polymer clay products.  Created with different colored pieces of clay in the millefiori technique, Karyn created the beautiful vases and leaves below as well as jewelry, barrettes, and other items. Visit her website to see the ladybug pins and jewelry she created.

and these fabulous teapots…

I showed you some of the new fabric collections by Quilting Treasures in my prior post. Below are more of their fabrics that debuted at market. Simon-Kabuki has a new line out, In the Meadow, in these great, warm colors. I also love the design and applique flowers in this quilt using their fabrics.

And I also loved this new collection by Studio 8, Fantasia (click to see the individual fabrics) and especially love the color combination of black and white with a lime green.  (See my prior post for free quilt and apron patterns I designed for Quilting Treasures with Studio 8′s Monaco fabric collection).

I love the play The Phantom of the Opera and this new fabric collection is wonderful. Can’t you hear the music?

Angela Anderson’s Give Thanks, can be used to create a beautiful quilt or kitchen accessories such as a table runner or place mats next fall.

With quilting and sewing, you need trim. Expo International has all kinds of trim for your every need including home decor. I love the colorful displays of these trims and cords. The center row is button trims, which is fabulous since we all love buttons! I look at this and remember several years ago when I shopped trim, all I could find was dull colors. Its so much more fun sewing with these colors!

And, there’s these fun feather trims…..

Quilt Market occurred over Halloween so I thought I would also show you Expo’s cute sequin appliques for Halloween.

And the Expo International folks dressed up for Halloween. Debi Schmitz dressed as a witch, but I have to tell you that she’s a sweet  and lovely witch, not at all wicked! I need to find where she got the silver hair.

Walking by Michael Miller Fabric’s booth created a “wow” moment when I spotted this 1950 red MG convertible used in their vintage picnic display. I also like the turquoise cooler. I’ve always thought MG’s were the coolest cars. By the way, this MG was local from Houston and is for sale. It doesn’t run though, but it has a great body and I would just love to have it to look at and sit in (and watch Audrey Hepburn in Two for the Road although her MG was green). Pretend driving would be ok as I would not want to risk getting any kind of ding in it.

I thought the Sandi Henderson booth (Michael Miller Fabrics) was beautiful and great merchandizing.

The Kaleidoscope Kreator Software booth was beautiful and dramatic with kaldeiscope designs. This software lets you use your own photos and artwork to create kaleidoscope images for quilting, scrapbooking, card making and more. I’ve been eyeing this software and plan to purchase it. Actually, I don’t know why I haven’t already done so, except that when I get home, I get caught up with ongoing work. The software looks easy to use from their booth demo (and the price is great). If you go to their website, check out the paper crafting projects. The quilts are beautiful of course, but the paper stars would be really fun to make.

I stopped in Clothworks booth to see my friend Sue Zipkins new fabric collection, Suzette. I love the soft colors of the fabrics.

June Tailor, Inc always has a pretty booth. They have great quilting tools (I use them regularly)!  They have a new program for fleece, Fleece with Flair. The program includes tools for working with fleece, including fringe cutters and various rulers as well as fleece precut flowers. The right half of the booth below shows the new tools and samples made using the tools.

A closeup of the fleece  flowers….

Tina Givens (Free Spirit Fabrics) won the booth award for best Merchandising.  As you can see from the photos below, it was a beautiful booth in oranges, tans and browns.

I love felt and stopped by Kunin Group’s booth. They have felt in patterns now which makes a wonderful addition to all the solid colors. The patterns below were gorgeous. Kunin’s felt is made from eco-fil which is created with platic water bottles. The felt is so soft, its hard to imagine that it started life as a water bottle.

You can create such cute critters with felt.

Prym has a new line of sewing products for baby along with a book of patterns for making baby clothing and cloth diapers. In addition, as you can see on the wall to the right below, they have a full line of accessory products and trims, buttons and applique to use with sewing for baby. Really, really cute!!

La Todera had a pretty and colorful booth to showcase their sewing and soft craft patterns. The buttons and flowers below are just a few of their patterns. And the buttons can be customized with your own saying or art.

and aren’t these trees adorable for sewing!

Downtown Houston has changed over the years since I first started attending Quilt Market. Below is a view from my hotel (Hilton) showing the George Brown convention center on the right (designed to resemble a ship) and the Minute Maid Park (aqua building) in the distance, home of the Astros. Discovery Green Park is just a few years old and is a great improvement on the parking lots that were there previously. Its nice to walk through the park for a few outside minutes during the show.

I hope you enjoyed my take on Quilt Market. But there’s more to come – pictures of beautiful, unbelievable quilts from the quilt exhibits. The quilts are works of art!  So please check back!

Phyllis

One of the best things about traveling to trade shows and events is meeting people who I’ve talked with via social media and forums.  At the Surtex show last year, I met Cindy Ann Ganaden in person. She is a fellow artist and author of the BluPenny blog. She publishes a Sketchbook Story series in which she interviews artists on their inspiration, how they use it to create sketches and finalize into art.  The art is then licensed for various products.
Cindy Ann just interviewed me and posted the interview for the Sketchbook Story in which I show my inspiration and results. I used my cat for inspiration to create an art collection which was then turned into a fabric collection for Quilting Treasures. Everyone has different techniques and ways they use to create their art.  I hope you will check out mine.

The apron shown in the interview can be downloaded – free half apron pattern.

I’m off to Houston for Quilt Market.  Please check back as I will post pictures of Market next week.

Phyllis

I’ve been showing you some of the free quilt patterns that I designed for Quilting Treasures. Of all of the quilts I have designed, this is one of my favorites because this particular quilt has some great memories. It was designed with Marie Osmond’s “Gypsy Breeze” fabric line, which I absolutely love. I was told that Marie wanted the design of this quilt to be bohemian and off centered to work with the feel of the fabric line. So I submitted two designs, and she chose this one.

It was displayed in Quilting Treasures booth at the International Quilt Market in Houston. I was thrilled to meet Marie who was there for a personal appearance for her new fabric collection (see my prior post on meeting Marie and Quilt Market).

Although this “Gypsy Breeze” quilt is from a couple of years ago, the pattern is still available for a free download from the Quilting Treasures website. While the fabric is no longer available, the pattern can be used with other fabrics. (You will have to scroll down through all the free quilt patterns posted to reach this download.)

If you use this or any of my other patterns, I would love to see the quilts you create with them!

Happy quilting!

Phyllis