Houston Quilt Market, Part 2 – Spectacular Quilts Exhibited!

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 Butterfly quilt Gloria Hansen

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.

Bromeliads quilt at Houston Quilt Market by Deborah Beatty

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 quilt at Houston Quilt Market

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 quilt at Houston Quilt Market

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.

Heidis Schlowers orchid quilt on display at Houston Quilt Market

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 Quilt by Maggi Weiss at Houston Quilt Market

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

3D Sunflowers Quilt at Houston Quilt Market

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 Quilt at Houston Quilt Market

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 Quilt at Houston Quilt Market

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 Quilt at Houston Quilt Market

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 Quilt

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 quilt

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 quilt by Carolyn Crump

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

International Quilt Market (Houston) – Part 1

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.

Bee Yourself Quilt and Table runner by Phyllis Dobbs for Quilting Treasures

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.

Halloween fabric Trick or Treat

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.

Schoolhouse Quilt Market Bee Yourself Tablerunner

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

Schoolhouse Quilt Market Bee Yourself Placemat

A placemat uses 2 blocks.

Schoolhouse Pillowcase Hide and Seek with Buddy Dinosaur Train

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).

Bee Yourself projects at Quilt Market

 

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.

June Tailor Creative Covers at Quilt Market

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.

June Tailor Centering Cutting Ruler at Quilt Market

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.

Gutermann Recycled Polyester thread at Houston Quilt Market

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.

Expo International booth at Houston Quilt Market

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!

Letters to Santa Christmas fabric by J Wecker Frisch for Quilting Treasures

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

Cat Fabric Giveaway – And the Winner is…

The winner of the Meow Meow cat fabrics is Mary Snyder of York PA.! Congratulations Mary!  I put a number representing each of the comments left and let some trick or treat-ers draw the number. The number 4 was drawn representing the 4th comment, which was left by Mary.

Trick or treaters drawing for cat fabric giveaway

The drawing was performed by a couple of Romans in toga costumes. Their costumes were wonderful and I appreciate their help with the drawing.

I also appreciate all the comments left and really enjoyed reading all the cat stories. Some of you had very interesting names for your cats. We all agree that cats are delightful and funny and that they add so much love and warmth to our lives.

Have a catty day!

Phyllis

Meow – Cat Fabric Giveaway for Halloween!

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.

My black kitty Phyllis Dobbs

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”.

Meow Cat Fabrics Phyllis Dobbs

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

New “Bee Yourself” Fabrics are the Buzz!

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.

Bee Yourself Fabric Blocks Phyllis Dobbs

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.

Bee yourself fabric collection Phyllis Dobbs Quilting Treasures

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.

Schoolhouse Houston Quilt Market

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

 

Keeping Busy with Fabrics

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 design fabric Phyllis Dobbs VIP

“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.

Coffee Cups, Bird Patch, Texting Lingo fabrics by Phyllis Dobbs

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

Free Quilt Pattern for a Happy Birthday Banner

Its been fun designing and sewing with my new Celebrate fabrics from Quilting Treasures.  I have created this free sewing and quilt pattern (quilting optional) that you can use for sewing a Happy Birthday banner. The banner is 25″ x 35 1/2″ and can be hung on a wall, in a doorway or for a multitude of other uses.  Use it year after year for birthday celebrations. The colors of my Celebrate fabrics are bright and cheerful to add to the festivity and use birthday cakes and cupcakes for design motifs.

Free Pattern for Happy Birthday banner by Phyllis Dobbs

Click away to the download page for the quilt birthday banner free pattern.

The fabrics are available through independent quilt shop and stores. While the weather is so hot, its perfect for staying inside and working on new sewing or quilt projects. Other free quilt and sewing patterns created for the Celebrate fabric collection can be found on Quilting Treasures website for download.

Stay cool and keep sewing and quilting!

Phyllis

 

A Favorite Part of my Job….Fabrics!

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.

Celebrate fabrics by Phyllis Dobbs

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

Say “Happy Birthday” with “Celebrate” fabrics and Free Patterns!

My new fabric collection “Celebrate” from Quilting Treasures is out!  Yea! I’m so excited! The bright colors and cakes and cupcakes are perfect for boys and girls of all ages through at least 120 for birthdays celebrations. I loved playing with the fabrics and designing these free quilt and sewing patterns for you to use! After a previous sneak peek, here is the entire “Celebrate” collection –

Celebrate fabrics for birthdays and other celebrations

The project sheets for a quilted table topper, placemat, large gift bag and a happy birthday banner are available for free pattern download from Quilting Treasures’ website. Just scroll down and you will easily see them with their bright colors.

The quilted table topper measures 48″ x 48″ and will add a festive accent for birthday celebrations. All you need is a real cake for a perfect centerpiece! And of course, a pile of presents!

Celebrate Happy Birthday Table topper quilt free pattern

Another way to add a splash for a special birthday is with a placemat, sized 18 1/2″ x 13″. The yellow fabric on the right is a pocket to hold silverware or even better, a surprise gift or candy. The old saying is that a small present holds the best gift, like maybe a key to a car!

Celebrate Happy Birthday Placemat with pocket

And for a larger gifts, you can make this large gift bag with a drawstring opening. Think of all the gifts this bag will hold. Its 30″ high and 20″ wide.

Celebrate large fabric toy gift bag

And nothing announces a birthday better or makes someone feel more special than a banner. This Happy Birthday banner is 28″ wide and 35 1/2″ tall, with red triangle points at the bottom edge.

Happy Birthday banner made with Celebrate fabrics

Enjoy these fun projects and give them a try to use for many years of birthday celebrations. If you have a hard time choosing which one to make, make them all. They are easy to make. And I would love to see your finished projects!!

I have also designed another project, a small banner that I created for display at the Spring Quilt Market. I just have to finish writing the instructions and then I will post it here for another free pattern.

And while you are thinking of that perfect birthday event, please check out all the products I created in my Zazzle store using the “Celebrate” art to coordinate with the fabrics. I’m adding more products daily.

Have a fun day of quilting and sewing. And Happy Birthday to you on your special day!

Phyllis

The In’s and Out’s of Designing and Licensing!

Do  you want to know more about the in’s and out’s of either designing or licensing?  I was delighted to be interviewed by Monica Lee in her video series Smart Creative Women. In the interview, I discussed my career of over 25 years. I talk about some of the many, many things that I learned over the years in the business of designing and licensing. And it has been a very rewarding career, especially from the view of doing something that I really love and in getting to be creative on a daily basis.

I hope that you will check it out.  But warning, you need to understand the “southern” way of talking! Thank you to Monica for the interview!

Phyllis