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CHA (Craft and Hobby Association) trade show with some of my favorite highlights.

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I can’t believe it is already February.  January was an extremely busy month with me in overdrive preparing for and exhibiting in two License and Design shows.  The first was in Atlanta at the Gift Market where I had a combined booth with 5 other artists under the name of Atlanta Art Licensing. The second exhibit was in Anaheim at the CHA (Craft and Hobby Association) trade show where I shared a booth with my good friend, the talented Brenda Pinnick. At CHA, I also exhibited in the Designer Showcase which had a fantastic viewing by manufacturers, editors and publishers looking for new designs.   Now both shows are behind me but I have tons of following up to do and am excited with the contacts I made.

The good news from both shows, while the attendance was down, the mood was pretty upbeat.  While being cautious in buying, the buyers that were there were buying.  The vendors that I heard about were pleased with their sales. 

There was an abundance of new products at the shows so store shelves will have new items to entice you.  Colors remain bright to reflect optimism, with yellow (Mimosa) being the hot new color.  Think warmth and sunshine and to bright days ahead.

At CHA, Leatrice Eiseman, Director of the Pantone Color Institute gave a seminar on color trends that was outstanding.  For you color junkies, she has a blog http://www.eisemancolorblog.com/ that I recommend you put in your favorites.

Scrapblog sponsored a fun event that I attended.  There, I had the pleasure of meeting and talking with Drew Emborsky, The Crochet Dude and Steve Piacenza of the DIY Network’s Creative Juice.

Deborah Norvillewas the Keynote Speaker at CHA and gave one of the best and most inspirational talks that I’ve heard.  She has been a crafter her entire life and focused on knitting and sewing.  It was a delight to hear that she sewed all her bridemaids’ dresses as well as her on-air clothes when she started in television. 

Since I was exhibiting, I did not get a chance to get out of my booth much to walk the show and to check out  new products. And I missed several seminars I had planned to attend.  But I did get to catch up with a lot of friends, as well as meet face-to-face new twitter and facebook friends.

Now back to my desk and drawing table — which are piled high and a scary sight!

Phyllis

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A new year, new quilts, and new fabrics.

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I want to wish you each a very Happy New Year, a magical one filled with love and laughts!

December was filled not only with  holiday festivities and travel, but also with work, especially work.  In addition to working on new art images for 2 art licensing events that I am exhibiting in January (Atlanta Gift Market and the Craft and Hobby Association)  I finished 2 quilts, one for a magazine and another with my NEW dog fabrics, Its a Dog’s Life for Quilting Treasures.  This quilt is for their booth at the Spring Quilt Market and will also be on their website as a project sheet.  I plan to take photos of my new fabric this week and will post them. But I am giving you a sneak peak, with an image “Group Photo” compiled of the 10 dogs  in the fabrics.

Dog Group Photo

I’m still reflecting back on what I accomplished in 2008 and what I hope to accomplish in 2009.  The first day of the new year always inspires a fresh start and lofty goals.

May all your goals be attainable,

Phyllis

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International Quilt Market – all the fun is not inside!

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The weather was beautiful during the International Quilt Market in Houston so if felt good to walk through the new Discovery Green Park across the street from the George Brown Convention Center.

As I walked through the park on Sunday, I saw the funkiest golf cart.  It has been created by a high school for an entry into a motorized parade and then donated to the park. Decorated with dragons, sequins and pearls, it was a crowd stopper!

After a invigorating trip to Quilt Market and then a couple other trips, I’m back home creating new art.  My new fabrics, Its a Dog’s Life will be released soon.  I am waiting some samples so that I can start sewing with it and give you a free pattern!

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Exciting quilt exhibits plus a gorgeous dress from International Quilt Market

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When walking International Quilt market, there is so much eye candy to grab my attention.  This dress in the booth of Coats and Clark really jumped out at me just from the sheer beauty.  (My picture doesn’t do it justice). This dress is befitting the dreams of a fairy princess!

The dress was an award winner in the Bernina Fashion show last year.  The fabric was all sheer and machine emellished with Coats Dual Duty XP threads which you can see in the detail closeup.

In addition, crystals were added in the back.  The construction of the skirt was really unique with  streamers of fabric sewed at the waist, with the edges slightly overlapping and sewn around the bodice in several layers.

Below are more wonderful quilts from the quilt exhibits.  (If you missed my earlier post with some quilts, check back a couple of posts to view them.)

Cynthia St. Charles from Montana designed this quilt of a Village.  I love the colors!

Another fabulous quilt with wonderful colors, this one was designed by Carol Taylor of NY.

Pat Watson of Victoria, BC Canada designed this quilt.

This quilt by Katie Williams of Colorado was an award winner.

All of the quilts above have such wonderful colors.  These were just a sampling of the quilts exhibited at International Quilt Market and they all were wonderful.

I  have one more article I want to post from Quilt Market – but its something fun, unique and whimsical that I saw outside the market in the park

The quilt designs are copyrighted by the quilt designers.  The photo’s are copyrighted and cannot be used without the permission of Phyllis Dobbs.

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Superwomen and booths at International Quilt Market

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I have some special treats from International Quilt Market.  Although it was close to Halloween, these treats are not the “trick or treat” kind.  They are simply treats to enjoy! 

I visited with my friend, Anna Marie Horner, who designs fabrics for Free Spirit.  Anna had some exciting news.  She is expecting a new little one.  And while she was at Quilt Market, she received more exciting news.  Her booth won “best booth” for the 2nd time in a row. Gee, Anna, you are really a superwoman!

Gina Halladay is the owner of Threaded Pear, a pattern company and is in her beautiful booth.  In addition, she is the author of the fabulous blog, Quilter’s Buzz.  Gina also had some good news.  She has purchased a quilt shop, so in addition to her blog, a machine quilting dealership and pattern company, she will have a retail shop. I think Gina qualifies as another superwoman.

And in addition to old friends, I met up with a new friend who I met through Twitter.  Lani Padilla owns thequiltshope.net, an online quilt shop.  Its fun to meet a Twitter friend in person! (along with her hubby, Sam!)

While walking the show, I saw the most beautiful flowers – the large fabric flowers that were across the top front of the booth of Daisy & Dell. The flowers were a really  neat display.  Daisy & Dell is a pattern company from Cypress, TX owed by Pat Bruce.  I love flowers and the fact that these were fabric instead of real, means that they live forever.

Although I don’t have pictures, it was fabulous to spend time with my wonderful friends, Brenda Pinnick and Vicky Schreiner.  Spending time with friends makes the shows even more special.

I still have more to show from Quilt Market – check backfor more gorgeous exhibit quilts.

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Gorgeous Quilts on exhibit at Houston International Quilt Market

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The International Quilt Market and Quilt Festival in Houston always has a huge exhibit of exciting quilts made all over the world for various quilt challenges and exhibits.  I took bunches of pictures and want to show you a some of my many favorites, starting with a few today.

This is a gorgeous quilt of pumpkins by Lauren Strach.  I loved the color and the whimsy of it.

Bodil Gardner from Demark created this whimsical quilt.  The women are a delight!

This quilt by David Taylor of Steamboat Springs, CO, was simply amazing. I just had to show you the detail involved with the piecing and tight quilting.  And what a twinkle in the chick’s eye!

Patricia R. Charity from California created this gorgeous quilt of a vinyard.  The bottom edge with tassels added to its charm.

This quilt by Linda Beach of Ketchikan, Alaska caught my eye and brought back wonderful memories.  I was on an Alaskan cruise in May and visited Ketchikan.

I still have lots more to show you from Quilt Market so please check back!

The copyright to these unique and special quilts belong to the individual quilt designers.  The photos are copyrighted and cannot be used without permission of Phyllis Dobbs.

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Jay McCarroll, Project Runway winner, debuts new fabric line at Quilt Market

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Jay McCarroll, the winner of the first season of Project Runway was at Quilt Market with two new collections of fabrics with Free Spirit.  And I had the delight of meeting Jay as well as have my picture taken with him.

I read more on the internet about Jay.  As a winner of Project Runway, he was awarded $100,000 but turned it down.  At the time, their contract said that they would own a percentage of all his professional ventures in perpetuality.  Wow, what a clause! It had to have taken a lot of courage to turn down the money and I admire him for it. (Project Runway no longer has this clause, thank goodness.)

Please check back as I have much more to show from Quilt Market as well as information on my newest fabric collection – coming soon – Its a Dog’s Life!

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“Quilt-opoly” and embroidered quilt blocks

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Quiltopoly Board Game

Quiltopoly Board Game

If you are a quilter or sewer, you will love the new “Quilt-opoly” board game from The DMC Corporation that debuted at International Quilt Market.  Its like Monopoly, (which by the way,  I’ve always loved to play) but features quilts and quilting.  The properties are all quilt blocks with escalating degrees of complexity.

Quilt-opoly board game for quilt lovers

Quilt-opoly board game for quilt lovers

I have a special love for “Quilt-opoly” – I designed the graphics for it, including the quilt block properties, the the actual quilt stitching properties shown in the center of each row, as well as some of the sayings on the cards.  It was a fun project to work on and I just love the way it turned out. And I can’t wait to play!

In addition to “Quilt-opoly”, I designed and created the quilt blocks in DMC’s booth featuring their fibers and threads for quilting.  I really loved working with the various textures represented in the various fibers of their product line.

Log Cabin Quilt Block

Log Cabin Quilt Block

Sunflower Quilt Block

Sunflower Quilt Block

Diamond In Block

Diamond In Block

Butterfly Block designed by Phyllis Dobbs for The DMC Corp.

Butterfly Quilt Block

As a special note, I want to say that The DMC Corporation is not going bankrupt or out of business.  Since I have worked with DMC a lot over the past several years, I occasionally get asked this question.  DMC-US is a separate entity and is doing just fine.  They have sold their other divisions and are concentrating on the fibers only and are doing extremely well, I’m happy to say!

Tomorrow, I will write about another “celebrity” that I met at Quilt Market as well as show come of the many gorgeous quilts that I saw there.  So, please check back!

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Houston Quilt Market – Personal appearance by Marie Osmond

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International Quilt Market is always such fun in additional to being such a beautiful show with all the colors of fabrics and quilts everywhere.  I have lots of photos and information to share with you from my recent trip to Houston for  Quilt Market and will be blogging all week with details.

Quilting Treasures, the fabric company that my fabric designs are with, also produces Marie Osmond’s fabrics.  I was asked to design a quilt with Marie’s new fabric line “Gypsy Breeze” for Quilting Treasures’ booth at Quilt Market. When I saw the fabrics, I knew I would love designing this quilt, especially with the blue, aqua, green and purple colors. (the colors are a little distorted in the right side of the photo by the show lighting).

Marie Osmond

Marie Osmond

Marie attended Quilt Market and spent time in Quilting Treasures booth meeting attendees.  I met and talked with her about the quilt.  She was very complimentary and pointed out her favorite parts of the quilt as well as posing for a photo with a hug!

Marie with Donna McKinney from Quilting Treasures modeled aprons made with other fabric collections of Marie”s.  Julie Johnson, editor of Sewing Savvy magazine, center in the photo, brought the 2 aprons made with Marie’s fabrics that will be in the book The Best Apron Book Ever.   (An apron that I designed will also be in this book and I designed another apron with some of Marie’s fabrics that will appear in the book Sew Special Fat Quarter Gifts.)  Both books are being edited by Julie.

It was an absolute delight meeting Marie! And she is a quilter as well.  She brought a quilt with her that she had just made before Quilt Market, but unfortunately, I didn’t get a picture of it.

Check back tomorrow for another Quilt Market post with an exciting and fun new product!

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The Women’s Museum hosting exhibit “Partisan Pieces: Quilts of Political & Patriotic Persuasion”

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Partisan Pieces: Quilts of Political & Patriotic Persuasion
The Women’s Museum: An Institute for the Future, Dallas, TX
November 6, 2008 – March 29, 2009

Opening Reception – Thursday, November 6, time 6 PM – 8 PM.  The reception is free and will feature several speeches about the exhibit.  RSVP for the reception –  rsvp@thewomensmuseum.org

Beginning early November, The Women’s Museum: An Institute for the Future in Dallas, Texas, will host an exhibit entitled Partisan Pieces: Quilts of Political & Patriotic Persuasion as part of the city-wide Quiltmania II.  Curated by the International Quilt Study Center, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the exhibit features 15 quilts illustrating 19th and 20th century political life from the perspective, and from the needles, of well informed and patriotic American women.  In the days before women’s suffrage, these quilts served as women’s voices. The Women’s Museum is the only national women’s history museum in the nation and is an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution.

Come visit us and read between the stitches to discover the political experiences of these incredible women!  For more information, visit www.thewomensmuseum.org.

The Women’s Museum: An Institute for the Future
3800 Parry Avenue, Fair Park
Dallas, TX 75226
214-915-0860
Hours: Tuesday through Sunday, noon to 5 p.m. (closed Mondays and most major holidays)
Admission: $5/adults, $4 senior citizens/children 13-18, $3 children 5-12, admission is free for children under 5 and museum members.

Quilt Mania II, the largest collaborative exhibition of quilts, is planned September 26, 2008-April 1, 2009 at 18 Dallas area cultural institutions. More than 300 quilts, from all over the world, will be exhibited during the six month event. Each institution will feature works based on their mission and all the quilts will be compared and contrasted across the exhibitions.