Redux – Sew a Christmas Apron

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 apron pattern to wear for Christmas cooking and entertaining. Designed for an earlier post here on my blog, I wanted to share the apron pattern  again. Its so easy to make, even for a beginner, and can be made in a couple of hours from your fabric stash.

Free Christmas Apron Pattern

This apron pattern and others are available in Etsy WhimsyColor.

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

More from Houston Quilt Market – Quilt Works of Art

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 Quilt by Louisa L. Smith at Houston Quilt Market

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 Quilt by Charlotte Noll at Houston Quilt Market

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 Quilt by Laura Steiniger at Houston Quilt Market

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 Quilt by Ellen Yamaguchi at Houston Quilt Market

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.

 

Twelve by Twelve Pink Colorplay Quilt at Houston Quilt Market

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 Quilt by Bonnie Ouellette at Houston Quilt Market

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

 

Garden Pool Quilt by Sandra Marietta at Houston Quilt Market

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 quilt by Barb Forrister at Houston Quilt Market

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

 

Saturday Market Delectables quilt at Houston Quilt Market

 

Saturday Market Delectables quilt closeup

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 Quilt by Soon-Joong Kim at Houston Quilt Market

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 Quilt by Linda R Guild at Houston Quilt Market

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 Quilt at Houston Quilt Market

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.

Quilt exhibits at Houston Quilt Market

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

Phyllis

International Quilt Market, More Products and Beautiful Colors (Part 2)

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.

Dress embroidered by Pfaff sewing machine at Houston Quilt Market

 

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.

Fimo Polymer Clay vases at Quilt Market

and these fabulous teapots…

Fimo Polymer clay teapots at Quilt Market in Houston

 

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.

Simon Kabuki fabric line In the Meadow at Quilt Market

 

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).

Studio 8 fabric by Quilting Treasures at Quilt Market

 

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

Phantom fabric by Quilting Treasures based on Phantom of the Opera

 

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.

Give thanks fabric by Angela Anderson for Quilting Treasures

 

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!

Expo Internation colorful trims at Quilt Market

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

Feather trim by Expo International at Quilt Market

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

Halloween applique trim by Expo International at Quilt Market

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.

Debi Schmitz at Quilt Market

 

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.

Red MG car in Michael Miller Booth at Quilt Market

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

Michael Miller Sandi Henderson booth at Quilt Market

 

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.

 

Kaleidoscope Kreator Software at Quilt Market

 

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

Sue Zipkin new fabric at Quilt Market

 

 

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.

 

June Tailor quilting tools booth at Quilt Market

A closeup of the fleece  flowers….

June Tailor fleece flowers at Quilt Market

 

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.

 

Tina Givens booth at Quilt Market

Tina Givens booth at Houston Quilt Market

 

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.

Kunin Felt new patterns at Quilt Market

You can create such cute critters with felt.

Kunin Felt display at Quilt Market

 

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!!

Prym Dritz booth at Quilt Market

 

 

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.

La Todera sewing patterns at Quilt Market

and aren’t these trees adorable for sewing!

LaTodera sewing and craft patterns at Houston Quilt Market

 

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.

View of downtown Houston from the Hilton

 

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

Interview by BluPenny for Sketchbook Story

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.BluPenny Blog
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

Log Cabin Bed Runner Quilt in a New Book!

I love getting new books, especially quilt books and especially if it contains one of my quilt designs.  I just received a copy of Log Cabins Today by House of White Birches. I designed this scrappy bed runner quilt for the book using the beautiful fabrics by Brenda Pinnick from herColour Vie fabric collection for Henry Glass & Co Fabrics. I love the way the fabrics worked up in this quilt. Log cabin blocks are easy to make and are so versatile since they can be made in a variety of combinations.

 

Log Cabin Bed Runner Quilt Phyllis Dobbs

 

 

Log Cabins Today is a fresh take on the popular log cabin design, with fresh, modern, contemporary, wonky and traditional designs all included. Instructions are included to make all of the beautiful quilts.

Log Cabins Today by House of White Birches

I hope you will watch for this book! Happy quilting!

Phyllis

Creative Inspiration – Be Inspired!

What is “inspiration”?  As a noun, it is the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative. The Thesaurus lists similiar words: example, muse, motivation, encouragement, influence, stimulus and catalyst.

Artists, designers, and anyone creating something derive inspiration from numerous sources. We use it to influence what we create with our own interpretation – it sparks a creative impulse that goes through a thought process in our minds and souls to create something unique.  I especially like the word “catalyst” because what we see that inspires us is just the beginning.  Our end result is totally different and uniquely ours. It doesn’t matter what we create and it doesn’t have to be a “Mona Lisa”, its ours!

I’m participating in a blog hop “Be Inspired”, the wonderful idea of Brenda Pinnick. Check out the artists listed below to see their inspirations. The purpose of the hop is to illustrate how to create using inspiration instead of copying someone elses work.

My inspiration is based on something I saw in my brother Nick and sister-in-law Lyn’s kitchen.  Lyn loves black spotted cows and has collected many different ones.  While I was visiting a few years ago, I saw this cow catching a Frisbee.Black spotted cow frisbee

It triggered a new idea for me and I painted a collection of animal ballerinas, starting with a black spotted cow ballerina and added a frog and cat. Cow ballerina

It was then licensed for a fabric collection with Cranston Printworks in both this aqua color and in a pink color collection.Ballerina fabric

Be original in what you create based on inspiration. Don’t copy (verb meaning to imitate or reproduce rather than creating something original). And when you create something original, you are protected by the copyright laws, rather than being a copyright infringer from copying what someone else has created.

Please check out these artists’ blog for their wonderful inspirations.

Joanne Sharpe

Beth Parker

Sue Zipkin

Brenda Pinnick

Aaron Christensen

Sharyn Sowell

Chris Chun

Vickie Singleton

Monica Lee

Molly Smith

Shelly Kennedy

Jen Goode

Jane Maday

Robin Pickens

And please – be inspired to be original!

Phyllis

Quilting for Charity

Do you have unwanted fabrics or UFO’s or PIGS?  You can help supply quilts for the opening of the VA Hospital in Las Vegas. They need 300 quilts by the hospital opening. I came across this worthy cause through Barb Johnson, a Facebook friend.

As a special outreach of Quilts 4 Cancer, this group is making quilts for the opening of the new VA hospital. They are all volunteer with no sponsors. They need quilts 50″ x 70″ or larger and are looking for lots of Military and Red, White and Blue but will take ANYTHING in a quilt, top or blocks. They have many volunteers that can sew up your “UFO’s” & “PIGS” as well as use up any unwanted fabrics.

Most of the veterans are men, yet there are some ladies, so they are also looking for quilts for the Lady Veterans.

If anyone wants to donate money (tax deductible), make the checks payable to Q4C and mail to P.O. Box 4702, Pahrump, NV  89041. More information about this event and for mailing supplies can be found on the Quilts 4 Cancer website.

I hope that you are able to help with this worthy cause for our veterans.

Phyllis

Nurse Central Quilt – Free Quilt pattern by Quilting Treasures

Loralie Nurse Central quiltDoesn’t this Nurse Central fabric collection designed by Loralie Designs for Quilting Treasures make a gorgeous quilt!  In addition to designing fabrics for Cranston Printworks (with new lines coming out 2011), I also design some quilt patterns for their free project sheets on their websites.  I designed this quilt using this really fun fabric collection and want to share it with you.

This pattern is available for free download from their Quilting Treasures division. The quilt is pieced in a block layout. Check out all the patterns on their website and you will see that there are many wonderful free quilt patterns for you to enjoy sewing.

Sizzix Triple Play Blog Hop Week 4 – Christmas Journal

Christmas journal

Christmas is such a special time of the year with all the activities and gatherings of family and friends. Keep the memories of your Chistmas holiday each year by journaling in a Christmas journal.

Our 4th week of the Sizzix Triple Play blog hop is the Frame and Frame back die by Eileen Hull. There are so many uses for this die, especially this time of the year for Christmas photos.  I chose to use it to create and decorate a Christmas journal.

To make the journal, you will need the following materials:

Frame and Frame Back, 3D Pro Scoreboards Die #656835 by Eileen Hull

Heavy card stock

Journal

Green fabric

Red and green acrylic paints

Adhesive – Zip Dry by Beacon

Instructions:

Cut the fabric 2″ larger than the opened journal on all sides.  Center the journal and fold the fabric edges to the inside the cover, fold the raw edge back and glue. Cut fabric pieces out along the edge of the spine.

Paint the frame pieces solid red, red stripes and red dots.

Paint a Christmas tree or other motif centered on the bottom frame.  Align the frame pieces and glue them together.  Turn the small red frame turned catercorner. Glue the completed frame centered on the journal.

Be sure to hop to the other blogs to see an assortment of outstanding and unique uses for this die.  Just click on the Sizzix button in the sidebar and hop forward to the next blog.

Thanks for visiting and enjoy the hop!

Phyllis

Sizzix Triple Play Blog Hop Week 2 – Spot of Color Twist Box

A Spot of Color Twist BlockWhat a fun project – the twist box created with Sizzix’s die by Karen Burniston can be decorated so many ways.  I decided to create a colorful ornament that would also make a fun addition to a birthday card.

Twist Box created with Sizzix die

This was easy to make with a few embellishment items.

Materials:

Sizzix Twist Cube Die

DCWV black card stock

Large 1 1/4″ button

Assorted multi-color buttons

Rick rack

Rat tail cording – 2 pieces 14″

Beacon Paper Tac glue

Fabric – 1-1/2″ x 24″ strip

Instructions:

1. Cut and make box from black heavyweight paper.

2. Thread one piece of cording through 2 holes on the large button so that the ends of the cords are on the back side of the button. Thread the other piece of cording through the remaining 2 holes. Pull ends so that they are even and insert through hole in the top of the box by 1/2″. Glue the ends to the top inside of the box.

3. Sew a gathering stitch on one long edge of the fabric 1/4″ from edge. Cut to fringe on the opposite side edge. Do not cut through the stitches. Pull gathers to 6″ and tie off.

4. Wrap the gathered edge on the top of the box around the opening with the cords. Glue as you wrap. After the glue dries thoroughly, slide the button down the cording to sit on top of the fringe. Tie an overhand knot with the cord on top of the button.

5. Glue 2 rows of rick rack around the box, 1/2″ from the top and bottom edges. Glue buttons around box.

There are 60 designers participating in this Sizzix Triple Play Blog Hop. Please check out their projects – they were all amazing last week and I know they be amazing again this week. Just click on the Sizzix blog button in the side bar to go back or forward.

Enjoy the hopping! (and check back next week).

Phyllis