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.
Happy quilting, or woof, woof!
Phyllis
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.
Thanks for visiting!
Phyllis
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.
Oh well, wish me luck!
Phyllis
I have been busy preparing for International Quilt Market next week. The Spring Quilt Market is open to the trade only and is being held in Pittsburgh – a city I love to visit. And, my new fabric collection is debuting there. After designing fabrics for kitties and cats, I had to show the love that I feel for dogs as well and designed Its a Dog’s Life for Quilting Treasures. My cutting table is piled with the fabrics for the projects that I’m sewing for Quilt Market. 
I will have a free pattern or two to post after Quilt Market. I’m sewing an apron and a quilted tote bag as well as a badge holder.
If you are attending Quilt Market, I want to invite you to attend my Schoolhouse session, “Using Trends to Boost your Sales”. on Thursday, May 14 at 3:35 pm. I would love to meet you.
OK, back to sewing – I have to get these finished!
I’m excited that my next fabric collection, It’s a Dog’s Life for Quilting Treasures is debuting at Spring Quilt Market in Pittsburgh starting May 14. A quilt that I designed with these fabrics will be in the Quilting Treasures booth and the pattern will be posted to their website for downloading after Market.
It’s A Dog’s Life features dog bone, dog lingo, paw prints, and activity dogs fabrics. Also, as friends of the dogs, two bird fabrics are featured. The blocks feature 10 dogs in various activities – cooking, exercising, shopping, gardening, and many more.
The collection can be viewed on Quilting Treasures website or on my website.
Woof, woof! (And if you are attending Quilt Market, I invite you to attend my Schoolhouse session “Using Trends to Boost Your Sales” on Thursday, May 14, the day before the show opens – I would love to meet you).
Sandy Laipply, the editor of the Paper Crafts Site of the online magazine Bellaonline used Meow Meow cat fabrics from Quilting Treasures to make 2 adorable greeting cards. The photo is the inside one of the cards – a birthday card.. Sandy furnishes instructions for making both cards on the website so be sure to check it out.
Bellaonline is an online magazine for women and covers a huge variety of topics.
Some additional information about Sandy – her son, Judson Laipply, is the YouTube mega, mega hit, Evolution of Dance and Evolution of Dance 2.
Thanks a bunch, Sandy, for making such cute cards using Meow Meow!
Are you feeling a little catty? I just finished this easy-to-make and fun-to-wear apron using the Meow Meow cat fabric collection that I designed for Quilting Treasures. This free pattern is for you to use and enjoy.
I’ve also given instructions on how you can adjust the size of the apron pattern. Sewing the apron is so easy, you can sew it then wear it in a couple of hours. If you want to purchase any of the Meow Meow cat fabrics, check out these links for online stores. Click for a link to download the insructions.
Enjoy and I would love to see what you make!
I was very excited to see the final art for my next fabric collection with Quilting Treasures. Everything was perfect and the colors turned out just like I wanted so I was able to give my approval for each fabric in the collection. I can’t tell you much about the fabrics yet, but I’ve included a small, tiny sneak peak! And they will be a nice compliment to my Meow Meow cat fabric collection.
International Quilt Market is always a beautiful trade show, full of eye candy with all the beautiful colors of quilts and fabrics. It was an exciting event for me as Meow, Meow, my new cat fabric collection debuted with Quilting Treasures.
I also created several projects for Quilting Treasures’ booth using Meow Meow. I’m in the center with Donna (left) and Jodi (right) from Quilting Treasures. The two quilted projects shown in front are a Meow Meow Cat Carrier (with a fluffy white “stuffed” cat), and a Meow Meow Table Runner. Free instructions for making the table runner as well as a quilt will be on the Quilting Treasures website for downloading soon. I will post a link when it it up.
Two other quilted projects that I designed with Meow Meow cat fabrics are a Chair Back Cover and a Tote Bag.
Quilt Market was held in Portland, OR in mid-May, during an unexpected heatwave with temperatures in the 90’s. Since I live in the South with high temperatures, I was looking forward to the cooler days in Portland. Oh well, at least it didn’t rain.
Portland was really beautiful with all the flowers blooming. Even though Portland is known for roses, I think it should be noted for rhododendrons as they were huge and blooming everywhere. They were gorgeous and gave additional eye candy for Quilt Market.
After Quilt Market as I took a vacation to Seattle and an Alaskan cruise. Please check back for lots more from Quilt Market as well as some photos of unbelievable scenic views from Alaska and Mt Ranier.
I’ve worked up a couple of projects with my new “Meow Meow” cat fabric that I designed for for Quilting Treasures.
I will carry these with me to Quilt Market to use during the show to show how the fabrics work up in sewing and quilting projects.
The badge holder and tote bag will also be quite useful as well to keep up with my “stuff” during the show.
I will be in Quiiting Treasures’ booth Saturday afternoon 2-4 pm to meet attendees. There will also be other quilt and sewing models in their booth featuring “Meow Meow”. So for those of you attending Quilt Market (open to the trade only), please stop in. I would love to meet you.
SHOWCASE YOUR ART ON PRODUCTS! 105 Photoshop and Illustrator templates.
UNIQUE ART BUSINESS CONFERENCE - Learn more to expand your art business and network with other artists. The 8th annual ArtBizJam conference will be held virtually 2020 with live sessions with product developers Sept 23-26 and other sessions available for viewing at your own time on a variety of topics. The live sessions will have a lineup of experienced speakers for product development from top gift and home companies. For more details, please visit the ArtBizJam website and join the ArtBizJam Facebook Group
