A new year, new quilts, and new fabrics.

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

International Quilt Market – all the fun is not inside!

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!

Superwomen and booths at International Quilt Market

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.

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

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!

“Quilt-opoly” and embroidered quilt blocks

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!

Houston Quilt Market – Personal appearance by Marie Osmond

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!

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

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.

Create a pumpkin mini quilt for Halloween

Mini Pumpkin Quilt

Mini Pumpkin Quilt

Sew a pumpkin mini quilt in time for Halloween and use it again for Thanksgiving.  Just 9 1/2″ square, this quilt is quick and easy to make.  Embellishments of yellow star buttons, rick rack, 3 strands of beads and beads sewn on the rick rack trim add to the charm of this quilt. Click for instructions with downloadable pdf.
(c) Phyllis Dobbs.  This pattern and instructions are for your personal use only.  It may not be used for commercial use without written permission of Phyllis Dobbs.

Lincoln 2009 Celebration Quilt “Penny For Your Thoughts” by Leona Harden

One of the nice things that comes from being a designer is hearing from someone who is using  my patterns.  Leona Harden contacted me a few months ago regarding a quilt block pattern that I had designed, “Pieced Eagle”

Leona was working on a quilt for an AQS (American Quilter’s Society) show that was held in Nashville in August.  Leona’s quilt “Penny for Your Thoughts” was juried into the show and was selected along with 9 others for the Lincoln 2009 Celebration to be on display at the Museum of American Quilter’s Society in Padacah, Ky.  The exhibit will run February 7 to April 6, 2009.

Abe Lincoln quilt

Leona did an outstanding job designing the layout of the quilt and combining blocks and techniques. The amazing story behind Leona’s quilt is that she has only been quilting for 2 years.  This is a pretty amazing and complex quilt for anyone to complete.

abe quilt closeup

Leona created her first quilt as a lap quilt for her husband to use during football season.  After that, she was hooked with quilting immediately becoming her passion.  In the past 2 years, Leona has completed 40 quilts.  She devotes 8 hours a day to either quilting or studying quilting.  Living in a remote area of Tennessee, she uses the internet for her instructor.

One of Leona’s other quilts was this beauty that was a 2nd place ribbon winner.

Family Quilt

Leona is a member of the Smoky Mountain Quilter’s Guild as well as the Bit’s n Pieces Guild. I can only imagine the beatiful quilts she will compete in the next 2 years! And if you are in the Paducah area next spring, be sure to visit the Museum and see “Penny for your Thoughts” up close.

Quilt Market in Portland with Meow Meow Cat Fabric Debut

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.

Meow Meow Cat Fabric debut

 

Two other quilted projects that I designed with Meow Meow cat fabrics are a Chair Back Cover and a Tote Bag.

Meow Meow Cat Fabric Projects

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.

Rhododendren at Quilt Market in Portland

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.