Got this great new fabric into the shop.
It's called To Market To Market by Print and Pattern for Robert Kaufman.
Myself, Liz and Lisa are all making napkins out of it.
Liz and Lisa came up with the most wonderful method for doing the corners. We will share that with you over on the Sew Modern blog soon.
And Liz made pot holders!
Get your fabric here!
This quilt was a group effort. Lisa cut it and my employee, Ariga, pieced it and I did the quilting and binding.
The pattern and fabric are both by Monica Solorio Snow of Happy Zombie fame. The pattern is called Taking Turns and is available in the spring issue of Quilts N More. I was more than thrilled when Monica contacted me and asked us if we (Sew Modern) would provide the quilt kit link for the magazine! Monica is hilarious, even in emails, but for an example you should check out her post here.
We chose to use Kona cotton in orange for our quilt. Monica, appropriately used Snow in hers for the magazine.
I quilted it on Harley (our long arm machine at the shop) and did a daisy chain for the first time!
Oh, I just LOVE this fabric from Valorie Wells' Karavan collection. I added borders (art gallery pure elements in Cozumel Blue) to my two favorite prints and used one on the front and one on the back.
I pebble quilted it on the longarm machine at the shop. I quilted all around the circles on the front which gave a lot of texture to the quilt. The circles are puffy!
The binding is Art Gallery Lace Elements in Plum.
I tried wool batting this time and it was really nice to work with and gave a bit of extra loft to the circles, I think.
And my kids do claim this one is warmer than the quilts with cotton batting. Nice on these chilly Los Angeles mornings!
At fall Quilt Market, back in October, Thomas Knauer did a schoolhouse (lecture) about his new fabric line and gave all who attended a pattern called Growth Chart. Isn't it sweet? And so easy. The pattern calls for a differnent back but still utilises the rest of the strips used in the front. You can purchase a PDF download here.
This fabric line is called Pear Tree.
I went with the pink and green colorway for my quilt as you can see and echo quilted around the "chart."
Thomas' next line is called Flock and
I can't wait to get it in the shop in February.
It's really groovy!
I used the Oliver & S Sleepover Pajama pattern for these. I love Liesl's patterns. I learn some new technique with each one and I always love the result.
It was really hard getting these pictures...he just wouldn't stand still!
This fabric isn't out yet, I got it at Quilt Market, but we will have it in the store as soon as Robert Kaufman releases it.
I'm not usually big on character fabric, but The Lorax is a real favorite in our house so I couldn't resist.
Getting into embroidery lately. Here's one I just finished from the book Embroidered Effects by Jenny Hart.
I hung it in the store. You know, in the embroidery section:
And here's a link to an awesome site with embroidery stitch tutorials:
http://www.embroidery.rocksea.org/
Happy Stitching!
Today is being called "Small Business Saturday" and outside of my own self-promoting small business desires, I have a few things to say.
It's true that small business often cannot offer the lowest prices or even the largest selection of goods, but here is what they CAN and most often DO offer.
More personal customer service: Often small business are specialized and the owners and employees feel passionate about what they sell which creates a better shopping experience for their customers. I know from my own experience that I really enjoy helping customers with their selections, their sewing concerns, and even just chatting and catching up about life, our children, etc.
Unique merchandise: Very often you will find things offered by smaller business that you can't get anywhere else. And really, who wants to have exactly the same thing as everyone else?
Special services: Personal shopping, decorating, one on one help with projects relating to their merchandise and a willingness to cater to the particular needs of customers including special orders, shipping, gift wrapping, etc.
Here is a sampling of the small businesses that I support all year long:
YOLK in Silverlake, CA
They have some of the most unique home decor items I've seen anywhere as well as cool toys for kids, handmade and independently designed items,
such as this groovy tray:
Yolk sells some items items in their online shop as well, if you aren't local.
KleanSpa products
I met Jennifer at the Unique L.A. craft fair a few years ago and I have been addicted ever since. Even my husband just asked me for more of the MANproducts I got for him. And my 11 year old daughter wants them for Christmas.
My personal favorite scents are Karma-L-Krunch and Where Angels Go.
The Whipped Sugar Body Scrub is DIVINE!
Wildfiber in Santa Monica
The biggest, most beautiful selection of yarns I've seen in a big bright space with comfy couches for resting and working on your projects.
Ian, Johnny, Lisa and Jackie are hands-down the most competent and knowledgable staff when it comes to all things vacuum and sewing related. I've purchased about 15 machines and 2 vacuums from them over the years and not one of them has given me any real problems. And if they did? I KNOW Tanner's would take care of it at the lowest possible cost to me. I love these guys. You will too.
Who will you support today, this holiday season, and all year long?
This was really fun. I started with some fabric from Riley Blake's Pirates. I used my GO cutter to make the hexagons---so easy! I fused them onto the quilt with Steam a Seam 2 and then hand stitched each one into place with embroidery thread. Then I embroidered the pirate images and stiched the map line.
At that point I thought maybe it was a bit boring, but after I quilted it, I really liked it. Stripey bindings are always a hit for me too. It was just fun to make it all up and incorperate different elements into it than I usually do. I NEVER thought I would be into hand stitching so much, but I'm really digging it.
I made a baby quilt for a friend, using a charm pack of Kate Spain's new line, Terrain for Moda. I actually didn't use all of the prints as some were, frankly, not my cup of tea. Which is odd because so many of the prints in this collection are right up my alley.
I'm often an all or nothing kind of girl so this surprised me! I started by making 1/2 square triangles thinking that I'd mix up all the zigs and zags but when I layed it out I found it much too busy for my eye. So I put it together with the zigs and zags in one print each. Am I making any sense? In the second photo you can probably see what I mean, and that this could have been done using strips of the fabric instead of charm squares and would have looked better that way. Live and learn, I say. It's still pretty cute.
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