Sometimes I just have to play

I spent some time with Stefanie at Charming Lulu a few days ago. I was there to buy one of those cool mechanical chalk pencils with all of the colors for Alice. (affiliate link) As we talked I shared with her some of my ideas for fabrics, and she got a big smile on her face. Showing me one of the big fabric companies catalogs, we agreed great minds think alike. When I put my houndstooth quilt pattern out 4 years ago, I was wishing for more houndstooth fabric - It is coming, big time. Still no one is imagining it as sparkly as Kim at Persimmon Dreams made hers from my pattern with a rainbow of hand dyed fabrics. My dream incorporates prints too. I just wanted to put this out there now, today The 29th of June 2014. It is my idea to put ditsy prints in a houndstooth. I am not going to patent it or anything, but if a fabric company wanted to talk, I am here. This shows the new scale for the pillow top quilt compared to the original from 2010. Also, if you already have the houndstooth quilt pattern from me, I will get an email list together and contact you all to share a slightly easier way to cut it that has no waste, as well as the new sizes to use if you want the pillow top size. The ditsy fabric I used here is from Jeni Baker's new line called Dreamin Vintage. It has a Liberty of London feel to it and Art Gallery Fabrics are so soft, you will become addicted to them.

Anna Maria Horner

Anna Maria Horner, me, and Carrie Jarvis, owner of The Top Stitch. Last Friday, I had the very special opportunity to meet and hear from Anna Maria Horner. She is a lovely person, an artist, and a fabric designer. A few things I have made with her fabrics:

Listening to Anna Maria talk about her career path was encouraging for me. She still does pretty much everything herself. She does not have the staff I imagined. She does have one full time assistant. So now when I dream of being more productive, I can envision starting with just one person. Makes the dream much closer. She does the computer part of her design work on Gimp. (I am so glad someone asked her the question.) I have been reluctant to spend the money on Photoshop, but now I have a free alternative with Gimp. I have only just started playing with it, but it seems a lot like photoshop. If it is powerful enough for Anna Maria Horner, I know it can do everything I need too. It was such a treat to meet one of my design heros. Her upcoming book is going to be amazing. Here is Anna Maria's blog.

Kids Fabric Design Contest

I read about the Spoonflower kids contest just in time to mention it to Gabrielle. She drew a few rough sketches of designs. Some featuring squirrels and the things they like - trees and nuts. Some stripes and geometric designs. She was asking me which idea would make a good fabric design. I suggested she just draw and color something she really loved to draw like she was making a picture for a friend. After that, we could figure out how to turn it into a fabric. I love what she did. You know I am going to order her flower in the field fabric. If you click on the contest to see all of the great kids entries, keep your mouse hovering around the green arrow to get the photos to show up. You can vote for as many as you like. Seeing kids designs reminds me to keep having fun and make what I love.

Sweetheart Valentine Banner Tutorial

There is a very exciting announcement and preview at the end of this post, so scroll to skip to that if you don't want to read the step by step. I think this Sweetheart Valentine Banner is simple enough for you to duplicate without illustrations on the step by step tutorial that follows. I just ask that you link to this post if you want to share the instructions. Also, if you want to make them for sale, go ahead and give me credit for the idea. If you have never purchased one of my patterns, just know that the instructions here are representative of how I explain things, but my patterns for purchase include pattern pieces and loads of illustrations and extra notes on tools and materials. Here is the how to:
Materials list (makes 112 flags for 16 yards of banner)
2 yards Décor bond interfacing—A heavy weight, fusible interfacing
1/4 yard each Pastel cotton fabrics—I used pink, yellow, green and purple
1&1/8 yard Pink cotton duck fabric
16 yards 1/2” heavy cotton twill tape plus 1/3 yard for every separate banner. If you are making 16 one yard banners, you need 5 & 1/3 more yards of the twill tape for tails. If you are making 2 eight yard banners, you need another 2/3 yard.
3 or 4 sheets of iron-on light T-shirt transfer for ink jet printers
Instructions:
Step 1:
Print backwards words onto the transfer paper. If you want to make your own sheet of words, either make the sheet backwards, and print normally as I have done, or make the sheet forward and tell your printer to print a mirror image. The font I used is Arial Rounded MT Bold. The font size varies between 30 and 36. These need to dry for at least 1/2 hour before you use them. Make the words red.
Step 2:
While the transfer paper is drying, make your paper heart pattern pieces. To make your own heart pattern, mark a 3” square in the corner of a sheet of paper. Fold the paper in half, then in thirds, keeping the 3” square visible. Fold the 3” square in half and cut 1/2 of a heart on the fold through all layers. Take up as much of the 3” square as you can with the heart. When you open this up, you will have 6 identical 3” heart pattern pieces.
Step 3:
Following manufacturers instructions, adhere décor bond interfacing to the pastel fabrics to make them stiff. This makes cutting the heart shapes much easier.
Step 4:
Pin heart pattern onto pastel fabrics and cut out heart shapes. I layer the fabrics and cut through 2 fabrics at a time.
Step 5:
Following manufacturers instructions, iron the words onto the hearts. If you ever wanted an excuse to buy one of those mini irons, here it is.
Step 6:
Cut the light pink duck fabric into rectangular background flags. The size of the flag is 4.12” wide by 4.5” long.
Step 7:
Stitch each heart onto a background flag. Use thread that matches the background fabric or the hearts. Use either a small zig-zag stitch or a blanket stitch.
Step 8:
Stitch flags onto the twill tape. Leave a 6” tail on either end and leave 1.25” between each flag. This will produce banners that have 7 flags per yard. These flags are fun to make and customize for different people and occasions.

Here is the exciting announcement part: As I was making these Sweetheart Valentine Banners, I was wishing I had a pre-printed fabric with the hearts and words. I could do away with the need for a pattern piece. I could do away with the tedium of cutting out and transferring words onto the hearts. Hummm. So, after telling several people including my husband that I was not really interested in designing fabric...I designed my first fabric. I ordered a yard of it last night. As soon as I see it in person and verify that it is just what I wanted, I will make it available for order. This is a preview of what you would see on a fat quarter of fabric. The full yard has 125 hearts with 25 different phrases and the 5 basic colors you see here. It will be $18 per yard at Spoonflower, which is pretty cool since a yard of fabric will make 17+ yards of banner.

Teach your girls to quilt

Houndstooth Quilt 1
Originally uploaded by KimsCraftyApple

No offence, gentlemen. A couple of things have come together in my mind as this week has unfolded. The first part was getting a message from Laurie Wisbrun asking me if she could use photos of the reading glasses case she just bought from me in her upcoming book. YES. Laurie is the fabric designer also known as ScarletFig. I have loved her work via Spoonflower for a while now. The second part has been evolving as I have been working on some quilting projects this week. It's the idea that when we cut up fabrics and stitch them together again, we are designing a new fabric. That idea really hit home last night when I got the email with the link to this quilt top pieced from my houndstooth quilt pattern. Kim used hand dyed fabrics and so many colors, the quilt just twinkles! I never would have thought of a colorful houndstooth, but Kim did. I think this is a brilliant fabric design. Excellent work, Kim. Thanks so much for sharing. I think when we teach our girls how to quilt, we are opening up all kinds of design possibilities for them. I've said this before too - quilting will improve your other sewing. Find a local quilting class, like this one at Buttercuppity, and sign her up!