A snow day is a sew day

Life has a way of giving you an intermission. In Georgia, it comes in the form of a snow day. The kids were out of school today and will be out tomorrow, too. We measured seven inches. I like the unexpected break, but I'm hoping things will start returning to normal on Wednesday.



I took advantage of the day and finished a UFO. This wasn't my UFO, but one that belonged to my husband, Duane. Last year, he took the First Time Quilt Making class at the shop. He wanted to have a better feel for what all the quilting fuss was about. Robin Cook teaches all of our first time quilters, and does a great job of leading her students to a love of making quilts. In class, he selected fabric, cut, pieced, and quilted his project. At home, we worked together on a label. The only thing left to do was the binding.


Somewhere along the way Duane decided that he didn't like the quilt. He thought there was too much white. Every time I asked, he said he would finish it, but it continued to sit. Nine months later, I decided to help him out. I still like the quilt, and I'm sure his mom will too.

Duane wrote a message to his mom for the label and I stitched it in thread on some white fabric. The fabric was a square that I folded on the diagonal and stitched into the binding. It's easy to do and makes a nice pocket on the back for care instructions or a special letter to the recipient.

I'm looking forward to another snow/sew day tomorrow.

Fabric Design Insights

We had a fun class on Saturday at the shop with Jennifer Heynen (http://jenniferjangles.blogspot.com) and Genevieve Swinford (http://genevievegail.blogspot.com). Both of these girls are very talented artists who made their way into fabric design over the past couple of years.

It was interesting to get two different perspectives on the design process and the business relationships they each have with the companies that produce their fabric.


Jennifer has a fine arts degree in ceramics so most of her designs for fabric start as a ceramic concept. She is also a button and bead maker so all of her fabric lines have coordinating buttons. Her first collection, Happy, is in its second printing. Her second collection, Polka Dot Garden, will be released to stores in March, and her third collection is in the design process. Jennifer had a table set up with her products and a great Powerpoint presentation.


Genevieve has a fine arts degree in graphic design. Her career path taught her a lot about product design, development, and licensing. She has released two fabric collections, Flower Bucket and Gypsy Garden. She also has her designs coming out on reusable tote bags this year. Her third collection is in the design process. Genevieve had an awesome presentation board as well as specially made candy for each participant.


The one thing I took away from their presentation is to not be afraid to try. Jennifer told us that she is constantly working on new designs and ideas and that for every twenty she tries, maybe there will be one that she's happy with. They both told us that they sketch constantly and take ideas from everyday life.

They shared with us a cool website (www.spoonflower.com) where you can upload your own original design and have it printed on fabric in small quantities.

One of the participants asked if it was possible to earn a living as a fabric designer. Both answered yes, but that your efforts had to go beyond the fabric. Buttons, patterns, and other licensed products based on the fabric add to the initial fabric release.

Thanks to both Genevieve and Jennifer for taking time out of their busy schedules to share their knowledge and experience as fabric designers. I'm looking forward to watching the future unfold for both of these talented ladies.

Classes and Clubs at Dragonfly Quilt Shop

I am really excited about some of the clubs and classes we have coming up.


Jennie Weaver is teaching our Sassy Quilters Club. The first project for this club is this fabulous quilt from the pattern All Around Minnesota. The club will meet on the first Saturday of each month in February, March, and April from 10am-1pm. After this quilt is done, Jennie will introduce a new one for the next three months. It should be fun and having three classes should give you lots of time to get it done.


Fay Rawls and Mary Colley are teaching a three session class called Patchwork Garden. They will meet on the first Tuesday of each month at 10am starting in February. These girls are lots of fun and will teach and encourage you through this very pretty project.


Robin Cook will be teaching this bright wall hanging in her class Stars & Crosses. This is an Eleanor Burns pattern and Robin is a certified Eleanor Burns instructor. Look for this class on the last Saturday of February from 10am-4pm.


Holley Downs made this quilt from Nancy Halvorsen's newest book Count On It. Holley is always making something fun for us. We'll be having a club for all the Nancy Halvorsen fans starting in February. There will not be any formal instruction, but there are always new ideas and techniques flying around the room when this group of ladies gets together. We'll meet on the second Thursday or Saturday of each month at 10am.


Jennie Weaver is our Girls Sew In teacher. Every few months, Jennie will offer a class for girls ten and up. On February 5 from 1:30pm-4:30pm she'll be showing the girls how to make a pillowcase.

You can find more information about all our classes and clubs on the shop website, http://www.dragonflyquiltshop.com.

Haberdashery

Even with all the new samples that were revealed at the shop this week, there are still a few projects hovering around my sewing machine that did not get finished. One of them is this cute hat pattern by Sew Baby.


As you can see by the pattern cover, there are lots of options in this pattern. There are also lots of sizes for each one. I thought it would be "kids hat - ones size fits most", but instead, there are five different sizes for each hat style to fit a newborn up to a size 10. So think about it...that many hats times that many sizes...makes for about a million pattern pieces. It was sort of like playing a Where's Waldo game to find the right ones, but I conquered the pattern tissue and found what I needed. It really is pretty awesome to include so much in one little pattern, so I didn't mind sorting through the options. My goal for the afternoon was to make the girl's tulip hat and the boy's engineer hat. I decided to go for a smaller size and make both of them in size 2T.


The girl's hat has six petals and it was oh so tempting to do every other one in a different fabric (it would also be great to do in scraps). I resisted because, even though I didn't see that it said this hat is reversible, I think it will be (and it was!).


Here's the closest model to a size 2T that we have living at home. Both of the hats were very easy to make. The instructions were clear and I love the results. The only tricky part was pressing them because of all the curves and dimension. The easiest way to do the pressing is with a ham or a rolled up towel. The other thing to keep in mind if you want a reversible hat is to be sure to sew neatly and carefully when you close the hole used for turning the hat right side out.

If you make children's clothes, just get an extra 1/3 yard and you'll have enough to make a matching hat!

Fabric Fortune Cookies Finale

I'm pleased with the final results from the fabric fortune cookie experiment. Once they all dried, it was easy to fold up the fortunes and tuck them in one side of the cookie. The take out boxes I found are smaller than I thought they would be, but work perfect for four cookies. We'll see what the etsy world thinks of them. If you'd like to make your own fabric fortune cookies, check out my how to blog entry from a few days ago.

Highlighting Kaffe Fassett

One of our favorite fabric designers is Kaffe Fassett. We try to keep a good selection of his new prints along with many of his classic fabrics. These new shop samples all highlight his fabric.

Deb Henderson made the first three of these. This one is from the Eleanor Burns pattern Pinwheels & Rectangles. It uses Kaffe's Plink and Roman Glass.

This sample is the cover quilt from Alex Anderson's Super Simple Quilts #2. It uses Kaffe Fassett's Persimmon and Paperweight along with two of Robert Kaufman's Fusion prints. It was quilted by Sherry Paul.


This hot sample is from the book Four Patch Frolic. The small squares are a variety of Kaffe Fassett and Brandon Mabley prints all framed out by one of Kaffe's Spot prints.
I pieced this last one, but Jessica Howard is responsible for the pattern (from Sweet and Simple Baby Quilts by Mary Hickey) and fabric selection. Holley Downs did all the machine applique. I love the way it turned out. It's perfect for a baby quilt. With the exception of the block background fabric (which is by Annette Tatum for Free Spirit), all of the fabric is by Kaffe Fassett.
Tomorrow, I'll highlight all the new samples for which there is a class or club to go with them.

Shop Samples for the New Year

Today is our first day open for the new year at the quilt shop and I'm ready. I came in early and decided to take pictures of all the new shop samples. I knew we had all worked hard, but I had no idea there are more than twenty new samples in the shop. Rather than overwhelm you with them all, I'll post a few each day. Today, enjoy a new area we set up to feature grommets. Grommets add a great touch to any bag, and the newest ones don't require any special tools. They simply snap together. If you use these, make sure you have enough interfacing or stabilizer between your fabric layers to give them something to grab on to. My favorite is the Grommet Grab Bag. The braided handles were fun to make and should be very durable.


This next one is called the Wallet & Grommet by Maple Island Quilts. I just love the name since I'm a big Wallace and Grommet fan. Fay Rawls made this sample for us.


And finally, two more by Indygo Junction: The Grommet Hipster and the Grommet Wallet.


I'll get these patterns posted in the Dragonfly Quilt Shop web store this week. Look for more fun samples tomorrow!