New grommets

When I first made this purse I used the traditional round grommets, but I had some trouble with a couple of them and I cut the holes a little too large. So as I used the purse, it began to pull and eventually the fabric came out from behind a couple of grommets. While I was at market last week, I saw these square grommets made by Rido Deko and thought they might be perfect for covering my extra large holes. I was right and I actually love how they look better than my original round grommets. Here's how it looked originally .

A little more from market

Our booth seemed like it was constantly a buzz with people stopping by. I met so many wonderful people. I don't know how the quilt shop owners are able to weed through the vast variety of options and decide what to purchase for their stores. But we were thrilled that so many of them stopped by our booth and placed orders.

Here are a couple of our new patterns we offered. Suzy Swirl makes into a darling little skirt with a tutu underneath. The pattern also includes a pattern for leggings which is always a must for any little girl. I love the looks on the girls' faces in the pattern. So cute.

This honeycomb smocked apron, as it is now named, comes in an adult pattern as well as a child's pattern. This was probably our biggest hit of the quilt market. My sister Toni was in the booth the entire time demonstrating how to do the smocking. It's amazingly simple to do yet it looks like it took you quite a while. The directions for the smocking as well as a grid to follow are included in the patterns.

Here's another favorite. It's called Emma's Pocket Dollhouse quilt. It's a fun fusible applique with pocket options for little dolls or accessories. The great part about this quilt is all the individualizing you can do with each room in your fabric selections. I think I want my little girl bedroom to have lots of polka dots...

And occasionally we'd have the pleasure of meeting with some pretty amazing designers like Amy Butler. She always seems to have the time to stop and chat and share. She's a very talented woman with a very down to earth personality.

Back Home!

International Quilt Market in Salt Lake City. How fun was that! Just got home thismorning and I'm so tired, but it's a good tired. I think I walked 10 miles each day just within the convention center alone. The convention center is huge and I tried to walk around as much as I could so I could gather in all the new ideas, touch all the newfabric coming out and chat with the fun men and women at quilt market, some of them old friends from the very first market I went to five years ago and some of them new friends from this market.

I was there to help my sister Jan's company, The Apron Lady designs. She has darling new apron patterns and a fun new applique quilt. We were busy with business almost every minute of each day. Here are some pics from the first day.

Sample Spree was our first big event to prepare for. It's a whirling frenzy of shoppers for just a 2-hour period of time. They line up outside the room sometimes up to 6 hours before the doors even open.

Then the countdown begins and the doors open. I was almost hoarse after the 2 hours was over.

Here's some shots of our booth all prepared and ready for our first customers. I'll post more pictures later.

Off to Market

I'm off to the International Quilt Market tomorrow in Salt Lake City. This is quite the event for anyone involved in the quilt, fabric world. My sister who owns Apron Lady Designs always asks me to come with her (if she didn't ask me, I would virtually beg her to go any way). She has some fun new patterns this year and I'm excited to see how they do at market. I'll post pictures when I get back.

For now, my design wall will just have to stay as it is. I'm in the process of making Let Your Imagination Bloom by Natalia Bonner. I'm using Moda's Fresh Flowers line. I saw the pattern here on Moda Bakeshop.

Hope to see some of you at market!

Another scrappy top

A few years ago I came home from quilt market with a large bundle of leaf print batiks. Of course I had a plan at the time to make something awesome with them, but they slowly found themselves under a pile of other pieces of fabric that were meant for something totally awesome. The other day in my spring cleaning I discovered them and decided to do something about it. So here is my latest quilt top using all scraps from my stash.

It was a really windy day, but it felt so good to be able to be outside after a long winter that I just had to take the picture outside. My daughter was hoping her green converse tennis shoes would show up for the picture. They are her prized possession and yes, they are a beautiful compliment to the quilt :).