2010 Fall Quilt Market, Part 6

Marcia Derse with her newest fabric line

Of all the fabric lines I saw at Market, the new one by Marcia Derse called “The Third in Line” for Troy comes the closest to looking like it was hand printed, stamped and painted. If you love surface designed fabric but can’t do this stuff yourself (or don’t want to), this is the line for you! It is spectacular. I wanted a yard of each one!

Marcia had small pieces of her fabric pinned to a backdrop of one of her more neutral fabrics, which made for a striking, yet very simple display. 

And she had yardage of each of them hanging from clips on a rod, inviting attendees to touch, feel and savor the hand and quality of the fabrics.  

Susan Walton of Rubber Stamp Tapestry

Rubber Stamp Tapestry is a company based in Seagrove, North Carolina that was new to me. Susan Walton and her husband Don are potters (the Seagrove area is very famous for ceramics) who started designing “peg stamp sets” — rubber stamps mounted at the end of wooden pegs — in 2002. 

Susan stamped this design using several peg stamps – the leaf, the twig, and the berry – while I watched and talked to her. She uses Speedball inks on a small sponge when she stamps. (Speedball, by the way, is another North Carolina company; it is based in Statesville, just 20 minutes from me!) They sell the inks on their website in 1.5 oz bottles. But other some other brands of ink and acrylic paint – including Liquitex — work well, too. You can see lots of details of their process here.

 

All their peg stamps have placement lines so you can see exactly which part of the design is up when you are stamping. I thought it was cool the way they had them stored in their booth. They are primarily botanical designs. After stamping, you wait 72 hours, then heat set with an iron. After that, you can use the designs in quilts or other projects that can be laundered. 

A creation by the folks at HandBehg Felts

The Handbehg Felts booth is always abuzz with creativity! They sell nifty wool felt and felted wool balls, and a bunch of kits to help you use them. Their kits include pincushions, necklaces, eyeglass holders, brooches and bracelets. If you want to purchase their products retail, check out their Etsy shop.

That’s my “Magical Mistletoe” — which I made for the 2010 Quilting Arts Gifts issue — hanging in their booth. They said I helped them sell several thousand of the little white felt balls I used as mistletoe berries! Quilting Arts Gifts has 148 pages of great handmade projects you can make for holiday gift-giving, and it is available online or at Barnes & Noble bookstores nationwide. Time to get hopping on those gifts if you haven’t started yet!

Ellen Medlock with some of her new designs

I met Ellen Medlock last year at Quilt Market. She designs innovative bag and purse designs, and is back this year with a darling, girly new fabric line with butterflies called “Flight Pattern.” And some new, super cute bags — the ones she is holding in the photo — that are fabric wrapped around metal frames with clasps (they are called “DIY Minaudiere Bag Kits,” and will be available soon).

Pam Goecke Dinndorf of Aardvark Quilts

Aardvark Quilts’ booth caught my eye because it was filled with quilts that used color in such an innovative way. Pamela Goecke Dinndorf’s patterns are bold and modern, and many use large blocks that would be very easy for beginning quilters. Yet they are very sophisticated because of the fabrics she uses. You can see more of her patterns here.

Angie Steveson of Lunchbox Quilts

“About Trout” is one of Angie Steveson’s new patterns for Fall Market. She designs for Lunchbox Quilts and many of her patterns include CDs with embroidery designs.  Angie has a pretty breast cancer awareness pattern called Pink Ribbon Quilt that is available for free on her website; it also comes with embroidery designs.

On Saturday, I posted this photo of me with Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims at the launch of Accuquilt’s Go! Baby, a smaller version of their wildly popular die cutting system. It retails for $139, and will be shipping in late November. 

Well, wouldn’t you like to have a pink t-shirt to match Alex and Ricky? I scored one thrown into the crowd by Ricky, and you can have a chance to win it — and the tote bag shown below.

GIVEAWAY! Leave a comment on this post before noon EST on Friday, November 12. Tell me if you have an Accuquilt cutter, and what you think of it, OR if you think you might like one, and why. I'll pull one name at random and send that person the t-shirt and the tote bag. (Note: the t-shirt is size large.)

There’s still a bit more Quilt Market loot to give away in my next few posts, so please come back for a chance to win! 

WE HAVE A WINNER! Carol Hansen won this give-away. Thanks!

2010 Fall Quilt Market, Part 5

Who wouldn’t love one of these cute blue critters? They are FuddleSnugs by Jayme Crow (right) of Bella Nonna. (That’s Megan Cook hamming it up on the left.) The had fantastic quilt designs ruffled purse patterns, and lots of other darling bags. Check out the bag designs here.

  They also have amazing gilded leathers that they used with Texture Magic to achieve this fabulous lumpy surface, used to great effect in their small purses like the bronzy-brown one shown in the background.You can check out all their leathers, pigskins, cowhides and suedes here. 


They generously gave me some leathers and two patterns to give away! Check out the details at the bottom of this post.

Karen Brow of Java House Quilts designs beautiful applique patterns like this block-of-the-month set called Cat Acatemy. She has a lot of patterns featuring animals – cats, dogs, frogs, turtles, and fish.

A shop owner in Halloween garb places and order for AURIfil thread with Alex Veronelli. The AURIfil team’s melodic Italian accents are so wonderful to hear drifting out of their booth!

The Italian design sense is very evident in these beautiful AURIfil thread display cases. And look at that shine on the long-staple Egyptian cotton in their Cotton Mako threads. It is one of the reasons I’m such a fan of AURIfil for both hand needleturn applique and hand quilting, and thread sketching and machine quilting.

Here I am with the AURIfil team (from left): Alex Veronelli, Elena Gregotti, me, and Davide Moro. I’ve been asked to joint the AURIfil designers’ team, and will have some exciting stuff coming up for you next year on their website.

Ruth Chandler and Liz Kettle

Fabric Embellishing: The Basics & Beyond was a collaboration between fiber artists Liz Kettle (above right), Heather Thomas, Ruth Chandler (above left) and Lauren Vlcek. It came out earlier this year and is already in its third printing! Liz is holding a new book that came out in August, Threads: The Basics and Beyond, which is described as “a complete visual guide to thread techniques and creativity.”

Tula Pink (left) is a young designer for Moda, and this is one of her designs. It was quilted by the woman named Angela (shown on the right) and I am embarrassed to say that I neglected to get her last name. But her quilting is amazing!

Here’s a closeup shot of Angela’s quilting. Isn’t it fabulous? What a great motif to fill in the “negative space” around the print fabrics, and add wonderful texture and visual interest. 

Make sure to check out Tula Pink’s blog post about the copyright infringement of her fabrics that showed up in WalMart. This is happening a lot to many designers, and it is something to think about when you purchase fabric. And did you know that most fabric designers make only pennies on each yard of the fabrics they design? When their designs get knocked off, they make nothing. :-(

I took a sashiko class on Saturday morning from Pepper Cory, who is also from North Carolina. She is a quilt maker, author, and quilting teacher. An excellent teacher, I thought. She is coming to teach and speak at my local guild in 2011!

A sample of Pepper’s sashiko work

I do many different kinds of handwork, but had never tried this before. Sashiko is a kind of Japanese decorative embroidery most often done on indigo fabrics with heavy off-white cotton thread. Pepper made it look easy. It wasn’t. You have to make perfect, even stitches of a specific length, with a certain amount of space in between each stitch, and there are rules about how to handle corners and crossing lines. But I really enjoyed it. It is always a nice break to sit and do some hand stitching in the middle of the chaos that is Quilt Market.

 

In Pepper’s class, we used beautiful indigo fabric made in India and distributed by Dunroven House. Imagine my surprise to find out that they are based in my hometown of Mooresville, North Carolina! Joe and Jenna DeMarco (above) showed me their line of homespuns, kitchen and table linens, and the indigos. You can see more of their products here. 

This is some of Dunroven House’s homespun line. They have an outlet store only a few miles from my home that is open the first Friday and Saturday of the month, and I am headed there soon!  

GIVEAWAY! Would you like to win a copy of Bella Nonna’s FuddleSnugs pattern (above)?

Or their 21 Leather Projects pattern (and the assortment of gilded leathers and suedes shown above)? Then just leave a comment on this post before noon EST on Thursday, November 11. I'll pick two winners, one for each pattern, so let me know in your comment which one you’d like if you win. 

I’m going to keep giving away Quilt Market loot in my next few posts, so please come back for another chance to win! 

WE HAVE A WINNER (actually two!): Victorious Vixen and Katrina won the giveaways.