Susan’s So Thankful Give-Away #1: La Todera Patterns

Julie Creus in La Todera’s booth at Fall Internatonal Quilt Market in Houston

Let’s get this party started! This is the first of many patterns and goodies in my Ever Sew Thankful Give-Away, and I’m starting with a bang!

Julie Creus of La Todera Sewing and Craft Patterns has donated four patterns, and they are sooooooooo cute! I met Julie at last year’s International Quilt Market, and just loved her designs. Julie’s patterns made a big splash there, and she was back this year with fresh, new designs to make and wear or decorate your house.

You can make the flower on the bottom using Julie’s Camelia Gigantus Brooch pattern for her “big mama of flower brooches” – 6" across. Now that would make a statement on a lapel or hat! The white-and-pink flower on the top is Julie’s Kanzashi Flower Fascinator pattern. (Note that items made from these patterns are for personal use only; they are not to make and sell.)

These beauties are made from the Dinner Plate Dahlia pattern (the big purple flower), and Julie’s Cymbidium Orchid Brooch pattern (the green and pink orchid below). 

Here are the patterns I’m giving away:

Here’s your chance to win. First, take a look at the La Todera website. Then leave a comment after this post and tell me which of her designs you like best (it doesn’t have to be one of the ones I’m giving away.) I’ll pull four names at random at 9 p.m. on Saturday Nov. 19, and send you one of the four patterns. WE HAVE WINNERS! upstateLisa, cat in tassie, Vickiquilternp and Debra have each won a pattern. 

Coming soon! Susan’s So Thankful Give-Away!

My mother died in January and this has been a tough year. I have made it through because of my wonderful family and friends, my work and my art, and you, my faithful blog readers, many of whom have written me sweet notes of encouragement and support. I am very grateful. Thank you!

Starting tomorrow, I’m going to post give-aways every few days until everything I brought back from International Quilt Market and International Quilt Festival in Houston to give away is shipped off! It’s my way of showing you how thankful I am. I hope to introduce you to some new products and designers that you might not know about. So stay tuned!

Quilt Market, Part 6

Carolyn Friedlander is a new designer, and I absolutely loved the quilts she had in her booth. Her stuff is fresh, arty and contemporary. Her website isn’t quite up yet, but it will be soon!

This is one of Carolyn’s wonderful designs. I predict you’ll be seeing lots more of her stuff!

This is Corinne Jacobson of Jacobson Creative, Inc. They manufacture and market these cool little ClingOn magnetic holders for pins, scissors and small tools. They are made of resin with extremely strong magnets embedded in them.

One side goes on the back of your shirt or pocket, and the other side, embossed with a pretty design, goes on the front. I think I need one of these for when I sew, and another for when I’m doing handy-woman things around the house; they would be great to hold nails and screws, too!

SusanClaire Mayfield of New Zealand calls herself The Gourmet Quilter “because quilting is delicious!” Here she is with her pattern called “That Japanese Doll Quilt.” It is darling! 

The last day of Quilt Market fell on Halloween, so a lot of the vendors were dressed up. Check out this guy in the Primitive Gatherings booth, dressed as Elvis!

Primitive Gatherings Quilt Shop has wonderful quilt patterns, kits and punch needle embroidery with an old-fashioned style. They make their own hand-dyed wool, and also have historical fabrics in their online shop. 

Here I am with Jan Patek in my witchy attire. I have long admired Jan’s work. Her style is so different from mine, but I love it! She has an amazing line of books, patterns and fabrics. We are posed near her pattern called “The Witch is In.”

Robin of Nestlings by Robin has been designing and selling quilt patterns for six years, and this was her first Quilt Market! You can read more about her experience vending on her blog.

Robin had some cute little quilts in her booth featuring hand embroidery. (This is a big trend this year!)

Mary and Barb of Me and My Sister Designs create quilt and purse patterns, write books, and design fabric for Moda!

Here’s a good example of a company exhibiting at Quilt Market that makes a product that crosses over into quilting. Imaginisce makes products and papers for the scrapbooking and paper crafts industry. Their i-Top tool (below) transforms a brad into a custom embellishment (like the ones on the necklace in the photo above in a few easy steps.

That’s all for now, but stay tuned! More photos, info and giveaways are coming (eventually!)

“Magical Mistletoe” pattern now available as a download

A few months ago, Tami Pfeil, the owner of Handbehg Felts, contacted me to ask if my Magical Mistletoe project (shown above) was available as a pattern. I told her that Magical Mistletoe was a project I created for the 2010 Quilting Arts Gifts, and that they now owned the pattern. When Tami e-mailed Helen at Quilting Arts, and told her about the demand for the pattern, Interweave decided to set it up for them as a downloadable pattern. You can now get it for $4 on Interweave’s website. Just in time for Christmas!

And if you do, you’re going to need some cute little felted wool balls from Handbehg’s Etsy shop! (Shipping is free right now, for a limited time.) Better get busy so you can smootch with your sweetie under the mistletoe next month!

I’m in Sue Bleiweiss’ book about The Sketchbook Challenge

In January, I decided to participate in The Sketchbook Challenge. The project was developed by Sue Bleiweiss, and a team of fabulous artists, including fiber artists, art quilters, and mixed media artists. The idea was to inspire artists to work in their sketchbooks, and to share their work with others through an online photo site. It took off in a big way, and major retailers of art supplies kicked in some amazing prizes for those who participated. 

Each month, the group announced a new theme, and provided tutorials or insights to inspire readers. In the middle of the year, Sue wrote to ask if I’d like to have my work featured in a book she was working on that detailed the Challenge, and showed examples of how artists worked on themes to create sketches that they then made into artwork. I was really honored, and of course, I said, “Yes!”

The book will be out this summer, but you can already pre-order it on Amazon.com. 

Next year, I’ll be one of the artist hosts for The Sketchbook Challenge. I encourage you to join us!

Quilt Market, Part 5

Several days into the 2011 Fall Quilt Market, I realized that I had so much stuff that I couldn’t post it all … at least if I wanted to get enough sleep ;-) So I’m going to keep posting it here in chunks. And I’ll have some give-aways as soon as my giant boxes of stuff that I shipped home arrive.

Kaleidoscope Kreator is software you can use to make fabulous kaleidoscope designs. The samples in this booth always pull me in for a closer look at the intricate patterns created by fracturing and stitching.

This booth offered beautiful hand-crafted items from Africa. Akonye Kena helps artisans in Africa find venues to sell their goods and earn sustainable incomes. The name of the company means “I will help myself” in Acholi, a tribal language of northern Uganda. It was founded in 2009 by Richard Kennair, who has lived and volunteered in Africa for many years.

There were colorful fabric beads made from local fabrics:

And lots of luscious hand-dyed silk scarves:

Lynn Koolish showed me some of the new products available from C&T Publishing. Joen Wolfrom’s Magic Design-Ratio Tool helps quilters understand and use ratios to make their compositions stronger. It retails for $9.95.

The third edition of Joen’s Ultimate 3-in-1 Color Tool is out. It features larger color swatches and expanded guidelines for use than earlier versions, and retails for $16.95. 

The Any Way You Slice It Eco Tote bag benefits the NAMTA Foundation, a non-profit that supports art education and encourages participation in fine arts by providing scholarships and grants. Six artists from C&T created this art quilt in slices; it is based on Van Gogh’s painting Bedroom in Arles. It is made from 100% recycled polypropylene from plastic water bottles, and retails for $8.95. 

Joan Wolfrom’s Studio Color Wheel is a 28" square double-sided poster that helps you find the right combination of colors for a quilt – or any art project. It retails for $9.95. 

 

C&T’s PatternSpot.com is a website with thousands of patterns for quilters, sewers and crafters. It has grown tremendously in the past year.

Jenean Morrison designs fabric for Free Spirit; her new line is called Power Pop. Jenean’s booth won the Creativity Award at Quilt Market. It featured hundreds – maybe thousands! – of three-dimensional flowers made from her fabrics that were affixed to canvas on stretched frames.

The lampshade and vase in her booth also featured the flowers, and she had also made a cool floorcloth and pillows with her fabrics.

 

Embellishment Village is always on my must-see list at Market and Festival. They have wonderful stencils, paints, books, fibers, foils, glitters, you name it – a myriad of supplies for the art quilter or mixed media artist. Didn’t make it to Market? They have a great online shop.

Gina Reddin of Splinters & Threads has a new tool called Wavy Squares (by EZ Quilting) that lets you cut these cool shapes, which can showcase embroidery designs, create a frame, or stand on their own. The nested template can be used to cut fabrics, paper, metal – anything you can cut with a rotary cutter or scissors. They retail for $29.99, and are available to wholesalers at Brewer and Checkers.

Fran Ortmeyer, communications director for Clover Needlecraft, Inc., was demonstrating a new way to use the Clover Yo-Yo tool to make really cute flowers. You can layer the flowers and then add a button in the center to make a pin like the one she's wearing, or a bigger flower.

That’s it for now. I will have one more post about the goings-on at Quilt Market, and then it is on to the quilts at International Quilt Festival!

Class with Noriko Endo

I taught three classes at International Quilt Festival last week, and I took two classes, too! On Tuesday, I took Noriko Endo’s “Confetti Naturescapes” class. (I blogged earlier this year about Noriko’s new book with Dragon Threads; you can read about it here.) 

I really loved Noriko’s teaching style, and this class, even though her technique and process are so totally different from the techniques I usually use in my work. But that was the point: I always try to take classes that will teach me something, and something I don’t normally do. I always learn something new, and often it ends up helping me in my own work. 

Noriko had us dicing up tiny pieces of fabric like this before sprinkling it on batting to create the background of our pieces:

When she showed us her rotary cutter technique, I was stunned. She moves almost at the speed of light with that dangerous blade!

We were all working from our own photographs. Here is the one I chose; it is of the ancient sugar maple in our front yard, taken several years ago. We will probably have to have this tree taken down soon, as it is now half dead, and if it goes over, it could hit our house. This makes me so sad, as I have loved this amazing tree, and watched it changing through the seasons for 15 years.

As luck would have it, a woman I had met last year was in my class – Julie Creus, a talented pattern designer who owns La Todera. I adore her stuff. (And she gave me a few of her patterns that I’ll be giving away soon in a blog post, so stay tuned!)

Me with Julie Creus

Julie came with her friend, Cecelia Koppmann (from Argentina), whom I had met the day before. 

Cecelia and Noriko

It is always fun to take a class when you are sitting next to friendly and interesting people, and we had a blast getting to know each other better while we sliced, diced and sprinkled. Here is Noriko demonstrating her cutting technique to Cecelia:

 Julie created a fabulous piece with red-and-white toadstools, the symbol of her company:

Here is Noriko conferering with Julie about her piece:

Julie and Noriko

Here you can see more of Noriko’s work pinned up in the front of the classroom. It is breath-taking!

Here is how my piece looked at the end of class. I still have a lot more thread work to do; I’m going to do some of the smaller branches with thread, and add some more detail. But I’m pretty happy with it!

On Monday, I took Nancy Eha’s “Crazy Beading” class. She taught us how to create beaded patterns that replicate the elaborate embroidery stitches on crazy quilts. Nancy is a great teacher, and I learned a lot and had so much fun. I forgot to take my camera to class, so I don’t have anything to show you from it, but once my 60 pounds of stuff I shipped back home from Market and Festival arrives, I will post to show you what I did. 

Yes, 60 pounds!!!

Aurifil Designer of the Month for November – and a giveaway!

“For Ella‘s Sister” by Jacquelynne Steves

Aurifil’s Designer of the Month is Jacquelynne Steves from The Noble Wife. Her free project, “For Ella’s Sister,” is shown above. Pat Sloan has interviewed Marianne on the Aurifil blog. (That’s where you go to download the pattern for her free project!) 

Jacquelynne with Alex Veronelli of Aurifil

Each month this year, a different designer has been giving away a free pattern on the Aurifil blog (my month was January). Remember – if you make any project from the design team, load a photo to our Aurifil Flickr group; this puts you in the running to win an Aurifil thread prize!

GIVEAWAY!
Each month this year, I’m going to be giving away a pack of Aurifil minispools (like the one shown above) when the new project is announced. Just leave a comment after this post telling me if you have ever tried Aurifil thread. I'll pull a name at random on Saturday, December 10 at noon EST. The sampler pack includes great colors in different weights. AND THE WINNER IS… Made by Herbie Hands