My new book!

I wanted to share my new book with you! It is a companion book to my new fabric line, Gumdrops and Lollipops but you can use any fabric to make the projects in the book! One of the best things is that I have included a pattern to make the Lil Miss Cutie Patootie Doll. Now you can make a doll to go along with all the new quilts and new fabric lines that will be coming out! The book is full color with a full sized template pull out page. She is sitting on the Tea Party Quilt or Tablecloth that is also in the book. Fun projects for your special Lil Cutie Patootie! You can find them on my website.

Fun Tea Party Quilt or Tablecloth!

Getting ready for Spring Market when a few Angels appeared

Getting ready for these shows is tough as the fabric arrives late and there is always so much to do. I think this is going to be the pattern for these trade shows and trying to fit an amazing amount of work into a limited amount of time. I have had a few angels here helping me this time, Dee and Shirley. Dee has been here almost everyday sewing, sewing. I was up until 3 am night before last, struggling with getting the quilt together as it continued to grow, and grow. I ended up having to take it all apart several times to find the problem and then resewed the boo boo blocks and at 3am finally realized it was going to go together. My dear husband has also been a saint, making dinners, lunch, helping unsew, I couldn't have done it without these wonderful friends. I also had the most miraculous thing happen. I asked Randy to call a local quilt shop and ask them if they knew of any long arm quilters that could possible quilt this quilt by Tuesday. LOL I knew in my mind that I was dreaming, most of the quilters I know are booked for months in advance. As we were talking to them one of the long arm quilters walked into the shop and they handed her the phone. I explained my delima and she agreed to take the quilt and quilt it by Monday!!! When I arrived at her home she had so many quilts in line to be quilted and explained that she was booked 3-4 months out!!! But she took my quilt to help out! I can't believe it, what an answer to prayer. It saved me from tons of hours trying to quilt that giant before I leave next week So thank you all so very, very much. Here is my quilt for the Red Rooster Booth, I am learning to be a piecer!  Thank God for EQ 6, I designed the quilt and scanned in all my fabrics into the fabric library so I can just drop them into the blocks and it will calculate my yardage requirements. Phew! I even designed the little paper pieced dogs and cats in the corners. I need to add their little button eyes still. Come by the Red Rooster Booth and see me, mention my blog and I will have a free gift for you!!!

Houston Quilt Market 2008

Randy and I had the opportunity to have a booth at Quilt Market. I brought all my quilt patterns and at first the show seemed slow but as the days passed the wonderful opportunitys kept happening to us. I was approached by 4 magazines about submitting ideas and drawing for publication. I was picked up by distributors and catalogs. The most exciting thing for me was that a woman by the name of Nancy from Checkers introduced herself and told me she had seen my website and thought I should think about designing fabric. I have always wanted to do that, it seems like it would be a great fit for me. She then brought over Ann, who runs Red Roster fabrics out of NY and she asked me if I would be interested in signing a 2 year contract and I needed to get home and start designing! She wants my first line to release next year at Houston! WOW!!!! So exciting, if just a few of these things break open life would become even more exciting! What a great show we had even though I heard that the show was down about 50%.

We also went to Bernina's fashion show, it was incredible. The fashions were so exciting. Jay from Project Runway was there also, he was releasing his new line of fabric! Here are some pictures of our fun weekend.

The dresses are as follows, Galatea Adorned by Charlotte Warr Andersen, Midnight Waltz by Ludmila Aristova, Celestial Rendezvous by Janice Ellertson, The Body of work by Yvonne Porcella, Midnight Dance by Sandy Snowden. These were only a few of the many wonderful creations at the fashion show.

San Diego here I come

Well its that time of year again, retreat time. There is a great group of women that get together twice a year for a retreat, one in Big Bear, one in San Diego, we call them camps. We don't really camp though,this is where we stay, you can see that we are really roughing it during our visit here. It is in downtown so there are many great shops and places for foodies to get a fix. Marta and I and Dawn are sharing a room, should make for lots of laughs. Marta leaves for Europe right after camp, plus she is teaching a class, if I were her I would be a bit stressed. But if you look at her blog you can see she is ultra organized with all of her outfits drawn out in her sketchbook! I will miss you GF. See you tomorrow!