At last.

This week I finally got my rear in gear and headed up to Wooden Gate Quilts to check it out. It's great, Marby and the crew have worked very hard to get the shop all spiffed up and chock full of fabulous new fabric. Cyndi Rymer made this wonderful new logo quilt for the shop. Cyndy is just one of the famous people who hang out at Wooden Gate Quilts. We're lucky to have a lot of great talent in our area, of course it's awfully intimidating as well!

As usual I think I'm taking a slew of pictures.. but I wasn't! I WAS GAWKING at the new fabrics and the threads and talking. Here's Marby hanging up my Sugar Stars quilt. They carry a lot of Flower Sugar there, and they have a nice selection of Lecien fabrics in general. I needed to pick up some backing for this years Flower Sugar quilt, Sugar Shop. I think it's a fun quilt to make, you can ask Elizabeth... she liked it so much she made one herself!

Anyhooo.... I must doodle along this morning, Elizabeth and I are taking an afternoon off to go have lunch with Becky and Miss Jean. We might even hit a couple of antique shops! Plus I need more fusible fleece people.. bags are waiting to be made.

I hope you all have a super great weekend! xo

Sugar Flower

Last week, or maybe now even the week before, Elizabeth and I went up to the Quilter's Inn to meet up with Nireko to see the latest and greatest from Lecien.

Nireko is always soo cheerful. She came bearing some gifts, look at these lovely purse handles. I am anxious to get to work on something using them. And she showed us the amazing new pieces in the Flower Sugar line that is going to make me weep I love it soooo much. So much. Remember the pretty pastel antique flowers? It's like that. Only better.



Jane's store was crammed with people, so that was fun. I miss seeing people and what they're up to. You always run into some old friends there.

Sorry by I was so overcome with anticipation for Flower Sugar my pictures were cruddy. But you can still tell it's a fun shop.

I like seeing the diversity of quilts there. Something for everyone. Traditional, modern, art. Lovely. Friendly.

Ok, busy couple of days coming so I'll be back at the end of the week. Stay dry peoples!

Vintage Vibe

Good morning!  Today we're blog hopping on the Vintage Vibe blog tour!  I was luck to meet Amber Johnson at Quilt Market  in Houston and she asked if I'd like to participate. Luckily I was already in love with the book and said YES!

 

book photos courtesy of Martingale, photographer Brent Kane

 

 

There are 14 great projects in this book.  Amber includes little tidbits about her inspiration for the quilts and helpful hints along the way. The instructions are clear and concise and of course there are excellent illustrations.   Even though I've been quilting for a long time, I find it's good revisit those  instructions from time to time.

 

 

 

My favorite project in the book is Sugar, pictured above. It combines a couple of my favorite things, tulips and Flower Sugar fabric!  Amber has designed a dainty version as well, Sugar Sweet,  as these are sister quilts, reminiscent of her childhood sharing a room with her sisters! 

 

I couldn't resist making a large Sugar block in Pam Kitty Garden! 

 

Vintage.. well that's all relative right? Amber's grandmother taught her how to quilt and  in the Scrap Jars quilt pictured below, she contributed  three pieces of vintage fabric for the project.  Amber invites us to figure out which are the vintage pieces.

Holy cow. I'M VINTAGE!  I made a quilt with two out of three of those pieces! 

 

It was easy to fall in love with this book.  Lots of great projects.  If this is your first stop on this blog hop, I encourage you to  head over to Amber's blog for the schedule so you can catch up!  The list of bloggers and the schedule is here. 

 

You can order a book from Amber here, or from Amazon here.

 

Thank you Amber for inviting me to hop along and sending me a copy of your book! Congratulations!

 

 

 

 

 

Surprise!

Time for a little pre-holiday drawing here at PKM... these are my latest patterns and I thought you guys might like a chance to win! I have 2 sets to give away. Leave a comment on this post and by Friday morning I'll pick a name. That should give you plenty of time. I'm particularly happy with that quilt pattern. I had so much fun making my original, for the Lecien booth at market, from Flower Sugar with some bits of Sweet Broderie by Rosalie . It's quite simple to piece and it's a lot of fun. Elizabeth's version with the black background is quite stunning as well and she's combined her Red Rose Farm collection in with Flower Sugar and Sweet Broderie.

Of course you can always acquire them here, and here...and I believe very soon here.

Ok, better get back to sewing...xo

Flower Sugar

So peeps how was the weekend? Sorry to be so late here, I squandered all my sunshine yesterday enjoying the outside world. Bret and I went to lunch then a nice drive, didn't get home till too late for photos. Had to wait till this morning when things brightened up. Another gloomy week ahead for us.

Last Friday I had a great day, Elizabeth and I met up with Nireko in Walnut Creek for our favorite lunch and fabric. Swoonable delicious fabric. You can see my favorite piece there on the left, floral, red dot. Yes, it's the new Flower Sugar due out after Spring Market. You're seeing it here! Today! Whoo hoo! Thanks to Matt for letting me show it off.

I've been thinking about it all weekend, can't wait to start working on some projects, and people you are going to love the new Color Basics. Just exactly the reason I love fabric.

So people, can you believe it's March already? xo

Spring Scenes from Friday

Flower Blossoms

Flower Sugar

Hope you had a nice weekend!

More!More!More! Quilt Market!

Ok peoples today is the last day. I'm super enjoying everyone else's posts too and totally know how much time and energy goes into editing photos and the links. OMG the links. So I hope you clicked on a few and if you didn't please don't tell me. I like how we all attend the same show, but somehow we all see different things. Jona is really catching me up on the mod stuff.

I don't know how I can manage to walk the whole show more than once and still miss people. Like Tara. I'm pretty sure she has a force field around her booth that I just can't penetrate. I've missed her every market so far, although this time, I ran into her in the ladies room!!!

You know who else I missed was Amy. I think Amy is one of the most inspiring and prolific contemporary quilters around and she's good at all of it, fabric selection, piecing and quilting. I admire her machine quilting ways and today I lucked out, Alex loaned me a pile of DVDs to watch and they're the same DVDs Amy watches.. so maybe, well someday. Bummed that I didn't see her.

Speaking of cool people I found out about through Amy, here's Sarah and Damian. Seriously, aren't they like Australia's most famous couple?

I had a nice coffee (well it was crappy coffee but the company was good) with Sarah on Saturday. She was practically fresh from her Martha Radio interview and wow, how important does that make me seem????? I can't wait to get my act together and get going on my SEWN stuff. That's the place to be you know! And not to make you all jealous but I have my own personal carried by Sarah across the world copy of Material Obsessions 2. AUTOGRAPHED NO LESS.. and since she missed bringing it to our coffee, it was hand carried to me by Alex. Wow. I know a couple of people who are seriously going to be jealous to hear that.

Look at her smiling. It's like she knew I would make this all about me instead of all about her and Sewn but still she's indulging me. She's like that.

Renee is so cute. I love her booth and I have the photos to prove it. She has the best vignettes and I love vignettes. Which you would have no problem believing if you saw the million pictures I took. Like I am seriously going to need one of those wiry dressforms thankyouverymuch. And then a set of Jaws of Life to get it in here. But oops that's my problem.

And because Renee is super generous I have a pack of her new patterns so leave a comment and I'll pick a name next week! Like Wednesday, how's that?

OH and here's Vicki doing some paper piecing. We gave her some "encouragement" to get back on the blogging train. She's already posted since she arrived home, so possibly we scared her. Its a distinct possibility. I just loved looking at her pretty blocks and really could have taken 40 pictures because I love the digital macro setting on my camera that much.


Saw some wonderful new fabric while we were walking around. Not to mention running into some of our favorite people, like Ann! All three of us loved the Christmas fabric so much, seriously, the most fun Christmas fabric I've seen in ages.

I hope they sold a ton so we'll find it all over the place. We sent so many people over to see them. Fresh fresh colors and style. I would say after Flower Sugar, my most fav fabric of the show.

Here's Gudrun. This is the first time we've meet, although I've been familiar with her designs for a long time. She has a nice offering for this market. She also had some wonderful chocolates from Iceland and I took some to take a photo of and now I can't find them. And seriously, I thought I was being mature and didn't eat them, but maybe after I ate my cute Holly chocolate I couldn't control myself. It's not like that hasn't happened.

ANYWAY... She had her booth set up with a little back room, and said that during the Sunday slowdown she'd be performing a little show.. here's a teaser.

Over at the Windham booth we met Genevieve Gail with her new line of fabric Flower Bucket and ...

the Very Famous Bari J. with her new line of fabric!!! Bari is a local girl to us so we're always thrilled to see her out and about! Congratulations again, Bari.

I'm such a huge fan of Darlene and she's yet to file a restraining order so we cruised over to check out her demo of the new rulers she's got going on with Simplicity Studio Acrylic Tools. There's a Double Wedding Ring Ruler that totally wowed me. Genius. I wish I had a link for you, but they're so new they're not anywhere yet.

I'm thinking it was shortly after this she shooed me away.

Yes our sweet Whitney is going to have a baby so we won't see her in October. I think I'll take this time to remind you, I know the Urban Chiks, in case you'd forgotten. I would have posted a crazy picture I have of Holly, but then I'd be off 'the list' and I couldn't take it. But seriously you couldn't meet a nicer bunch of young women and if that doesn't make me sound like an old lady I don't know what does.

So that's it people. Thanks for indulging me. Hope you enjoyed the photos and the links. If you just come around for market photos thanks for visiting, see you in October!! Who knows what we'll be up to then!!!

See you next week. Elizabeth and I have something up our collective sleeve, I'm on a little road trip with Frankie and just who knows what kind of trouble I could get in!!! See you then!

Charm Box Quilt Short Cut Quilt Pattern

Good morning!  Today we're working on another Shortcut Quilt with the Fat Quarter Shop! The Charm Box quilt takes just two charm packs and 7/8ths a yard of a solid fabric. (check the pattern for binding and backing requirements)  I chose the Milk, Sugar and Flower collection by Elea Lutz. (Be sure and check your charm pack to make sure you have enough squares for you project!  You'll need 60! )

 

The most exciting thing about this  pattern the shortcut piecing! Holy cow people!! It's great! I confess to being skeptical, but wow, it really works!  You can see it all in the video here! Even Kimberly can't contain her enthusiasm!

 

Its gorgeous sunny spring weather her in Northern California, and it's perfect for showing off a fun springtime quilt.  That's a lot of spring time in one picture.

 

I'm a little embarrassed it looks like I wadded it up in a paperbag and drove out to get a photo.  My iron is not heating up as it should and that make pressing a bit of a challenge.  That and the super sunshine make this adorable project seem like  a bit of a hot mess.  BUT OH GOSH IT'S CUTE.

 

Super springy!  I chose the pretty floral for backing, but once I laid it all out, I decided that it would make a pretty border and extend the size just a bit.  And look at that cute stripe for the binding! So now I'm just waiting for the time I can focus on finishing it.  Frankie thinks it will be great for hanging out and binge watching tv. I think she's right!

 

Pam Kitty really plays well with Milk, Sugar, Flower!  This was a happy accident on my cutting table one day!  You know me, I like to get along!

 

So for sure you're ready to download your pattern right?  Here are all the links you'll need!

 

Charm Box Quilt Video Here!

Charm Box Quilt Pattern Here!

Charm Box Quilt Kit in Aloha Girl Here!

 

Now hop on over to the Jolly Jabber to see who else made Charm Box Quilts!

 

Have a great weekend everybody!

 

Marking

I've been working on my quilt for the Lecien booth, and I'm really happy about it. Flower Sugar is so cheery this time, it's happy to sew with. In this quilt I use connector squares, those sew and flip units that I love so much. I like to mark mine.. what about you? I have used tape on my sewing machine bed, the eyeball-ball it method and also The Angler. (Nicole does a nice review of the Angler 2 here.) But I keep going back to pencil and ruler. It just works for me.

Elizabeth really liked the design, and she is working on one for her booth as well. Yesterday I worked on the units for her, she packed up a nice kit for me. I love it when she does this, the kit is like a little present.

Nice and tidy. It was a sit and sew kind of morning.. and when it was over, I packed it up and brought it back to her. It's a quick quilt to make.

Have you been over to Elizabeth's blog? She's showing off one of my latest bag patterns all made up in Red Rose Farm. It's super cute, even if I do say so myself.

Ok you peeps have a good day. It's back to the sewing machine for me. xo