Designing with Benartex Fabrics

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

I have photos from my trip to New York, designing my new line of fabrics with Benartex!  This is just as the Christmas tree was being set up in Rockefeller Plaza.. I got goose bumps!

The staff at Benartex were so welcoming and friendly, I can’t say enough about how much I enjoyed this designing process.  I laid out my patterns and models along with notes on the conference table and the group of us discussing ideas, plans and the direction of this line was so delightful.

David and Susan took me to a wonderful Itallian restaurant one evening and it was nice to have the time to get to know them.  The food and atmosphere were wonderful, very authentic Itallian food.

Of all the shopping opportunities in New York, Tinsel Trading Company was the one place I wanted to go.  Look at this window display!  I think this is a must do if you are in New York.

This display made me want to go home and decorate for Christmas.  I love the pink vintage inspired trees.

I could live right here.

This antique ribbon case full of vintage ribbon is amazing.  I have never seen one before.

Emilee was a wonderful travel companion on this trip.  We each took time to see and do things we were interested in, Emilee caught up with friends.   We walked and walked!  On one afternoon we walked passed a church from 1776 that was open and took a peek inside.  The architecture was amazing.  Not far from there a gentleman directed us to a wonderful overlook of the Statue of Liberty.

New York City is amazing, people and information, sounds, smells, food vendors and crazy taxi cabs and cyclists everywhere.. While it is wonderful to visit, and experience it, I am happy to now be home!

Every woman needs a creative space.

Thursday, November 12th, 2009

Setting aside a dedicated space for sewing and crafting is, to me, the difference between enjoying your project and completing it versus a stash of “someday” dreams and unfinished projects.

A “creative space” means different things to many people. I know lots of women who have sewing rooms, even large studios,  but whether your space is a separate, dedicated room, or just a small work table in a common area, the 2 most important functions it should serve are providing you the opportunity to personalize it, and having the freedom to walk away and come back to your work, undisturbed, when both time and inspiration are on your side.

I love painted furniture, this pink cabinet houses my stash of buttons, sorted by color, my scrap-book materials and boxes full of crochet embellishments, ribbons and trims.  Clear containers and a label maker are indispensable tools for organizing!  Vintage purses are another favorite for filing, sorting, grouping and transporting odds and ends I need for teaching.

Magazines, blogs, Flickr and other photo sharing sites are full of beautifully arranged and organized craft/sewing rooms of all sizes and for all types of crafts.  The following links are fantastic and dreamy..

Pink Studio, Quaint Handmade , here you will find photos of her lovely guest room/sewing room.  Her blog is also full of some of the most beautiful photography I have ever seen.

The Domestic Diva , she provides links for designing your craft room, chosing color, organizing techniques.. awesome information.  Plus, great sites to visit to see what other sewer’s rooms look like.

Flickr: you can spend hours here, I entered Creative Spaces and found a “pool” of kindred souls.  Click the link to see a wall of buttons I love!

For me, it’s about soft pastel colors, antique and vintage textiles, beautiful pottery that store my utensils, tools that match my color pallete, down to notepads and pencils and clips!

This is an imortant subject to me and one that I will talk about regularly on my blog.  Until a crafter feels inspired, comforted, and free to work, frustration overrides the joy of the project itself.  I encourage you to claim your space, surround yourself with what you love, organize it and maintain it!

More on this later!

Gifts that keep on giving..

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

For my birthday a few months ago, Bev. bought me the new Rachel Ashwell, Shabby Chic Interiors.  It is a beautiful book, inspirational rooms!  All of us at JCD are crazy about our books and magazines, Fortunately, while we have similar tastes and hobbies, we have different criteria for purchasing books and magazines.. so, we often will beg, borrow, share materials so that none of us ends up broke!  Not to mention that I have joined a book club (which I love) that can put a little ding in the cash flow.  I am calling it my continuing education – books are required.

Speaking of reading materials.. Steph’s birthday is this month, so Bev. and I  surprised her last week with lunch, brownies and gifts.  We usually pool our efforts and funds for gift giving.. Bev. made the beautiful “friendship” gift tag and I picked out these fabulous magazines and wrapped them with with some fabric I knew Steph would love, pinned the edges and topped it off with a fabric corsage pin (gifts within gifts!).

I bought Journaling, Where Women Create, Artful Blogging, and Stitch (open with awesome tank top), and had my hands full with at least another 5 or 6 that I had to walk away from!  I think she liked the gifts, we all had a hard time finishing our work and often had to flip through pages during “down” time.

All about Ava

Monday, November 9th, 2009

We just celebrated Miss Ava’s first birthday.  Looking at this picture, it seems hard to believe how quickly time has passed, how much she has changed. 

Travis and Angie have been a joy to watch as new parents.  They have been a good team and kept all of us Ava-baby-crazed family members in the loop and on the visitation rounds.  We have all been so crazy about this baby, I get to see all of my kids and family weekly!

I love seeing the four generations in this photo: me, my mom and Angie with Ava.

 The minute they call, we all stop whatever we are doing and prepare for the arrival of Ava.  We’re just such softies.  My son, Jarred loves this little girl.  I love seeing them together.

 She doesn’t have to try very hard to be the center of attention.  Emilee and Angie do a great job with photos – Ava is very well documented.  Can you believe those blue eyes?

 We are putty in her little pudgy hands.  She wants to walk so badly!

So, while I am traveling this week with Emilee to New York, this is what we are thinking about missing.  Thank goodness for computers, email and photo-bucket!  I can get my fill of her just about anytime as Angie is always updating Ava’s blog and sending us Youtube videos of Ava’s adventures.  These are tools I just didn’t have around when raising my kids – I can’t get over how wonderful technology and photography work together to keep us all close.

Emilee is my travel buddy for my New York trip, I will try to have some photos uploaded of the exciting city life.  This photo is of Emilee at work, she is studying Marketing and works at Intake Studios  here in Wichita.  And, this month, Emilee has a birthday, so I am sure another family get together will be in order and we can fight over who’s turn it is to hug and kiss on Ava!

Sew awesome tutorial!

Sunday, November 8th, 2009

There are a lot of talented, hard working gals in this industry!  I am especially in love with the exciting tutorials that are available online for new sewers!  Visiting the websites of shop owners I met at market, I fell in love with the tutorials that one shop in particular was doing.  The gals at Missouri Star Quilt Co. have done an awesome job of teaching, entertaining and encouraging sewers.  I was thrilled with this tutorial given by Jenny on creating blocks by sewing fabric into tubes:  Click on the link to view.

http://tutorials.missouriquiltco.com/list/?p=748

I have been trying to visit the websites of all the gal’s who handed me their cards at Market.  I remember thinking how sweet and wonderful it was that the shop owner had her daughters with her at School House.  These young ladies had it going on!  I loved finding their tutorials online!  I thought their efforts were exceptional and the site was very organized!

I have always avoided the angles and cutting, the tiny piecing that seems so intimidating.  If it weren’t for a class that used Quiltsmart Foundation, I am sure I would never have accomplished this lone star quilt.  You don’t have to make the cuts, everything folds and is stitched just so using the pattern.

I think classes, sharing information, good teachers, encouragement are all priceless in this industry!

Thank you, Tiffany!

Saturday, November 7th, 2009

 Tiffany of Creative Smocking, one of our fabulous distributors took some time to catch up with me at market.  Tamara, Steph and I carried our Junk bags (Steph and I brought two each so we could accessorize) and by this time in the day, we were all just tired. Tamara was so sweet about carrying one of Steph’s bags, (she had been toting a baby afghan around in another bag).  As soon as we sat still long enough, Tamara was crocheting! 

While we rested, Tiffany shook her head that she couldn’t believe she wasn’t wearing or carrying one of the products she sells – and faster than you know, Steph was emptying out the junk bag Tamara had and offered it to Tiffany to carry.  It was close to the end of the day on our last day there and we couldn’t pass up the opportunity for one of our distributors to carry our product!  Tamara couldn’t believe we were going to get all her stuff squeezed into our already full bags.

  Thank you, Tiffany for your kind words, getting the bag back so quickly and being such a sport.  We enjoyed the laughs and friendship!  Thank you, Tamara for being an even better sport and giving up your bag at the last second.  Shameless self promotion? – You betcha, a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.

And sometimes a girl has to take stuff away from her sister.  Tamara did an awesome job detailing our trip and has some fun photos of herself with all the celebrities we saw at market.  Check out her posts.

SCRAP-book

Friday, November 6th, 2009

Miss Ava has quite a toy stash at my house.  I made a junk bag with the Velcro closure to place all her toys in so when she visits, we can tote the toys around anywhere Miss Ava might plop down for play time.

This is the perfect solution for toy clutter in the living room.  The bag looks so nice sitting in the room.

I have learned over the years of sewing and making gifts for others that there will come a time when I want to revisit an idea, a technique or feel of a project.  Sometimes to show others, sometimes just to get the inspiration I need for the next project.

I start a scrap pile of small clippings of fabrics, trims, color dots from fabric selvaged edge as I cut my patterns out.

I have always done this as a reference because I sew for others, make gifts and often don’t have the item to look at later if it is a project I want to do again.  I learn so much as I go, I make special notes that made something easier for me in the process.

I collage all of the scraps and notes and a photo of the finished project for reference later.

The Junk Bag pattern and the Sleepy Bag pattern both have design board pages included that can be photo copied, scrapped and logged into your project notebooks.  I use the Keepsake Notebook pattern from The Sweetest Gifts (pattern book ) to cover each of my project books in beautiful fabrics.

You can keep the patterns in the notebook as well.  The front pocket holds scissors, tape or paper so making a scrap page is quick and easy.

I love looking through these books, the scraps of color, the photos and notes you have made to yourself about a particular pattern are wonderful tools to have on hand.

Have fun sewing, scrapping, dreaming!

Fabric design news!

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

I have been waiting for what seems like forever to announce some very exciting news.  I am preparing to travel to New York this week to begin designing my next line of fabrics with Benartex.  Until the contract was signed and the travel date set, I have kept this information to myself.. But now that I know it is actually coming to pass, I feel like I can share my news!

I have had the pleasure of visiting via phone and email with Mr. Lochner, the President of Benartex Fabrics and finally got the chance at Fall Market to quickly meet in person.  I am looking forward to meeting the staff and team I will be working with next week.  I am impressed with the products they offer for quilters and hope I can add to the variety of fabrics.

I have been designing this line in my head for the longest time and have so many ideas, my head is spinning.  My staff and I have been working to fine tune our wish list and I just hope I don’t scare the graphic artists at Benartex with the presentation!  I hope to share more about the design process in future posts.

Thank you to everyone who has given their support and to Mr. Lochner at Benartex for this exciting opportunity!

Between traveling and designing, I have had little time for sewing.  I did get the chance to make my sweet Ava a soft, fabric book for her birthday.  Her first birthday was on Halloween, it’s hard to believe a year has gone by already!

Angie made darling costumes for Ava and herself (baby witch & mommie witch) and decorated her house for the celebration.  It was such a nice party,  Angie worked very hard!  I love Ava’s hat Angie sewed onto a black headband.  She’s just worn out after all the fun and trick-or-treating!

Fall colors

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

Traveling last month to Houston and listening to people compare the hot weather there to the different places they were from made me think of the cool fall weather and beautiful fall colors that I was leaving behind. 

This is one of my favorite times of the year, and I love that living in the Kansas, we get to enjoy all of  the four seasons.  Living in the country, we also get to see so much wildlife!  There is a family of wild turkeys that have been passing by my dining room sliding glass door on a regular basis, and I have watched them grow!

Mark and I keep busy year round, but the fall gives us a special treat.  The hedge apples are everywhere!  The color is amazing, but the work of “harvesting” our “Kansas cabbage” I could do without.

I was listening to some of the ladies at the quilt shop talking about making decisions about what colors go well together, one of them insisted, all colors work together, just look at nature!  I look at color a little differently when I think of it that way.  No one does color better than mother nature.