A Thanksgiving Weekend

I am nesting in my little house during this holiday weekend. After the big house cleaning I was anxious to add a spark of celebration. A tablecloth is a good place to begin. This year we are introducing a buttery soft laminated fabric in two Early Birds designs in three colorways. Two of them will be perfect for Christmas decorating. This is the Primrose Posy in the Blueberry colorway. The Christmas cactus is right on schedule.

I also thought it was time to update the speakers with fresh new covers. Now they look like bright Christmas presents in the corners. The Zinnias are from the Garden Divas line and all the others are from the new Early Birds collection. Dapper "Basil" is an alley find that has become a family heirloom.

For some reason I am really looking forward to this holiday season. A sprinkle of snow is predicted tomorrow. Ahhhhh....

More holiday ideas to come.

Holiday Brush Up

Friday was house cleaning day. The dust had gotten pretty deep during all the Houston preparations and I was determined to spiff things up to start the holidays right. So this weekend I'm feeling renewed and ready for the next phase and enjoying the perfect Thanksgiving weather... dreary and dreamy. 

Our house is the laboratory for Sassaman designs and it is fun to switch out fabrics from time to time. It's amazing how refreshing a simple change of pillow covers can be. At our house the walls set the scene as each room has a color theme. Our bedroom is turquoise with a pink adjoining bathroom. It has been decorated in the dusky colorway of the Prairie Gothic line from a few years back. But it is time for a change! So here you see a welcome lamp and pillow made with the new Early Birds fabric in the plum colorway.

The lamp shade is covered with the Primrose Posy fabric and trimmed with pastel green bands of rick rack. I like using fabrics with white backgrounds for lamps and curtains because the white still lets light shine through.

I also like to make my pillows reversible to get twice the use from them. In this case, both sides have the same simple layout, but the fabrics have been swapped around. On this side the Strawberry Serenade is in the center and the pretty Prairie Poppy are the corner blocks. The purple Poka Dots border both sides.

This half is a reverse of the other side. Each half is actually a mini-quilt and I entertained myself with the quilting on both sides. I prefer using heavy topstitching thread for all my quilting since it shows up so much better. Well, I guess this means the new duvet cover can't be far behind!

I wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving and hope you all have a little time to yourselves in the sewing room this weekend, too.

New Goodies To Wrap up the Year!

This week has been spent cleaning and organizing after the studio mess devoted to Houston Market.
Before I leave for my last teaching gig of the year, we were able to get our two new designs added to the webstore... the new mugs and the Hepburn Apron pattern, too. Hooray! We have also posted my workshop schedule for 2012. It has been an intense couple of months and it feels like we have accomplished a lot.

But the activity isn't over! The rest of the year will be devoted to working on the new book, Patchwork Sassaman Style for Dragon Threads. The designer has sent some sample layouts and they look great. It really makes a difference to be able to imagine it in print. Looks fabulous, YES!

Houston Market Report 2011

With a sigh of satisfaction and exhaustion, I can show you the results of all our energy for the past month. Here is our Houston International Quilt Market booth for 2011. It is amazing how it all fell together. The booth was designed around the fabulous party dress in the corner. The new Early Birds line has a really nice border print, so I knew it would be perfect for the edge of a fancy garment. We added drama by framing it with some fabulous curtains and adding a coral pink backdrop.

My steadfast friend and super sewer, Susan Tempin, made this show stopper from a current Vintage Vogue pattern. Then she added the icing on the cake by hand sewing a gold sequin in the center of each little daisy. I just LOVE it!

To the left we had a display of Early Birds purses and bags, many made by Melissa Peda from her own pattern designs. You can find them at her Etsy store. The Pretty Perfect Pocket Purses, a Sassaman pattern, were made by the fabulous and enthusiastic Juanita Whiting. The almost whole cloth quilt on the table was pieced by my quilting buddy, Susan Buckingham.

I was lucky to have both Susan T. and Melissa P. in Houston for support and companionship. Thanks to everyone!! Thanks for making the booth such a success. Thanks, too, to all the folks who stopped in for a visit and shared so much encouragement and interest in our new designs!

And the winners are........

WOW! Thank you everyone who posted a comment on last weeks blog! It reminds this quiet quilter what a delightful community we fabric fondlers have. This morning the lucky Early Birds mug winners were drawn from the soup bowl and they are Rachaeldaisy and Tonya Littmann. Hooray and congratulations!!

Rachaeldaisy has been a steadfast Australian follower of this blog, so it is nice to be able to recognize her loyalty. Tonya is a graphic designer and fabulous art quilter from Denton, Texas. Check out her wonderful dragonfly quilt. Again, thanks to you all for making this drawing so exciting!

Of course, this has been another busy week in preparation for Houston Quilt Market. One of our goals was to have the apron pattern finished and ready to deput. That means the directions and patterns needed to be perfected and photographs taken for the cover sheets. So above is one of the many shots I took this week. The fabrics are from the new Early Birds collection for FreeSpirit. Don't those colors play nicely off the saffron colored walls? We will be posting the apron pattern and new mugs in the webstore directly after Market, so you can see the real cover next week.

The rest of the time has been spent stitching up a storm, designing fliers and attending to all those last minute details. Today I plan to make a market bag with the beautiful new laminated fabrics and bind three quilts. Just 4 more days to make it all happen. Several people have asked when Early Birds will actually be on the shelves... November is the answer. This is great news, as there are some fabrics that will be ideal for the holidays. The next blog will be my Market report.

Early Birds Give Away!

There has been a dramatic change in the landscape this week! After a week of sunshine and idyllic autumn days, it finally rained and brought wind and cooler temperatures. It's all good weather to me, although I've hardly had a chance to enjoy it!

This was the week for gathering, organizing, packing and shipping all the supplies and booth accessories for my booth at Houston Quilt Market. Too much driving, too many lists and shopping for those little details. This morning I loaded it in the car and shipped them out! What a relief!

You all know what it's like when your sewing machine is beckoning to you but you have to ignore it! This was my week. So in celebration of a job well done, I am going to give you a sneak peek at the new Early Bird Mugs that have just been unpacked.

In fact, I'm so happy to have this assignment completed that I'm going to give away one mug each to two random visitors who leave a comment on this post. The winners will truly be Early Birds and have the first mugs to venture into the world. The design is from the signature fabric for the new Early Birds collection for FreeSpirit.

You can see how much fun this fabric will be to quilt and create with, so I am especially excited to have so many Early Birds quilts to share in the upcoming book, Patchwork Sassaman Style with Dragon Threads publishers.

By the way, did you notice that Dragon Threads was giving away some of my greeting cards, too?

Maybe this week I will get to enjoy my surroundings a little more, but now I've got too many sewing projects to whip up for Market. But that's a much nicer assignment!

The Glorious Mess Begins!

These have been sublime autumn days. It is still warm, but we have had to turn on the heat a few times already. The vegetables are pretty much at an end except for the pumpkins and gourds. The flowers are still glowing, especially the hardy dahlias and mums. The zinnias seem determined to out shine them all!

But in the studio the GLORIOUS MESS has begun, as production for Houston Market is in full swing.
We have started cutting into the new Early Birds fabric for quilts, aprons, tea cozies, purses and pillows.
A big part of the fun is making fabric combinations for each project.

Luckily, I have some helpers to give these ideas life. Since the fabric arrived so late we are really having to hustle. We are setting up a moch booth in the corner of the studio to test out our plans. I am even sewing in my sleep, it seems! I'm not complaining, though, since this is the best part of designing fabric... seeing it come to life as fun and usable objects. But time is short!!

All thoughts of the new book have been temporarily set aside. But now is a good time to let you know it is underway and due out this spring. I am so pleased to have Dragon Threads as my publisher for this new venture. We are calling it "Patchwork Sassaman Style" and it is all about using big, bold and beautiful prints. And we will be featuring lots of pieces made with my FreeSpirit fabrics, including Early Birds. I will keep you up to date, as we have lots of ideas to share as the book comes to life. Check out editor, Linda Teufel's latest blog and she will give you some more backgound on our project, including our sunny quilting cruise!