Saturday, May 25, 2013

Customer Round Up

Here is a peek at what the creative customers at Fat Quarter Shop have been up to. We love getting to see all of this quilty eye candy and hope you do too!


  1. Veronika's Charleston Harbor Block of the Month is finally complete!
  2. Susan's Tribute to the Civil War Block of the Month recently won 2nd place in the Azalea City Quilters' Guild's Biennial Quilt Show!
  3. This adorable Star Wars pillow was made by Fran for her 8 year old grandson's birthday!
  4. Casey tried her hand at hand appliqué for the first time with this sock monkey mini featuring 5 Funky Monkeys!
  5. Christine's quilt top featuring Vintage Modern by Bonnie & Camille for Moda Fabrics!
  6. LA Quilter's red, white and blue version of Peyton at Play featuring Minick and Simpson fabric.
  7. Tammie's Poppy quilt top, from our book Simply Fat Quarters in Coquette by Chez Moi for Moda Fabrics.
  8. Evangelina's Hello Kitty apron made with Hello Kitty fabric by Spring Creative Licences from Fat Quarter Shop!
  9. Becky completed the Bow Tucks Tote with Notting Hill fabric by Joel Dewberry. She completed this fun project in one day!
  10. Tracey made this lovely chevron quilt top using the Happy Tones collection by Michael Miller Fabrics.
  11. Tina's baby quilt featuring God Gave Me You by Lynette Anderson for Henry Glass Fabrics.
  12. Brea's Dash Away All quilt featuring Silk Road by Debra Valencia of Insights for Wilmington Prints.
Thank you for sharing your projects. Feel free to share on our Flickr Customer Gallery or email projects to chelsey[at]fatquartershop[dot]com.

Happy sewing!

Friday, May 24, 2013

Pattern Play with the Fat Quarter Shop



Welcome back to our Friday Feature! Please welcome Megan McHenry as our FQS staffer of the week!
She chose the following pattern to feature this week:


Now, it's time to announce the winner from last week's blog post.

The lucky winner is....
Joycita
I would use Oval Elements by Pat Bravo for Art Gallery. I think this quilt would be fun in an assortment of the colors.
For a chance to win a $50 gift certificate to our website, leave ONE comment on this blog post with the name of your chosen fabric collection. Be sure to include an email in your comment!

The directions for Pattern Play can be found here.

You have until Tuesday, May 28th to submit your comment and the winner will be announced Friday, May 31st, so be sure to come back to see if YOU are the winner!

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Designer Tidbits: Bonnie & Camille

Bonnie & Camille have done it again! Their latest collection for Moda Fabrics, Happy Go Lucky, is a Springtime treat, filled with scallops, florals, dots and checks. With a new hint of navy, these ladies have outdone themselves with this charming classic!


Q: Where did you find your original inspiration for Happy Go Lucky?
A: This was such a cheery collection right from the start. We started with the scallop print and the name, and went from there! We knew we wanted to use navy mixed in with some of our favorite red, aqua, and green, then added the yellow and orange, which made everything else shine. I know I'm not supposed to pick favorites, but this line just might be my favorite!


Q: What projects do you hope to see made with this collection?
A: We love to see anything and everything made from our fabric, it makes us so happy!

Round & Round Quilt Pattern by Thimble Blossoms
Q: Tell us about your sewing machines. What kinds do you have and how many?
A: I have two, a Bernina 430 for me to use and a Bernina 1008 for any friends or family who want to come sew. My little boys have gotten pretty good at sewing on it, I'm so proud of them!

Zipper Quit Pattern by Thimble Blossoms
Q: When did you start sewing and how did you get in the fabric industry?
A: My mom taught me to sew when I was a little girl, but didn't make my first quilt start to finish until I was a teenager. When my first son Aiden was a baby I started sewing more for him, and after a few projects, I was hooked! I grew up helping my mom with her pattern company, Cotton Way, and started my own, Thimble Blossoms, in 2007. We started designing fabric for Moda in 2008 and have absolutely loved it. Best job ever!

Oven Mitts featuring Happy Go Lucky Pattern by Cotton Way
Topsy Turvy Quilt Pattern by Cotton Way
Q: What is your favorite part of the fabric industry?
A: Hands down, it's the people in the industry that make it so wonderful. Really, everyone! Fellow designers, customers, shop owners, blog readers, everyone! Quilters are some the kindest, most caring people on the whole planet. We feel so lucky to be a part of such an amazing group.

Fireworks Quilt Pattern by Thimble Blossoms
Q: How do you find the time to be creative?
A: I know for me, creativity is an essential part of every day. Gosh, I love being a mom more than anything, but I am such a happier mom when I have my creative outlet to balance out the baseball games, homework, and cleaning up messes. When I get a chance to create something, it just makes me so happy!


Q: What is your favorite print in the collection?
A: I think we are probably both in agreement on this one, the scallop. I want to include it in every project I make now, happy-go-lucky or not. And I'm pretty sure I have!

Thanks for having me! I hope you enjoy sewing with Happy Go Lucky as much as we have!

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Designer Tidbits: Me and My Sister Designs


Barb and Mary, the fun loving sisters of Me and My Sister Designs are here on the Jolly Jabber to chat about their latest and most dramatic collection for Moda Fabrics, Shades of Black!  They stray from their usual bright and punchy collections to bring you their favorite prints in black, white and gray.  Keep reading for a closer look at the collections, and be sure to stop by their blog!


Mary and I are so excited to be on the Jabber again talking about our newest fabric group for Moda!
It’s called “Shades of Black”.


Not to be confused with the series of books called Shades of Gray. We had this fabric named long before we heard about the books!

We took some of our favorite prints from past collections and gave them a color face-lift. In fact you may recognize some of them.


And there is a new free pattern on our website that I plan to make very soon with the grays! It’s difficult to find gray print fabrics, but I can do some one stop shopping in my own stash now!
Now to answer some Jabber questions! (I’m a faithful Jabber follower and love this part!)

Q: What TV show or movie does your collection best fit into?
A: I think that if this collection was a TV show or movie, it would have to be an old black and white something. Maybe something light and fun like old Andy Griffith re runs. Maybe Aunt Bee might like a quilt to match that dress done in “Shades of Black“?


Q: Tell me about your sewing machine(s). What kinds do you have and how many?
A: Mary and I are not really sewing machine collectors. Mary owns two different Janome’s and two different Singers, one of which is a Featherweight. She does her daily sewing and piecing on her newest Janome and her old Singer is her workhorse that sews through all things heavy and is her go to for hemming jeans.

I on the other hand have an older Pfaff. It’s an older model that goes forward and backwards. Not a computer chip in it. I also have my old Singer that my husband bought for me at the Base Exchange for $75 dollars. I haven’t used it in probably 20 years, but will never be able to part with it. My sewing machine needs are simple.


Q: What is your favorite part of the fabric industry?
A: I think I can answer that safely for both of us, the people! Mary and I really do love going to quilt market and seeing old friends. We also like the teaching and traveling that designing leads to. We have been to visit some fabulous places and met some great people!


Q: From what aspect of your life do you draw creativity?
A: That’s a difficult question and hard to answer. To be honest, most fabric groups start with a simple doodle. No deep and insightful poems or nature photos, just doodles!

Q: What is your favorite print in the collection?
A: I would have to say 221240 or this …


I loved it when we used it in Dilly Dally and still love it.

 Mary says …22197 or this …


For some reason she calls it a Bollywood print??

Q: What is the most challenging part of the design process?
A: That’s easy! Narrowing down the prints! We get over a hundred fabric swatches from the mill to choose from with each collection. They are called “strike offs” and from these many small squares of fabric, we must eliminate over half to make the collection manageable. Many of our favorites end up in the “NO” pile.


Q: What are your favorite and least favorite colors and why?
A: Barb: This changes for me yearly. I used to love reds and dull greens. Now I am into turquoise and lime green. I have never met a color that I didn’t like!
Mary: Pink and Pink! I have always loved pink. When my daughters were small she made most of their clothes and they were always pink. To this day they both cringe at the color!

Thanks for joining us on the Jolly Jabber! Hope you had as much fun as we did and enjoy our newest collection … Shades of Black!


Please visit our blog and website today. We are having a give away! You could win this “Shades of Black” layer cake!
 
Thanks!
Barb and Mary of Me and My Sister Designs


LakeHouse Dry Goods Quilt Patterns + Giveaway

Ready for more news from It’s Sew Emma?

We were busier than ever for this Spring Quilt Market, not just with our own patterns, but with new patterns from LakeHouse Dry Goods. Starting this Market, we are writing and publishing Holly Holderman’s quilt designs! We are excited to start this venture with LakeHouse Dry Goods as we are huge fans of their fabric. To add some fun, we are giving away three full sets of the five new patterns, so be sure to enter the giveaway at the end of this post!
Check out the brand new covers and sweet quilts! All of these patterns feature Holly’s upcoming fabric, Sweet Things.




Snow White is a fun way to combine the Sweet Things panel and vibrant sampler print. Fussycut squares and simple sashing create a pretty-as-a-picture lap quilt.



Right on trend, Modern Butterfly is an adorable take on a pinwheel-butterfly block. Pair colors to create tonal blocks, accented with ric rac antennae. It’s a great project for quilters who enjoy extra embellishments!






Pennants – at the risk of playing favorites, this is our top pick of the bunch! Fun banner rows, sorted by color, are separated by an assortment of ric rac and sashing. The template is included. Pennants creates a small lap quilt, but try making just one row for a punchy wall hanging too!



The Perfect Pillowcase is a piece-of-cake, easy pattern you will turn to time and again. Just three prints create a bright pillowcase, unless you add in the cute cupcake applique. The cupcake template is included, so you’re not limited to just adding it to the pillowcase. Wouldn’t it be fun on a hot pad or cloth napkins?



Polka Dots & Potluck rounds out the bunch with quick quilt you will be inspired to make over and over again. It is LakeHouse Dry Goods’ first pattern for precuts, to boot. This quilt is nearly twin-sized, so you can decorate bedrooms as well! Use a combination of 10” squares and 5” squares, or 35 fat quarters for the blocks. We love it!

These patterns are available through It’s Sew Emma and Checker, and shop owners can contact us for more information!

For a chance to win a set of all five LakeHouse Dry Goods Patterns, comment below letting us know which is your favorite and why. Three winners will be chosen a week from today, 5/29/2013. Good luck!

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Spring Quilt Market Giveaway Winners

What a week it has been! We spent the weekend in Portland, OR for Spring Quilt Market and have been busy catching you up ever since.  We hope you enjoyed our recaps on our blog, watched our videos on YouTube, saw our photos on Flickr and kept up with our live tweeting on Twitter.  Now, for the fun part! (Who are we kidding, everything about Market is fun!)  We have giveaway winners to announce, so sit back and see if you are a lucky winner!

Upon arrival, we just couldn't wait to play a game with you and offer up a prize!  We had you match the FQS staffer with the carry on item. It was a bit of a challenge, so we are just choosing a random winner! The answers are below.


We are offering up a bundle of Giggles from our Sample Spree loot.  The lucky winner is Cara

Next, we all went back to Schoolhouse.  At Schoolhouse, we spent our day listening, learning and of course tweeting!  Our second giveaway challenge was to guess how many tweets we tweeted during Schoolhouse for a chance to win a bundle of Sweet Serenade or Barcelona. Two lucky winners were chosen!


We had exactly 167 tweets come from the Fat Quarter Shop Twitter on the day of Schoolhouse and a few of you got it right!  
The winner of Sweet Serenade is
debbiekl said...
167! Love the pictures! 

& the winner of Barcelona is
Monica said...
167 tweets! Are your fingers tired from all the typing?

Next, we spent our very first day walking the show, and sure did we all walk a lot!  We had you guess how many miles Kimberly walked during Quilt Market for a chance to win a bundle of Scrumptious or Honeysweet.


Kimberly walked 5.2 miles at the show! We had plenty of correct guesses, but could only choose two.
 The  winner of the bundle of Scrumptious is
andri. said...
Am guessing 5.2 miles:) 

& the winner of the bundle of Honeysweet is
carol fun said...
I will guess 5.2 mi of glorious fabric viewing! Thanks for the giveaway! 

Saturday we played a fun game. We had you unscramble a word for a chance to win a bundle of Love: Collections for a Cause or Vin Du Jour.


The scrambled word was:


And everyone got it right! The answer is: PATCHWORK!


The lucky winners are... free indeed who will receive a bundle of Love: Collections for a Cause and Deb at Chosen Sisters who will receive a bundle of Vin du Jour!

On Sunday we offered up a bunch of books!  We are giving away three signed books to four winners!

The lucky winners are, Karen - Quilts etc, Helen L, VickiT and Anne at Spring Leaf Studios.

And last but not least, we showed off our new It's Sew Emma quilts at Quilt Market.  You left a comment letting us know which pattern is your new favorite and three winners will receive a pattern pack of the new It's Sew Emma patterns!


The winners are.. SarahZ, Barbara and and RAchel Thompson at wildrachel!

Thanks so much for following along with us! For more Quilt Market coverage, visit our Flickr set and YouTube channel!