*Poof!* Let it be Halloween!

So, in my book it's WAY to early to be thinking Halloween, much less Christmas. But such is the world of the quilt designer - Fall in Spring, Spring in Fall. Working in the "the biz" now it's pretty commonplace for me to forget about which season it is and which year whatever I happen to be working on at the moment. Fabric design takes a lot of advance planning, and to make the point I wanted to share the lastest fabric I'm working with from Clothworks - Mummy Mambo by Dianne Knott! Isn't it just too cute?! I just got it in this week and have been eager to get this project started. This is being featured in a magazine this Fall and will be sending it off to the magazine the minute I'm finished with it. Pretty exciting! Be on the look out for it soon at your local shop... ;)

Also, my book deadline is *gulp* next week, and I will be buried and locked in my studio over the next week and a half. I'll be sticking my head up out of the piles of fabric and lifting my head from my keyboard to give updates during the next week. You can witness first hand the unraveling of an already frazzled quilt designer with simulataneous market and book deadlines at hand. This won't be pretty!

Think pink...

Oh lord, did I go on a pink spree this weekend . Last Spring I purchased all this lovely pink fabric and just hadn't figured out a good use for it. Well last week while attempting to organize my stash I came across it and decided it was just the thing for a design I came up with recently. This quilt is well under way and I like to call it "Tickled Pink"! A new pattern is in the works and should be ready for Spring Market - so be on the look out for it.

In other weekend news, I went to the outlet mall and scored a lovely two-tired wire basket, a perfect fit for my booth displays. Also arriving was a recent eBay find of a 1950's white jacquard table cloth to perfectly fit that giant booth table. Things are falling into place and the thrift gods are looking over me... or could that just be my Grandma looking over me and sending me good shopping fortune?! Thanks Grandma!

Just too cute!

In our wanderings around town this weekend I found this adorable glass bunny and absolutely had to have it. I suppose this little jar is meant for holding Easter candy, but I have a bag of old buttons from my Grandmother that will find a home here in this bunny.

While I should have been sewing my little heart out this weekend, we had visitors this weekend and had a blast showing them all around town. So to make up for it the evenings this week have been jammed to the hilt with sewing activity. The quilt in the background is one I posted earlier this week just farther along. It feels like I should be done with it by now! Off to the sewing machine...

Tickled three shades of pink

I just got so excited (and might I say a more than a little proud) to see my patterns to nicely displayed at Carriage Country Quilts in Des Moines, WA. This just got me all tickled pink so out came the camera phone... It sort of feels like earning that first dollar bill, framing it, and hanging it on the wall.

They were just named a Top 10 Quilt Shop and will be featured in the next issue of Quilt Sampler magazine. A great shop with a great staff - they totally deserve it. Stop by the next time you're traveling through the Seattle area, it's definately worth it!

New projects and new toys

In order to relieve the mounting pressure to catch up, I dove into my projects head first this weekend and finished a new pattern project to debut at market as well as started and made some decent headway on a new quilt that's for my book.

Then.. ahem... there was the trip to Sew Expo in Puyallup, WA on Saturday which yielded the purchase of a new sewing machine! Pictured are both my new project, a lovely bright and cheery yellow white and green quilt along with my new Janome Memory Craft 6600 that I have affectionately named "Alice". Boats and cars get names, why not sewing machines? :)