Fresh Figs

Dreamy Displays

A trip wouldn't be a trip for me if I didn't show you a tiny bit of what I saw inside the shops. Just a few sweet displays here....

these definitely work with my next line of fabric... in theme and in color... more on that a bit later....

Talk to you soon.

I did go with my kids after all....

I did go on vacation with my kids after all....

I usually shy away from posting a lot of pics of my munchkins. But our time wouldn't be completely chronicled without at least 2 or 3 shots of the littles.... Don't they look like they fit in?  A bit too brown to fit in completely in the British countryside... but pretty cute nonetheless!

Talk to you soon.

Figgy Pudding

This is one of the favorites from Spring Market in Portland. Called Figgy Pudding and named by many of you in our blog naming contest a few months back. It is a great scrappy quilt that can be started with any of your favorite collections. I recommend using 1 Layer Cake of your favorite grouping, this one was started with Dandelion Girl. Then for the extra fabrics you will need, I recommend using a selection of fabrics completely different from what you started with. That way when you look at your finished product, you will never even know that it started with one pre-coordinated collection. It will truly look like a scrappy creation from your stash or from your Grandma's attic.  I just love that look!

I do want to mention that we have discovered a small error in this pattern. Even after 2 people, pieced it and 2 more edited it, somehow a mistake still managed to get through!  Aaarrgghh!! Sorry.

For those of you who have it or are thinking of getting it, here is the correction. It does not effect the materials list, just how you cut it.

PATTERN CORRECTION

The cornerposts are supposed to be 2 1/2" cut [directions call for 2" cut in error]. You will need a total of 40 posts.

If cutting from 1/4 yds. change the directions as follows:

Cut (40) 2 1/2" post squares from your fabric leftovers. Choose a good variety of fabrics & cut several from each.

If cutting from Layer Cakes and Charm Packs, change the directions as follows:

From the (20) "circle" layer cakes, cut the final square (1) 2 1/2" [instead of the (1) 2" square as written in the pattern]. This will yield 20 posts. 

From the (5) 1/8 yds. designated for "circles", cut (4) 2 1/2" squares [instead of the (1) 2" square as written in the pattern]. This will yield 20 posts. This will give you an overall total of the 40 posts you will need.

Talk to you soon.

A bit more of the British countryside

I just can't seem to find one good descriptive word in the English language that describes what the Cotswolds look, smell and feel like. Storybook. Lush. Romantic. Cottage. Provincial. Charming. Inspiring. Childlike. Green. Earthy. Here are just a few of my favorite shots from our wanderings.... our favorite cafe, our hotel, traditional thatched cottages, houses on the street, village scene.

Talk to you soon.

Felt Like I needed to add a Quilt....

Felt like I wanted to add in a quilt or two... here are 2 of the patterns we released at Spring Quilt Market. My drifted back to these colors over and over as I walked around the Cottswalds. Fresh, saturated and yet nostalgic....

Made with Fig & Plum which will be out in September... stay tuned for more. Plum Rose [in Fresh Vintage #9] and French Quarter made with a fat quarter bundle... 

Talk to you soon.

A mini walk through the Cottswalds

As I walked around the British countryside known as the Cottswalds, I kept thinking about how I was going to capture what I was seeing. I mean I took 5 cards worth of pictures, many of them of my family, many of them of the traditional thatched roof cottages prevalant in that part of the country... but yet somehow I wasn't sure that I could explain what I was seeing. So I thought I would take a short late afternoon walk, after our traditional tea [now there is a custom I could get seriously used to... tea with scones covered in clotted cream... uuummmmmmm] and take as many small shots as I could. Here is the result of my walk and the hope that at least you might be able to imagine a tiny bit of what I saw....

Talk to you soon.

Home Again, Home Again

Home at last... Without going into tediously boring detail, our family has arrived back in more or less one piece after 2 weeks in Poland & the English countryside. Our trip was an eclectic mix of traditional Polish celebrations, quaint strolls through Old Town Warsaw, complete family insanity, rolling green hills of the British countryside, all of my favorite family comfort foods, London sightseeing, beautiful lakes and blueberry picking.... just to name a few. I think I might share our adventures with you in various categories but I have to admit that among the strange things that I love are.... British countryside doors! I know, doors, who would have thought. But there is something so charming and personal and quaint about these doors that I just can't resist. I go around like a dork, taking pictures of doors while people stare at me with polite smiles! On top of it all, did you know that in Britain most of the homes have no physical address, only the "name" of the house and not just any old names like House 12... oh no, names like Burburry Cottage, Mill House, Brambleberry Manse, Peony Cottage, Countryside House, Honeysuckle House, Birch Lane Cottage, Geranium House, Rose House, Chester House... just to name a few. Aren't those just wonderful? I think I have decided I am going to name our house. I just don't know what exactly. Fig Cottage. Fresh Vintage House. Fig & Roses Cottage. Figs & Insanity House :-)..... I'm open to suggestions...

Talk to you soon.

A Little Family Adventure

Day #1 of our trip..... London!   No pictures yet... beautiful weather... will post when I have a better connection...

A bit more Market...

Well... here are a few more shots of the booth from Market and look someone actually managed to get me in the shot... that's a rarity! I have a few more to share after this with a couple more great MODA booth shots but with all that has been going on around here... Well lets just recap: We are still trying to tie up Market orders as they have been pleasantly overwhelming; Fresh Vintage auto ships are almost all out; working on tieing up our next collection; designing patterns to go with it; we're trying to work out the kinks in a couple of website updates we are doing; I'm training a few new people this week; our entire network and phone system crashed a few days ago and we have been building it back up from scratch ever since... you don't even want to know more about that; all 3 of my munchkins have end-of-year activities this week and my beloved husband is in Tahoe for a conference for his other job... need I say more? If you have emailed and I have not responded, please bear with me. I am not ignoring you all! On the sane side, Ella and I have picked some beautiful herb and flower bouquets this week; I have played card games with the boys and I have completely redecorated my living room... well, maybe I have just reslipcovered and redecorated my couch, but it makes the whole room feel brand new! What do you think?

Talk to you soon.

Return from Quilt Market

Well, another successful  Quilt Market is done and we are finally home and slowly trying to get back in the swing of things. As many of you already know, this year Spring Market was in the beautiful city of Portland, Oregon. A place with great food that we had the chance to partake in [our favorite was Toro Bravo for tapas], a charming river running through the middle of it [that we had the opportunity to take a dinner cruise on with our MODA colleagues] and my favorite bookstore in the whole country. Wow, it doesn't soundl like we did any work at all... but I can assure you that indeed we did and somehow we managed to get in a few of these wonderful moments listed above! In fact between setting up & breaking down, manning the booth, teaching workshops, breakfast meeting, dinner meetings, and the grand MODA Friday night party... there wasn't much time to do anything else. At least we got to work in wonderful places surrounded by great people!

Market itself was a fabulous whirlwind. Here are some shots of our booth which we were very happy with due largely to the delivery of lots of fabulous props from our home & studios by our favorite local quilt store owners, Joe & Roxie, and our piece de resistance... a wonderful slipcovered chair, made out of several of our favorite Fig & Plum fabrics. I was inspired by Camille & her wonderful red Dottie upholstered chair & thought, how hard could it be to make a slipcover? Well, given that I had never made one before... it was a bit tricky but actually easier than I anticipated when I set out to make the pattern. Alot of tracing paper later, some help from my friend Keiko and a bunch of strange shapes, voila a slipcover was born. Unfortunately, I think I might have created a monster and am seeing potential slipcovers everywhere I go... in the dining room, in the bedroom, in the kids rooms.... If I'm not careful, before this summer is done, we might just be completely slipcovered! 

As always, we were acrosss the aisle from the wonderful MODA booths [whom we affectionately like to refer to as the mothership] and I had occasion to take some shots of some of my favorite products over in MODA HOME. One of the things that they have is a whole array of wonderful things inspired by vintage milk caps... talk about Fresh Vintage! I have to tell you that when I first found out they were doing milk cap inspired products a few months ago I was crestfallen. Over the past few months I had managed to collect hundreds of those cute little things and was working on a way of incorporating them into my next collection. I thought it best to put a hold on that idea and see how the MODA products looked. But of course after seeing their charm and retro feel, I am inspired all over again to add them back into a group here or there.... we'll have to see the continued saga of the milk cap inspiration... they are just so charming. Here is a little tidbit about the MODA ones... the designers who worked on them have all managed to work their own last names into the designs... perhaps you can find them

Talk to you soon.