Fresh Figs

Sneak...

...Peek

Just thought I'd pop in amidst our sewing and designing frenzy to show you a project in my upcoming book, With Fabric & Thread. This is one of my favs. 

 

We don't have them in our hot little hand just yet but a little birdie just told me that we should be getting them any day now!

So we are working to get books ready to ship to you next week, WOOHOO!

We will start taking pre-orders on the site this weekend [or perhaps later today if all goes well] so check back if you would like a signed copy as soon as we have them! 

 

 

 

More on all this book fun later. For now, hope these little goodies give you something yummy to think about this weekend! And if you have time, feel free to send all possible sewing and cutting vibes our way as we will be literally buried in fabric!

Talk to you soon.

Quilts & More: Scrap Lab

I'm sure you have noticed that every 3 months or so another little QUILTS & MORE: SCRAP LAB project shows up the doorstep of our blog. Well, its that time again.

It seems that each time we wrap it all up and think that we are done, its time to work on another scrappy goody for the folks at SCRAP LAB. Who knew, but apparently you guys are a little crazy about the SCRAP LAB feature and keep asking for more stuff. Thanks guys! I sure hope Camille and I [and all our guest friends] don't run out of ideas!

As usual I am not quite "on top of it all" enough to know [or if I did know, then remember] when the magazine hits the newsstands and when I am supposed to talk about it, but when QUILTS & MORE starts tweeting about the issue and I see it for sale online, I guess its safe to assume that I can blog about it. So here goes...

This time around we got to use a bit of my latest collection, California Girl, [you never know what they're going to throw at us, those crazy Quilts & More ladies] so it was super fun for me to whip up a little scrappy project for you out of my own creations! Our challenge this time around was to use a charm pack and a 1/2 yd. ivory solid fabric. Even the binding had to be from the charm pack. I have to tell you that even though you might not know it in the midst of the design process, I am really loving the challenge of using only what I have in front of me. Its kinda liberating in a funny kind of way.

 

So anyway, this is my contribution to this SCRAP LAB feature. As soon as I see any blogs or posts about the other projects [they are super-duper cute btw], I will add them here..... or at least tell you about them. I think you will love our guest this time around. We always love our guests... but kinda especially love this one. She is fabulous.

 

 

 

 

 

So... its super simple and a great beginner project or something that you can literally whip up in an afternoon. Small enough for you to easily practice your quilting on. Bound with scraps of the charm squares.

 

FAQ's:

The instructions & pattern are all in the latest SUMMER ISSUE '12 of QUILTS & MORE.

The magazine is available now. It is sold at many grocery stores, chain fabric stores and of course most of your local quilt shops. It is also available on-line.

We do not sell the magazine here at Fig Tree.

We do sell the kit for the project here at Fig Tree. If you are interested, CLICK here. The kits contains all the fabric you need for the top including the binding. The backing is not included. We used plain cream solid from our stash.

Have a great day! 

A bit more Tapestry...

Remember how I mentioned a little while back that this next line coming up is one of my favorites.... well I think I still feel that way. It has every single one of my favorite colors in it!

The other day when I was having a particularly daunting day and I should have been working on ten different projects and dealing with a few big family issues but couldn't motivate myself for any one of them, I worked on changing all of my screen savers to the picture of the stack I showed you.

It made me happy on that hard day. Hope it might do the same thing for some of you soon!

Here are a few more shots of the few teeny, tiny pieces I have. Anxiously awaiting the arrival of air yardage sometime soon!

 

 

Hope you all have some fabric near you that is making  your hard days a bit easier!

 

Joanna

Happy Spring

 

 

 

 

Sometimes all I want to do is take pictures of pretty flowers and share them with you.

 

Hope you had a wonderful Easter and possibly a little Spring Break. More on our version of that later. Its good to be home.

Postage Stamps

Sometimes I want to work on something big and simple and a bit more modern. On those days I crave clean lines and brighter colors. I want to see a lot of white space and love to play with pattern. I love looking at shapes and positive and negative space to see what kinds of patterns will emerge. I feel expansive on those days :-)!

Other days I retreat to little treats of handwork and sweet vintage images. I have a collection of vintage ephemera that includes fruit crate labels, postcards, stamps, ads, travel posters, school booklets and the list goes on and on. Some days all I need to do is immerse myself in those vintage images for inspiration.

On those days I am very detailed oriented and love to focus in on the minutia of those vintage pieces of paper and the colors and images that they chose to work with so long ago.

I go between the two on a regular basis, never sure which one I will be more drawn to that day. Today seems to be one of my traditionalist days and right before Easter, I just wanted to share with you our little collection of Vintage Postage Stamp quilts. Each one inspired by a combination of vintage postage stamps and postcard images. 

 

Today this is what is making me happy...

Not sure that I have a favorite on these. But if you made me choose... I think I would pick the little birds under the umbrella and the winter skate. Love those a lot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Easter to everyone!

 

Click here for more info on these.

Any orders for these will start shipping next wed. due to a few spring break activities around these parts!

And a little insider information... we have 2 more coming soon for Market. Maybe a little something patriotic and a little something "autumny"!

Picking Favorites

I know its not nice to pick favorites when you have multiple "kids", but these days this one is definitely my favorite. Shhh... don't tell the other ones!

It was so beautiful the other day that I couldn't resist the opportunity to snap a few shots.

 

STARBLOOMS

Things that I am loving about it right now:

My Favorite California Girl prints

Giant Blocks

Simple Piecing

No Matching Points!

Light Ivory Background.

Fabulous Quliting

Did I mention Giant Blocks?

Okay, that's it I guess.

 

 

 

 

 

Click here for more info if you are interested.

Hope you all had a great weekend.