Pure by Sweetwater

Purely savory, purely contemporary, purely humble-- that's Sweetwater's new line Pure in a bubble.  Jaybird's contest we sponsored just a bit ago tells me everyone can agree with how savory this line really is (after an overwhelming amount of people wanted to win Pure!-- an outstanding overwhelming of course)!


Pure makes me think of pristine water that's gone through a Brita filter, not just once, but about 5 times.. maybe as Outcast would say.. "so fresh and so clean, clean".  Sweetwater has made this line from... well lets let her tell you herself...

So, I've had this bench for oh, about 20 years, and as the times have changed, so has my home decor.. along with this bench.  I upholstered the seat with red plaid when I first purchased it and last summer I decided to paint it "Mill Springs Blue".  To say the least we absolutely loved the color and had to make a fabric line from it... from that Pure was birthed!  

Compared to my past lines Pure is definitely different than Make Life, but is more similar to Authentic. We didn't really plan it out that way, but I am really happy with the way it turned out!

My all time favorite project with Pure is the quilt that we designed called Pure Happiness. We always love to see what people are creating with our fabric and always encourage them to send us a picture!

Currently, we are working on new patterns for our latest fabric collection - they will start showing it in September. I absolutely love this line and we can't wait to share it!!!!

- Sweetwater

Domestic Diva by Emily Taylor-- and a quick note

From Mad Men's 17 Emmy nominations to the vintage look being back in style Domestic Diva is here at it's prime.  This retro look Emily Taylor put together is delectable!  Besides just fitting in with the times, she has put a touch of memories into her designs.  With that, she is our special guest today to talk about them!



Hello Jolly Jabbers!



Domestic Diva was inspired by the daily household chores that most women have to do on a daily basis-- laundry, dishes, preparing meals and occasionally making cupcakes! I find that folding laundry is a time when my most creative ideas surface. I was in my laundry room for the thousandth time in a month when the concept of Domestic Diva came to me. I like the idea of ordinary women going about ordinary tasks in the service of their families being elevated to the status of diva. Because frankly, the work that we do to run a household is a heck of a lot more important than many things that we esteem in our culture.  Domestic Diva is a tribute to all hard-working homemakers out there, including my mom and my grandmothers.

Now, I have a few insider secrets about the patterns that make for fun trivia: The recipe pattern contains my Grandma Jensen's handwritten recipe for chocolate snack cake, as well as one of my husband's favorite chicken recipes.

The cupcake lady is a dead-ringer for myself (on my best hair day).

I wanted to include a woman ironing because it's my mother's favorite household chore (I think she's crazy).

Finally, I wanted Domestic Diva to have a retro feel, to remind me of my grandmother and her house-- full of cozy comforts and appliances from decades ago.

Domestic Diva is the perfect collection to use for aprons, place- mats, dish towels, etc.  And I think it will make for some pretty fun quilts as well!

- Emily Taylor

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So, I didn't add this to Saturdays post till today, so I want to make sure everyone knows.. but Kate Spain is also doing a Fandango giveaway on her blog that ends Tomorrow, August 31st!


Also, since so many of you asked about the tin for the FQS giveaway posted on Saturday, (which I know-- how adorable is that tin!) but it was exclusive from Moda.  As of right now,  Moda won't be selling any ...BUT... there MIGHT be a few more giveaways with the same tin, so you MIGHT want to keep your eyes open on the Jolly Jabber  ;-)

Fandango by Kate Spain-- and more!

Bringing the Spain back home, Kate Spain's new line Fandango does an absolutely fabulous job!  After living in Spain for two months myself, this line hits right to my heart, reminding me of the color tones and architecture all around the country.... ohh how I want to go back to visit!  I love how Kate gave us an extra kick with a little contemporary feel too!


Check out the Fandango Tango quilt kit we're getting in next week!  It's made from the Parasols Quilt Pattern by Fig Tree Quilts.. super cute!




Hi everyone! Hope you're all enjoying summer to its fullest. It's been a busy one around here for sure and I am so happy that it's August now because that means...Fandango yardage will be shipping! You probably already know that a "Fandango" is quite a snappy Spanish folk dance (ya, it's not just where you buy movie tickets), complete with castanets, hand clapping and foot stamping.

While I'm not much of a dancer (two left feet on the dance floor) I had such fun letting my pencil dance across the page when I began sketching concepts for this line!

I also wanted to include my love for making pottery and some of the beautiful motifs on hand made decorative tiles from afar.

The colors for Fandango were largely inspired by some tiles I bought while traveling in Mexico. When I saw them, I fell in love with the earthy combination of gold, celadon and terra cotta.

Kate Spain

www.katespain.com

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And now guess what!?  We have a special giveaway for Kate's new line!  It's a candy bar of Fandango, but.. you also get an extra surprise candy bar of Breakfast at Tiffany's by Fig Tree Quilts... annnd.. they come in a super cute tin from Moda! 

 Let's hear what you have to say on our blog... leave a comment on this post and bam! you are then now qualified to win this adorable set!  You have till Wednesday, September 1 at midnight CST!  Good luck! :-)

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OHH, and one more thing! Kate has a generous giveaway on her blog right now! Hurry because it is ending Tuesday, Aug 31st!  

Paradise by Pat Bravo & Pets on Quilts winners!

Since coming to work here at the Fat Quarter Shop, I have always found Art Gallery fabrics completely seductive in nature.  Her designs have all been very elegant but quirky/ contemporary with the bright colors.  Her lines have not only been darling in quilts, but purses, dresses, and tops.. and she has also made some super cute patterns for travel bags!  


Yesterday, while passing one of Austin's well known home cooking restaurants, Shady Grove, I noticed a little two-year-old girl running around in the bright green grass,  wearing a dress that i swore would look so adorable in Pat's fabrics (it was an absolutely perfect photo moment)!  It actually looked a lot like a picture Patricia is about to show you below.


 Patricia Bravo, owner and designer of Art Gallery, has definitely found her style, but always produced in a new way like her new line Paradise.  After learning about her inspirations it clicked right away why I always get so excited to see what she comes up with next!  


After no further ado, here she is, the lovely Patricia Bravo


I recently was lucky enough to visit Paris, and I fell completely in love. The visit inspired the whole line with every single step I took on each street, new designs, colors, and prints came to mind, and, as a result, Paradise was given birth.

I wanted to convey all the beauty I saw in the city through my fabrics; a message of style, sophistication and utter exquisiteness.

Picking out the colors was no hard task.. they chose me! haha! Honestly, I've always wanted to do a Marie Antoinette - inspired collection since I can remember, but somehow never did it...Until I went to Paris, and was in trance with the magnificence of the city. After years of reading books about France, Versailles, Louis XIV, and more, actually being there was like a surreal experience, and the colors and glorious prints just stuck with me!

Currently I have so much stuff going on! I'm working on new patterns and fabric collections, we have many surprises coming for this fall Market!

- Pat Bravo
www.patbravo.com



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On another note, SewCalGal has listed the winners to her Pets on Quilts contest! The winners have two days left to contact her and claim their prize!  We are still waiting to see which one of these lucky people get the Rex My Little Puppy fat quarter bundle from Fat Quarter Shop!


While glancing through all the doggy quilt entries, I found this one... how adorable!

Click here to view all entry's.

Spirit by Lila Tueller for Moda & a Quilt Contest!

The joyful Lila Tueller has much been known for her bright and sassy colors.  Her new line Spirit doesn't fall far from that tree...  and now can lift up your spirits all year long with her new line Spirit! ;-)


Lila is here today to talk about this lifting line and you might actually be surprised about her inspirations... I know I was..






Hello Jolly Jabber Friends!

I am really excited to introduce my latest line with Moda, Spirit!

This line is super saturated with lots of rich color. I was inspired by the out of doors and the lush tones of fall for this line. There is lots of contrast and playful movement in the main prints, and there are plenty of those important tonals to provide continuity and visual rest.


You can be sure that anything you sew up from this collection will have lots of visual interest and richness. Perfect for the Fall season on it’s way, and beyond!

You may have already seen my latest patterns featuring “Spirit”, which include two new super cute tween-sized patterns perfect for your teens heading off to school: The London Peasant Top/Dress, and the Abigail Dress/Top.

There is also a fabulous new pattern called the Stella Skirt and this one is for women and teens.  Fat Quarter Shop just got these in this week so go take a look!

I hope you will enjoy sewing with “Spirit”! Let it lift yours :-D

- Lila

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Also, if you haven't heard yet, FQS is sponsoring this weeks Quilting Gallery themed contest... "miniatures" is the game... so find your favorite quilt with Paper Dolls, Everything But the Kitchen Sink or whatever you can think of and enter.  You can win a $50 gift card for Fat Quarter Shop! :-)

Betz White: the New Pattern Diva!

Betz White has just started to grace Fat Quarter Shop with her presence this summer...after meeting her at the past Quilt Market in May she was an absolute delight and it seems people have felt the same about her pattern designs! We thought it was about time to find out a little more about this new diva, so today she is visiting the Jolly Jabber for the first time! 

Also, we have just received two of her new books, Sewing Green and Warm Fuzzies. You should go take a peak at them... Sewing Green has 25 projects you can make with repurposed materials and Warm Fuzzies has 30 felt projects that make you warm and fuzzy on the inside! ;-)

I grew up in a super crafty household. As kids, my brothers and I spent a lot of time around the kitchen table with my mom doing all sorts of crafts from macramé to quilling to paper maché. One of my favorite family crafting memories is making sand candles while vacationing at the beach!


My mother also taught me to sew and knit at a young age. In college I majored in fashion design and spent the first 20 years of my career designing children's clothing for companies such as Carter's and Lands' End. After becoming a mom I changed course and evolved my career to be more flexible: freelancing and eventually becoming an author and starting my own business.


I'm drawn to color, pattern, texture and whimsy. And I especially love creative re-use! Taking an everyday item such as a table cloth or a t-shirt and transforming it into something beautiful is so gratifying to me. I am inspired by new and old and everything in between.

Thank you, I'm very excited about the concept behind my new pattern line. Each of my Make New or Make Do™ patterns is designed so that projects can be made from new fabrics or by repurposing items on hand. I've written each pattern's directions two ways. The Make New instructions describe how to make the project using regular yardage. The Make Do instructions are specific to repurposing a second hand item, such as a pillowcase, with diagrams explaining each step of the transformation. Also included is a glossary of terms used and more tips about repurposing.



Until next time,

Betz White

Jaybird Quilts Contest Winners!

Happy Monday to all!  I wanted to thank everyone that participated in Jaybird's Pure FQB Giveaway!  We had an outstanding number of 1,699 contestants! WOW!!!

Half way through the giveaway we already had so many entries we decided to up the number of winners to 2 instead of just one.  Keep that kind of number up and that just might have to happen again! ;-)

With that said the two winners were Angela & sbmeeks! You two lucky ladies will have your Pure FQB's shipped out today!  

Congrats again! :-) 

Second Annual Fig Tree Club

Founder and owner of Fig Tree & Co., Joanna Figueroa, is here today to tell us a little about the Second Annual Fig Tree Club! She has lots to share-and-tell, so with no further ado... here she is!


Hello Jolly Jabber readers-

Hope you are having a wonderful summer full of new fabric projects and old ones, filled with family, relaxation and great summer activities!
Kimberly has asked me to tell you a little about the Fig Tree Club which is about to start off on its second year of exclusive projects. It feels just like yesterday that we started this whole adventure with a handful of stores in the U.S. and have slowly expanded it quarter by quarter to the current 50+ international stores. Fat Quarter Shop has been with us since the very first project and to our great joy, dozens of Kimberly’s customers have shared their creations with us over the past year as they worked and completed them. What a great group of quilters you all are!

For those of you who participated last year, you already know all of the fun projects and goodies that you get as a member of the club. Here are a few examples of last years projects...

Cobblestone (Oct 2009)

Whimsy Diamond Table Topper (Feb 2010)

Summer Crisscross Throw (May 2010)

Blooming Meadow (July 2010)

For those of you interested, here is a bit more info about the club:

• The club consists of a quarterly kit program centered around the newest Fig Tree fabric collections. Once you sign up, you will receive a kit a quarter all based on the latest Fig Tree collection utilizing an exclusive pattern only available to Fig Tree club members.

• Each kit will be for for a lap quilt, a runner or a wall hanging and no kit will never be more than $75. You won’t know what all 4 projects are up front, because we are working on kits as fabrics become available.

• Each exclusive club pattern will start with simple “precuts” goods from MODA and goes from there for ease of construction for any level of quilter. The projects vary between lap quilts and home dec projects such as table toppers, aprons, bags, pillows, etc.

This is our first project for the next year, coming up in just a couple of months.

It is called Twinkle and it is my favorite club project thus far! A classic simple star project with a unique block border setting that makes it just a bit different.

If you haven’t already signed up for the club, hope you might think about it. It is such a fun way to get more Fig Tree in your life! Please let know Kimberly or me know if you have any club questions at all!

Happy sewing, happy quilting and happy “clubbing”,

Joanna

On another note, go take a look at the Fat Quarterly blog, Kimberly passed by there today for an interview!  There also might be a special something your wallet might like ;-)

A quick note.. a giveaway!

Looks like quite a few people have already heard... but Fat Quarter Shop and Jaybird have teamed up once again and are excited to announce another giveaway! You have a chance to win the purely tranquil Fat Quarter Bundle of Pure by Sweetwater! Find out more on Jaybird's blog post!

Good luck! :-)

Civil War Ladies by Pat L. Nickols for RJR Fabrics

Pat L. Nickols with RJR Fabrics has done it again! She's put together a reproduction collection with splendid colors of the era and added a few new twists to make the collection truly her own. We are so excited that Pat agreed to write about her newest collection, Civil War Ladies!

Civil War Ladies started with a photograph of a young couple, framed in a daguerreotype, possibly taken for their wedding. This gave me a romantic settling as I started gathering antique fabric swatches for this line from my extensive collection of authentic fabric. The name Civil War Ladies was chosen to illustrate the supportive role women played during the war and after as we put our young country together. The young woman in the photo has a paisley shawl over her shoulders that would have been a prize possession in the Civil War era. The paisley stripe and paisley medallion were chosen to illustrate the popularity of the paisley shawl, which might have been woven of fine wool in Scotland and exported to this country.

Paisley Medallion

I strive to get the exact reproduction prints as close to the original fabric as possible. In most cases there is a document or original color-way that is engraved and printed. In addition, we alter colors in some of the prints to cover as many original and popular colors of the period.

Paisley Stripe

When selecting prints to use for a collection I like to have a variety of scale and pattern. In this line the paisley stripe was my starting point, then the paisley medallion was a good support. I followed the paisley with the ribbon stripe and the next three medium prints, some dense with patterns and some open with widely scattered figures. Small scale prints are very important for quilt composition and the four stars prints will be welcome additions for quilters. I like to offer quilt makers, re-enactors or museums the colors and patterns that are true to the period . When choosing a project I try to be as true to the period as I can. Does that mean I feel these can only be used for antique reproduction pieces, no, not at all. These patterns and colors can be grouped to work very well in today’s contemporary settings.

Another of my Civil War Ladies lines is coming later this fall. I really do like the wonderful prints and colors in the 1860s and 1870s and will do more lines if they remain popular. Another time period I really like is the 1840s, I have done several collections and would like to do more, if public interest calls for it.

Pat L. Nickols

We are excited to offer two quilt kits using the Civil War Ladies fabric! Show your patriotism year-round with the Stars and Stripes Table Runner Kit. Our kit includes the table runner pattern by RJR Fabrics and Civil War Ladies fabric for the 25" x 60" quilt top and binding. 

In the mood for a larger project? We are also offering the Jacob's Ladder Kit. Our kit includes the quilt pattern by RJR Fabrics and Civil War Ladies fabric for the 67" x 74" quilt top and binding. Reserve your kit today, and we'll email you when they're here!

BOM: Paris in the Fall

Bustling sidewalk cafes, smells of freshly baked croissants wafting from the local patisserie, hours spent wandering through the Louvre, a champagne lunch at the Eiffel tower……ahhhh, visions of that wonderful city! If you have visited Paris or have longingly wished to do so, maybe the Paris in the Fall Block of the Month project will also inspire you!

This block of the month is a 6 month program designed by Sherri K. Falls of This & That. Sherri’s patterns and instructions are clear, concise and easy to follow. And what better fabric collection to use for this incredible quilt than Moda’s Maison de Garance by French General. Experience the earthy tones of chocolate brown, rich tans and creams and regal reds that replicate vintage French textiles . 12 traditional blocks with unique variations are perfectly framed with pieced sashing which forms a secondary pattern.

Please join us for this extraordinary project beginning in November!