Fall Market '10: Day 2 - Ready, Set, Go... and then let's Give!

-- THIS GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED!! --

Between appointments today we were able to stop by a few of the great booths here at Market. It's been a long day, but we've had a great time talking with some of your favorite pattern and fabric designers.

Anna Griffin -- just came out with some amazing lines!

The Isabelle Christmas Collection by Anna Griffin (June 2011)-- this picture does not do the fabric justice (sometimes that thing called lighting doesn't work out so well), but it's an absolutely adorable vintage Christmas collection. Sarah (my partner in crime here at the FQS), has been looking to make stockings for her fireplace and she instantly fell in love!

The Willow Collection by Anna Griffin (December 2010)-- we also just ordered this one. Super elegant and classic colors! Anna really did it up this time!

Not Only is this completely stellar for those little rascals that try their hardest to aim inside the bowl and might still need a stepping stool to do so, but it's environmentally friendly too! Birch Organic Fabrics have done it again with Beach Mod Circa 60 and Marine.-- and yes those are her boys and hubby in the pics-- absolutely perfect photo memories, what a good lookin' squad!

Some kids got a little festive for their booths! Debbie Porreca, head of Sales at Michael Miller, put on her vintage shoes today to get wrapped in their theme!

Bonne Amies (shown above and below) are keeping that vintage inspiration Debbie had above. And yes, we will now be getting this line-- in January 2011-- the bird print is to die for!-- so elegant and yummy (and no that is not me wanting to eat the birds)! ;-)

Then we ran into Patty Young again! (with Debbie from FQS) Her new line Sanctuary is coming out in January-- which she is actually wearing.. and you can see her darling little girl wearing it in the back photo!

Val and Anne (Pillow & Maxfield) posing with their new line Gypsy Bandana (also shown below). If you look at our flickr site you can find the full shot of the bed, including how they used the border print on the bed skirt!

Val and Anne pointed out to me the orange bullseye.. can you find it!? Note: they didn't do that on purpose and it can be easily avoided. ;-) Still so completely adorable though!

Carrie Nelson of Miss Rosie's Quilt Company informed us she just finished her next Schnibbles book and will have more patterns coming out in January. :-)

Look who I found next! So did you know that Marcus Brothers Fabric Company has been passed down the Marcus Family for 100 years now! That's Martin Marcus in the middle ( the owner), his son Daniel on the left, and Stephanie (who makes sure we know all the lowdown on new lines) on the right. Martin looks pretty sharp, eh? He was countin' down the seconds of when he could jump outta that suite and slide into his comfy clothes!

Once again Anna Maria Horner has flirted our way into our hearts with Innocent Crush! Can you please make that in my size Anna!?

Elizabeth Scott of Late Bloomer Quilts has put the Red Rose Farm in action! Better be aware, you might get wet with the sprinkler check!

ANNND last but not least!

We had a TV celebrity in the house today! Most famously know as the Host from "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" and was also the carpenter on "Trading Spaces." Well believe it or not, he is now releasing a line for Westminster Fibers in the near future!

Sooo we got about half way done with the show today-- to see more pics check out our flickr site. -- Don't worry we have a lot of goodies scheduled for tomorrow! I really cannot wait to see what is in store!

And now! Once again.. you guessed it... Another giveaway! We are giving away an Oasis FQB by 3 Sisters. To enter leave a comment on here, on twitter or on our facebook status about this "Jolly Jabber Update". You need to write about something we showed you today! And... ready... GO!

This contest will close Sunday, October 31st @ midnight CST.

Fall Market '10: We've arrived! and Sample Spree Giveaway...

-- THIS GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED!! --

We're here!! After a few long, and very adventurous hours in the car (yes, that is very tongue-in-cheek, and kudos to all you certain folks who drove halfway across the country in your cargo vans) we have arrived here at the Fall 2010 International Quilt Festival in Houston! What happened tonight? Fabric 2.0, hosted by J. Caroline and Stash Books, Sample Spree, annnd we have a super secret sneak peaks of a few booths! (Snagged some goodies for a giveaway -- keep reading!)

We arrived in late afternoon, so we didn't get to do any Schoolhouse :( but we did get a few sneak peak photos of some super cute designer booths!

Some adorable diaper bags made from Barbara Jones' line, Doll Babies.

Tula Pink's booth displaying her new line, Parisville-- so elegant, love it!

Amy Butler showing off her booth, decked out in Soul Blossom fabric. Absolutely adorable dress Amy!

Such a cute chair covered in Country Lane by Bari J

We cannot ever get enough Dr. Suess by Robert Kaufman!

But the Fabric 2.0 event was fun... best turnout yet!..met a few pattern & fabric designers, and blogsters.

Paige Stanley Miller, Kate Spain, Liesl Gibson ( Oliver + S) & John (Quilt Dad)

Patty Young (modkid patterns & fabric designer, of course) with her husband.

Kim Kight (TrueUp) -- (on a side note: doesn't she have the most adorable giggle face!?)

Betz White and Joanna Figueroa (Fig Tree Quilts) -- *cheers* to market kickoff!

Then headed over to Sample Spree, where we bought a little bit of this, a little bit of that...

This isn't chaos right...!?

Yeah and of course...the giveaway! So what have you heard about in Twitterverse and Blogland about Market? Who would you like us to visit and paparazzi? Comment on this post (gets you one entry) and or send us a tweet (for another entry) to let us know, and two winners will receive these super sweet new Moda candy bar boxes (which will definitely also be coming soon to FQS!) One is called Almond Chocolate and the other Golden Caramel....The winner will be announce next week!


This contest will close Saturday, October 30 @ midnight CST so get on workin'! You have less than 24 hours starting now!

Masion de Garance by French General + Winners!

Happy Friday!!  Have you checked out Masion de Garance by French General yet?  It comes in all the precuts, cottons, silky cottons, toweling, quilt kits, patterns, a block of the month, and even trim!  With the rich reds, browns and creams it's perfect for any time of year but even especially as an elegant feature for the holidays (you know, without screaming: THIS IS A CHRISTMAS DECORATION!). ;-)  Well we got lucky again today and Kaari from French General is here to tell us more details of this absolutely elegant line.

Maison de Garance is French General's Fall 2011 collection of fabric that is inspired by the colors in Toulouse during the 19th century. This collection grew out of a conversation Cheryl, the Moda design director, and I had last summer while sitting in her room at Chateau Dumas, overlooking the sunflower fields below. Cheryl pulled out a brown and white transfer ware plate she had bought at the flea market in Toulouse and we were both enamoured with the deep chocolate color - and thought it would be the perfect compliment to the old French General reds. Maison de Garance is a collection of fabrics filled with our classic French reds, rich browns and a natural tea stain color...and the leaves are green! I am just crazy about some of the florals that are embellished with color - I can't decide if I like the reproduction or the original better - and that's a good sign!

Inspired by the colors in Maison de Garance, we decided it was time to start designing patterns to use with our fabrics. Our first two patterns, Maison de Garance and Reine des Abeilles are quilts designed by Keiko Clark of K. Cotton Studio. Colorful, elegant designs that capture the essence of French rural life are woven into each of our patterns. We hope you enjoy sewing with our new collection as well as trying out one of our new patterns, available at frenchgeneral.com in November.

Merci-

Kaari

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And now what you have all been waiting for!  The Bliss and City Weekend candy bar giveaway!  I loved reading what everyone came up with! This one was a tough pick though!


Soooo here we go!

Lindz


"I would choose Bliss.


For my costume, I would get
three dolls, all boys, and carry them around with one arm.


I would have a Dr. Pepper in the other arm.


I would put a camera around my neck.


And then I would make a superhero cape out of Bliss (with a quilt-y look).


Who would I be? (The super-perfect and very talented) Camille Roskelley.


(It sounds like I want to date or or something, doesn't? Really, I just envy her.)"




AND


Jansie


"Hi there, I would love to try City Weekend. My costume would be made with card board covered in fabric. On top of the head would be a panel of blue for the sky. The body would be a combo of red, turquoise and yellow tree branches, and the bottom would be green and yellow grasses. A walking walk in the park. :)"




Congratulations Lindz and Jansie!!


To claim your prize email "stephanie [at] fatquartershop [dot] com" with your full shipping address by Wednesday, October 27th @ midnight CST.  


Have a lovely weekend everyone! :)

Fall into Fall Giveaway winners!

With the International Quilt Market approaching in.. wow 10 days... we're getting really busy preparing here at the Fat Quarter Shop... make sure you stay tuned while we're at Market on Halloween weekend!  We will constantly be updating twitter and then updating the blog each night with all the amazing booths and new lines we see. :)
I really cannot wait!!

Yup and now it's time! It's time to post the winners to the Fall into Fall Quilt Bloggers Giveaway from the October 1st blog post...

Annnd the winner is....

Gretchen

"Purely perfect PURE, pretty please."

Congratulations Gretchen! To claim your prize e-mail "Stephanie [at] fatquartershop [dot] com" with your shipping information by Sunday October 24th @ midnight CST.

Paris in the Fall BOM Begins Soon! + a Hunt

Time is quickly approaching for the beginning of our Paris in the Fall Block of the Month! We have only a limited number of spots remaining, so sign up today to reserve yours!

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. Twelve 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!

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Also,  make sure you check out the Treasure Hunt at Quiltmaker's site!  Apparently there are over $14,000 in total prizes.. with a couple gift certificates to the Fat Quarter Shop mixed in.. not too shabby ;-)

City Weekend by Oliver + S + FUN!

We have a newbie in the house today, well a newbie at least for designing fabrics for Moda... it's Liesl Gibson of Oliver + S.  She's been around our world for a bit now, more specifically designing children's patterns.  Turns out she's a natural at designing fabric also, as her new line City Weekend turned out to be a real hit... well definitely not rock and roll type hit, but you'll know what I mean in just one second...  

Do you ever imagine your perfect weekend? City Weekend is about my perfect weekend here in New York, where I live. I would wake up on Saturday morning in my make-believe downtown loft, roll out of bed, and pop down to the corner bakery for a pastry and a coffee. Then I would decide what to do with the rest of my day: maybe take a stroll through the neighborhood park before stopping into a bookstore to browse the titles, meet a friend for lunch, take a nap on the sofa with the newspaper, or go for a bike ride along the river.

The color palette for the fabrics features clear, vibrant colors like blue, turquoise, red, and yellow-orange, with supporting shades of pink and green. The prints are intentionally relaxed and calm to suit the inspiration, ranging from the large Park Ramble branch pattern with plenty of open space (the kind of space you can only find in a park when you’re in the city); to Corner Florist, a scattered bouquet of blossoms; to the more orderly but still wild Treetop with its graphic pattern of autumn leaves.

Ice Cream Dress Pattern

City Weekend includes plenty of smaller patterns, too, since it’s much easier to mix patterns when some of them work more like solids. The Roundabout Dots print works beautifully with many of the patterns, as do the simple and tiny Cafe Dots, picking up the colors in the patterns without grabbing too much attention for themselves. The Urban Grid and Street Stripe work equally well for boys and girls and lend a quiet calm to the collection.

City Weekend Moda Quilt Kit

The quality of the fabric itself is very luxurious: light, smooth, and soft, suiting the fabrics beautifully to clothing (of course), quilts, and all sorts of projects. I designed the City Weekend quilt pattern specifically to feature these fabrics, and Moda has produced a quilt kit for the pattern.

City Weekend also includes interlock knits. This is a wonderful quality of knit that is unlike any other currently in the market. It’s substantial and soft. If you’ve felt the hand on knit fabrics before and haven’t been impressed, I encourage you to try this quality. It will change your mind about sewing with knits.

If you’re looking for things to make from the knits. I recommend our new Hopscotch Dress or Top, the Nature Walk Pants (more about these later), and the Bedtime Story Pajamas, which were actually written for woven fabrics but make up beautifully in knits as well.

I hope you’ll enjoy these fabrics! And may your ideal weekend come true for you.

- Liesl Gibson

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So apparently everyone gets another chance at the Red Rose Farm giveaway!  One of the FQB's was not claimed...

so the new winner is....

Barb in Mi

"For Red Rose Farm
I'd give my arm.

Some dots and some flowers
Will release quilting powers

To create and design
The quilt will be mine.

I need to succeed
Or I will delete

This attempt of a rhyme
That makes you all whine...

What fun - Thanks for the opportunity!"

Congratulations!  To claim your prize email "Stephanie[at]fatquartershop[dot]com with your shipping information.  You have till Monday Oct. 18 @ midnight CST.

****************

Of course not to mention the candy bars of fabrics inside... Well remember how I told everyone to keep their eyes open, because we just might do another giveaway with it.. 

Well today's your lucky day! With Halloween coming up we have not one, but TWO more tins to play with... thats a total of 4 candy bars!  One tin has two candy bars of City Weekend..

and the other- two bars of Bliss!

So given the holiday, the contest will revolve around it..  

Pick which of these two lines you would like... AND tell me what kind of costume you would make/design out of it.  

Creativity matters here! :-)

This contest will close Tuesday Oct. 19 @ midnight CST. 

Breakfast at Tiffany's by Fig Tree Quilts

"For attractive lips, speak words of kindness, For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people, For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry, For Beautiful hair, let a child run their fingers through it once a day, For poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone. People, more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed. Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you will find one at the end of each of your arms. As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself and the other for helping others."

"I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles."

Does this remind you of anything you've seen in the fabric world recently? Maybe Breakfast at Tiffany's perhaps? Well Joanna, designer and owner of Fig Tree Quilts, created her newest line with Ms Audrey Hepburn in mind.  Classy, fashionable, and oh so charming... I think they both revolve around all 3 quiet well! Well besides the whole Hepburn thing, Joanna is here today to tell us some other delicious details around Breakfast at Tiffany's!

Well hello Jolly Jabber Readers-

I guess its that time of year again and although I have been in my designing “hole” for quite some time now I thought I might pop my head out for a moment to give you all a little update. My latest line, Breakfast at Tiffany’s is out in stores! It's a perfect collection for this time of year and I have to admit that when we started working with it again this fall, everyone in the studio was surprised at how ideal it felt for this time of year. Imagine that! Anchored by a deep chocolate brown and punched up by a bright salmon, the collection is filled with buttery yellows, apple greens, a wonderful sea glass blue and of course full of our signature “ready to eat” creams.

My absolute favorite color in the bunch right now is the wonderful butterscotch orange color that is ushering in fall decorating around our house at the moment. It is really the perfect color for autumn projects and looks wonderfully warm in quilts and wonderfully vibrant at the same time.

We have created a wide array of patterns from this collection- everything from quilts to skirts to children’s goodies- and more on the way this Houston Market. The most popular quilts right now.... Vanilla & Blooms and Jelly Parfait. Our top selling children’s pattern... Polka Dot & Summer which is equally wearable on its own in summer as it is with a simple long sleeved t-shirt underneath in the fall. My daughter won’t wear anything else right now!

And don’t forget our simple wrap skirt for women, the Audrey Wrap Skirt [its reversible too!]. It has been flying off our shelves as stores use it for beginning sewing classes. It is such a simple pattern, perfect for all beginning sewers or for anyone who wants to whip something up for themselves in an afternoon. In fact two of our seasonal pattern folders who are college students and don’t sew much, made a set of skirts for themselves and recently sent me pictures in front of their dorm room to show off their creations. I was so impressed!

As for what we are up to now... Well that designing hole I mentioned earlier is quite deep! We have just received yardage for our brand new collection, Buttercup, that we will be showing at Houston Quilt Market in a few short weeks so we are busy making sure that all of our sample makers have what they need to finish the projects in time. We are putting the final touches on our next designs, we are working on finishing up 9 new patterns for Market and we have just picked up our newest Fresh Vintage issue, #17, from the printer and will begin sending those out tomorrow. Oh and we are about to show you the next Fig Tree Club pattern in about a week or so stay tuned for that. And if you haven’t already joined the club, you might want to consider it! The projects for this year are really a wonderful combination of lap quilts, table runners and wall hangings.

So back to my hole! Hope you enjoy a little Breakfast at Tiffany’s for your self this autumn,

Happy Sewing,
Joanna

Clermont Farms by Minick and Simpson

For a while my family would head to Kansas and Missouri for the Forth of July for a big family reunion.    Everyone's house that we would celebrate at had a small farm or I guess you could say ranchette-- with land, horses, a big pond and all (and maybe even some chickens)! ;-)  All the kids would play around shooting off fireworks over the ponds till the big kids took over with our real fireworks show.  Yep... its another peaceful memory in the bank!  Once I laid my eyes on Clermont Farms a grin started intruding on my face as these memories came right back to me.  

Minick and Simpson, designers of Clermont Farms are here today to tell us what they had in mind when they created the line.  Before I hand the keyboard over to them I want to make sure everyone has seen the Kentucky Star Table Topper Kit exclusively at Fat Quarter Shop.  Absolutely darling kit!  Fat Quarter Shop has paired the fabric of Clermont Farms with the Madeline quilt pattern by Miss Rosie's Quilt Co. 

When we started to work on this collection the first thing we were sure of were the colors. What we wanted to capture were the colors of denim, chambray shirts, and red bandanas.  Once we had that we started on the designs. In a rare occurance, we were at this stage when we were in Houston last fall for International Quilt Market. Also a rare occurrence, we drove to Houston. It wasn't too hard to convince us for a small detour to Dallas at the Moda Fabric Headquarters immediately following booth take down in Houston.

At a fortuitous meeting with Cheryl Freydberg, the head of design, we started to play with motifs, scale, and texture. As usual, we had too many fabrics and had to weed it down some. Cheryl was a tutorial in design efficiency. She quickly sorted, stacked, and resorted our collection into a smaller, more concise grouping. While moving scraps of paper and color swatches around into groupings, she said she thought we achieved our goal of denim, chambray and bandanas. "It looks like clothing from an old farm", she said. "Do you have a name?". Uh, no. Polly and I groan at our poor attempts at names. It isn't our strong point. We tried to come up with some, but they sounded too much like other recent Moda collections. "How about a real name that has some meaning to you both." Oh! Okay. That is how Clermont Farms came into being.

Clermont Farm was a horse farm outside of Lexington Kentucky owned by our cousin. He raised champion trotters and pacers. The descendants of his horses are champions today. As kids we were regaled with stories of the farm and it's beautiful inhabitants. We are proud to be able to keep the story alive.

- Minick and Simpson

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We also get to announce the Red Rose Farm Giveaway today!  I have read a lot of heart warming and hilarious poems this past week!  To be fair I am only choosing from those that followed all of the rules.  


So here we go!  The 2 randomly selected winners that followed ALL the rules are....

jane p

"Be mine

Red Rose Farm

I promise to be kind

And keep you from harm

A pretty purse is what I have in mind

Oh, you gonna charm"

AND

Mama24Monkeys

"Red roses so bright,

red roses so cherry,

dots and stripes,

to make one merry.

To sew such lovelies,

would make me bloom,

even on a rainy day,

especially for my cousin June.

Aprons and bags,

neither will do,

for potholders are in order,

for her delicious beef stew!"

Great job to everyone this was a fun one! And Congratulations to the winners!

To claim your prize email Stephanie [at] fatquartershop [dot] com with your shipping information by Sunday October 10 @ midnight CST.  

Remembrance by Brannock and Patek + Fall into Fall Giveaway

I know a few lads that tell me they still cry as grown men every time they hear the Star Spangled Banner.  Maybe that's just a east Texan thing... or an Army thing, but this new line makes me think of all those lads listening to The song of the United States of America.  Today Jan Patek from Brannock and Patek is here to chat a little about what their new reproduction line-- Remembrance-- is all about.  

Remembrance originated with my father and father-in-law who were career Army and career Navy (which means they stayed in the service for the full 20 years).  I also had in mind all the men and women still serving our country.  As you will notice the colors mimic this thought.  First, I started with red, white and blue from the American flag and Navy.  I then also threw in Army green to recognize my father and all of the others who served.

My favorite patterns using Remembrance are the Christmas ones - Christmas 101 and Donder and Blitzen.  One of my favorites for my little granddaughter is Lilly's Hearts & Stars.  I just finished working on patterns for the Remembrance Classic Wovens line Linda and I did.  I really like it - did a Bicycle quilt using a Dresden plate for the wheels. What fun! I've also been waiting for the wovens to do my grandson Gabriel's quilt because I wanted a specific blue plaid for the border. It's called Gabriel's Ark and has all the animals he loves, including wolves and snakes. We put the dinosaur on the back because he can't live with the other animals. ;-)

What I'm working on now is patterns for Lilac Hill - the group that will show at Fall Market. I'm doing some work on patterns with Jenny Doan of Missouri Star Quilt Co.  She's just a whiz at figuring out things to do with charm packs and jelly rolls.  Use our fabric and add some applique to the geometrics and I think we have some real winners!

Have a great Fall.  Sit, stitch and watch the leaves turn colors.
- Jan

Note: keep your eyes open-- we sold out of some of the patterns above but more are on the way!

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We are also participating in the Fall into Fall Quilt Bloggers Giveaway!

What does that mean you say!?

It's another giveaway.. just for fun! ;-)

The prize here at the Jolly Jabber will be a Moda Fat Quarter Bundle of the winners choice!

To enter:

Post a comment on this blog telling me which Moda FQB you would love to win AND why.. the catch is you have to do it in exactly 5 words.

                                        This giveaway will close October 15th @ midnight CST.

                                      Good Luck!!


                                    GIVEAWAY CLOSED!