I'm in the mood for... gift-giving!!!

Sanctuary is hitting the stores this week so I have prepared a few goodies for you all in celebration of its arrival. Here's a bad iPhone pic of me standing next to a freshly delivered stack of Sanctuary at my local über cool designer fabric store, Sew Much More. It was such great timing... I got there literally 5 minutes before the UPS man showed up with these!



But, first, believe it or not, we had THREE NO SHOWS, on the Quiltmaker 100 Blocks contest, so, as they say, you snooze, you loose! We've selected 3 new winners and this time we have a way to contact them... you learn something new every day, right?! So, congratulations to the new winners... I guess it was meant to be, ladies!

#20 TaniLove said...

Ok I've probably entered every drawing you've had in the last year and nothing. I love the block and the fabrics, it would be so fun to win since I'm getting ready to embark on trying to make a quilt for my chickies, I'm not so optimistic but I know they will like it no matter what, for a while anyway ;) Would be so nice to learn some techniques and get started with that fabulous fabric!

#202 Quilter Kathy said...

OMG...a new magazine and new fabrics?!? I would think I'd died and gone to heaven! Surely that is what heaven will be! Love the block and expecially love the envelope enclosure on your pillows!

#284 elena said...

Beautiful pillow. Love Flora collection and this color is energizing, great!!!
Would love to win a copy and of course a fabric lot by you :D

TaniLove will receive the magazine AND fabric bundle. The two other winners will receive a copy of the magazine. Please contact us at info@modkidboutique.com with your mailing address and if not... I'm tracking you down! haha

Sooo... back to the Sanctuary freebies. Valerie Haberer, owner of Sew Much More, had come up with this fabulous idea of doing fabric bolt tags with the designer's logo (or that of the actual fabric collection) so her customers could easily identify them, so I brought her these cool Sanctuary tags to put on her bolts (again... bad iPhone pic).



I also brought her some generic Patty Young Designs tags to put onto all her other PY bolts since I didn't have a lot of time to make these up for every collection... plus at the time I didn't know what all she had still in stock, etc. But aren't these fun?!



So... I thought since these were so well-received, I'd share the wealth with all my lovely shop owners out there since you are all so sweet and supportive. I've laid these tags 10-up on a 8.5" x 11" sheet with crop marks, so they are ready to print & cut. I printed mine onto card stock so they would be more durable and cut them out using an X-Acto knife and self-healing mat, but you can easily cut these out with scissors.

For a high-res PDF download click HERE for the Sanctuary tags and HERE for the Patty Young tags. Or...click on the thumbnails below to go directly to the Flickr image in JPG format.





Here's an idea for online shops: print these out onto label sheets, cut them out and use them as stickers to place on fabric packages before you ship them out to your customers.... ding, ding, ding... GENIUS! (and cute!) ;)

I haven't forgotten about all my lovely fans out there.. I wanted to share some great gift-giving ideas for the Holidays, and one of my favorite things to make... PILLOWS!! These pillows were among the most photographed items in my booth this past Quilt Market, so I'll walk you through how to make these quick & easy gifts for your family & friends.



First off, the Dahlia Lama pillows. These are BIG and striking but oh, so easy to make. The Dahlia Lama print has a 24" repeat so we decided to use a 24" pillow form to showcase the full design. Find the repeat on the fabric and mark a perfect 24" square using a water-soluble fabric marker. The flower bunch should be perfectly centered within the square. You can use the tiles on the background as a guide for keeping your lines straight. Cut this square out with your rotary cutter & ruler.



Make the envelope closure by cutting two pieces of fabric at 24" tall by 15" wide. We used Zen Garden for the backing. Hem these back pieces or leave the selvedge edge exposed as we did then layer these onto the front square right sides together, overlapping the back pieces in the middle. We added a strip of bias tape to the edge to give it a touch of flair, but you can do this with piping or just leave it off entirely. Stitch all around. Clip your corners, turn and VOILA!



Here is is in the warm colorway...LOVE IT!





Now, how about this sweet patchwork pillow?



For this 18" pillow form we cut 16 squares of fabric at 6" x 6" each. If you want to make yours just like ours here is the breakdown by fabric design, clockwise from the top left corner:

Geo Bloom Seafoam: two 6" squares
Orchid Feng Shui Ocean: two 6" squares
Orchid Feng Shui Seafoam: two 6" squares
Building Blocks Seafoam: two 6" squares
Glass Tiles Aqua: two 6" squares
Temple Tiles Ocean: two 6" squares
Temple Tiles Seafoam: two 6" squares
Zen Garden Pear: two 6" squares

Sew these right sides together in rows using a 1/4" seam allowance. We inserted piping in between the horizontal rows before stitching them together.

For the envelope closing we cut two pieces of Orchid Feng Shui Ocean at 18" high by 12" wide and sewed them like we did the above pillows. We also inserted piping on the edges for an extra touch of flair.



Last, but not least, this sweet pillow in yummy candy colors was made using my Hummingbird Patch template from my Pillow Trio sewing pattern. Check it out!



HUGE THANKS to the great folks at FAIRFIELD for contributing all these wonderful pillowforms for our Quilt Market display and to Emily and Emalee for sewing up these beauties. :)

I have many more tutorials coming your way on the blog, so please stay tuned. But before I leave, I also wanted to let you all know that I started a Sanctuary Flickr Group so you all can share your awesome creations with each other. Confession: this was a gift from me to me because I *LOVE* seeing what you all make with my fabric. ;)

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!