SURTEX 2011
(or why I love my husband more than words can describe)

... because he flew the red eye from Salt Lake City to New York City, got off the plane and took a cab straight to the Javits Center where he proceeded to turn this...



... into this! All by himself! Yes.



Then he eventually checked into our hotel and rested until I arrived later that evening. After about 4 hours of sleep, we got up the next morning and headed back to the convention center to start Day 1 of 3 of the Surtex art licensing show. (Click on that link to read more about it if you're not sure what the show is). After having done Quilt Market booths for 3 years this was a bit of a culture shock for me, but all in all I think (hope) we nailed it.

Here are a few close up shots of our booth...



My Zazzle mugs....



My art portfolios (these took me days and days and days to make so I'm mighty proud of them).



A cool Kalencom bag we managed to grab a sample of right before the show. Jon actually walked through the streets of New York all by himself carrying this bag the night before the show! Yup. I love him.



And our sign (which I completely forgot to print before we left so I had to print it quickly at the business center).



Jon did manage to get this one picture of me in the booth...



And he captured this one of me and The Perfect Bookmark. LOL! Oh, and a better view of my Vogs.



I'm deep into Surtex follow-up as we speak so there's nothing yet to report. But rest assured that as soon as something super exciting happens, you'll be the first to know. :)

Have a great LONG weekend, everyone! xoxo

Like a time lapse movie...

This past weekend I slept like 40 hours total. Seriously, I wanted so badly to hang out and catch up with friends and family but I just kept falling asleep every moment I could... on the couch, on the bed, I even fell asleep on the floor while the kids played video games and I clutched a big fluffy pillow. I guess I was overdue for some R&R since for the last month or so I've averaged like 3 hours a night (or less on some nights!)

When I replay the sequence of events that happened in the past 2 weeks, it sorta feels like one of those time-lapse movies. Ya know what mean?

• May 10th - Jon, Emalee and I drove to Chicago then flew to Salt Lake City
• May 11th - First day of Quilt Market set-up





• May 12th - More booth set up
• Schoolhouse -- I met up with The Dancing Kyokos



Well, they didn't really dance but they did look amazing in their own versions of the Kyoko Misses', didn't they?! From left to right, Julie Herman (Jaybird Quilts), Kristin Link (Sew Mama Sew), me, Melanie Thornton (Above All Fabrics), Traci Butler (Hip Fabrics), Kelsea (Stash Quilts) and Mary Abreu (InTown Quilters). Not pictured, Emalee Grambo. I am forever thankful to all you lovely ladies for making my Kyoko Fashion Show a reality! It was by far the funnest schoolhouse session I've ever had. :)

• Sample Spree (yes, we actually did it!) Ahh, there's Emalee in her Kyoko!



• May 13th -- Day 1 of Quilt Market





• I was interviewed by Daria Muirhead of Boutique Café



• Then by Heidi Porth of Quilt Home



• Then by Pat Sloan of American Patchwork & Quilting (yes, 3 interviews in the same day! I guess everyone got wind that I was leaving early...)



I was also surprised by Kathy Miller & team with a big box of cupcakes (not all for me) to celebrate my birthday and also Christine's (we both had our 40th in May!). YUM!



• That evening we had our Michael Miller Fabrics sales meeting in which I had to recreate my Schoolhouse talk but without the aid of my Dancing Kyokos so it wasn't nearly as fun. After dinner, Jon flew across the country to NY to set up our Surtex booth the next day.

• May 14th - half day of Quilt Market for me because I flew to NYC that afternoon to exhibit at the Surtex licensing show for the following 3 days.

• The SHY Girls (Sweet Hot Yams) and other sweet friends surprised me for my birthday and brought me a Mocha Coconut (they even had them make it the way I like it -- on ice, not blended) and a Birthday Pop. Love my girls!!



Like I said before, I flew to NYC that afternoon and the rest of the story I will save for another post, but for now I'll leave you with a few more pics of my booth at Quilt Market. This time we went simple with a single booth and no hard walls, but still saturated with color and pattern. :)











A million thanks to my lovely assistant, Emalee, who sewed about 95% of the items you see in my booth and also to my sweet mom and dear friend Valerie who made some awesome purses and accessories to add the finishing touch to our display!

I'm bringing denim back!

Don't know if it was ever gone, but if I start seeing children's boutique clothing all over the place using denim in conjunction with cool designer fabrics I'm taking full credit for it! haha! Just go with it, OK? It'll make me feel better (read to the bottom of this post to find out why I need a little cheering up right now) ;)

It all started when I posted this picture on my Mezzanine reveal. The oodles of oohs and aahhs I received prompted me to go... hmmm.



Next thing you know I had made another Frida...



A new Kyoko (which has GOT to be my fave version to date!)...





Several Sophie 3-Way Pants...





And a Sydney Euro Hoodie (pattern will debut at Quilt Market and will be available for ordering soon after!)



I'm just loving this denim thing. It goes so well with pretty much every print in my Mezzanine collection and I love accenting it with contrast top-stitching, appliqués, decorative trims, etc.

Oh, and I did promise you another little Quilt Market booth sneak peek, didn't I? Here ya go...



These are podiums or cubes or whatever you might want to call them (to me they look like life sized wooden blocks, like the kind kids are enamored with!) to display my dress forms. They are painted in colors taken right out of Mezzanine. :)

Sooooo, if you've read to the bottom of this post to find out why I need cheering up, the quick & dirty version goes something like this: we built the booth up in our garage (like, put the walls & columns up to see how it all went together), then just as we were ooh-ing and ahh-ing over the beautiful work of art we had created, we hit the garage door opener and stood there in disbelief, open-mouthed as the edge of the garage door grabbed one corner of the booth and brought the whole thing down with it... crashing to the ground! We all screamed OH NO, OH NO, OH NO! (yes, by "all" I mean my mom and my kids too... eeek!). I held it together for the family but I was sobbing inside. The shelf was ripped clear out of the columns and as the columns came tumbling down the top corner of one ripped a huge crater into one of the walls. Jon and I have the same recollection of it happening in slow motion, like in the movies, when in reality it happened so fast we could've never saved it. And if we had jumped in we probably would've ended up with a concussion.

To all of you who follow me on Twitter and gave me all your warm wishes and good vibes as I spilled my heart out yesterday... THANK YOU! You don't even know how comforted I felt. Witnessing this was so painful, but I'm happy to report that it is coming back together VERY nicely. If you'll be attending Quilt Market in a couple of days, be sure to come by and give Jon a big HIGH FIVE for his hard work and dedication.

Here's the Quilt Market info again...

booth #2531
Schoolhouse Presentation:
12:15 PM - 12:45 PM (room #305)

A week of firsts...

Don't know what came over me but all of a sudden I got the urge to try my hand at two things I had never done before. Check out my very first quilt! I call it LOLLIPOP and I'm just so excited about the way it turned out... exactly how I dreamt it up in my head!



Here's a closer look. I pieced these "lollipop" shapes out of something sorta like a pinwheel shape that I drew up late one night in Illustrator. These crazy ideas often pop into my head in those wee hours of the night, just as I'm about to doze off... then I have to sketch it up real quick before I forget it all. I thought it would take a while to get it to work, but to my utter delight, the first lollipop I sewed up worked like a dream, so then it was just a matter of reducing and enlarging the pattern to get the other two sizes.



I pieced a quick background out of four 1/2 yard pieces of assorted Clover Dots that were cut at a diagonal, then appliqued the lollipops on top and Voilá! The quilt uses 11 different prints from my Mezzanine collection so it's a pretty good showcase of the line.

I also made my very first piece of women's apparel. I wish I could say this was as easy-peasy as the quilt, but I'd be lying. Those of you who follow me on Twitter already know I almost threw my seam ripper along with this tunic out the window last Sunday. I actually had to set this project aside for a couple of days and then come back to it because I was about to lose my mind!

On top of that, I think I had gotten so used to only sewing children's clothing that I had my sewing area all set up for working with tiny pieces of fabric. Once I started working with much larger pieces (especially for the quilt) I was knocking stuff off my sewing table left & right! I had to reconfigure the whole space to accommodate my new larger projects.



Well, I must've just been having "one of those days" because when I came back to it, head cleared and ready to "make it work"... I made it work:



Phew! It would've been a shame if this sweet little tunic ended up in the gutter just because of a bad sewing day. I truly adore the way it turned out and am still having a hard time deciding if I should actually wear it to Market or just hang it up on my booth...



And speaking of booths... that's another first! Jon and I are currently building our first trade show booth ever. We did have a booth at the Fall Quilt Market last October, but we didn't actually build anything (except for a couple of cheap IKEA furnishings). This time, though, we are building a full display with hard walls, custom-made shelving, columns and a bunch of other super neat surprises that I simply cannot wait to show you! Here's a little sneak peek as it sits in our garage nearly assembled:



The quilt I showed above is also sitting on one of the booth walls. Stay tuned as I will reveal more & more of the booth as we get it all finished up...