Rendezvous: Fan Photos

My very first exclusive line for Jo-Ann Fabrics, Rendezvous, launched just last week to rave reviews across all social media. I loved reading all your comments on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Thank you all so much for the support and the love! Even though the fabrics have only been in stores for a few days, we have already seen lots of gorgeous projects made with Rendezvous, so I wanted to share a few here.

Sara Lawson of Sew Sweetness Patterns shared these pictures of an upcoming diaper bag pattern. The bag was made by Georgi Sears and the sewing pattern is called the Aragon Bag. This pattern will be out on September 18th, so be sure to check it out. Isn't it fabulous?

Georgi used Vintage Poppies Teal for the main bag and Dark Blue Texture for the straps. And check it out... she lined the bag with my Patio Tile Blue print. I just adore it!!

Modkid Facebook Fan, Tomi Gibson, shared these two pics of her recent creations with Rendezvous. She used Green Chevron Red and Cathedral Windows Multi for her Kyoko Dress (left) and she used Vintage Poppies Teal and Patio Tile Blue for her Josie Dress (right). So cute!!

Marie Belanger Beck also used Vintage Poppies Teal but she paired it up with Dark Gray Texture for her adorable Josie Dress.

And last but not least, I am in love with this sweet top made with Vintage Poppies Teal posted by the Pattern Revolution blog today. Follow that link to see this awesome tutorial by Bye Bye Buttons!

OK, I'm sure I am not the only one noticing a trend here. Hmmmm.... you guys really like my Vintage Poppies Teal fabric, eh? :) Well, I am so glad you do! We are quite fond of it too... and of the red version too! Free pattern for the Poppies Apron can be found here.

If you have projects you've made with Rendezvous and would like to be featured here on the good 'ole blog, please send them our way. You can either post them on our MODKID Fan Page of email them to us at info {at} modkidboutique {dot} com. We will be doing some follow-up posts soon and would LOVE to feature your creations!

Introducing: Rendezvous
My newest line of premium quilting cottons, designed exclusively for Jo-Ann Fabrics

Fabric aficionados, I have a big surprise for you! I was going to wait until Labor Day weekend to reveal my BIG NEWS, but a little birdie told me that the cat was out of the bag and running around all over Instagram, so I had to speed up my announcement. ;)

I am super excited to tell you guys about my newest premium quilting fabric collection, Rendezvous, available exclusively at Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Stores® nationwide. The collection is already available in stores and online!

Rendezvous was inspired by the Art Deco movement emanating from Paris in the 1920s.
It’s the Roaring Twenties, a decadent time for music, fashion, travel... and romance. The color palette is vibrant and retro juxtaposed against a soft cream ground, and the designs have a patina effect to evoke a nostalgic feel.

As you can probably tell already, these are all new designs and completely different from those carried exclusively in independent quilt shops. My Jo-Ann Fabrics exclusive collections will allow us to get our quality fabrics into the hands of those quilters and sewists who don't have easy access to our wonderful independent quilt shops.

And there's more! In addition to the new fabric line, we've also designed a couple of fun projects to get you started. These are FREE from us to you and are available now on the Jo-Ann website. 

There is the POPPIES APRON, featuring my Vintage Poppies Red fabric, and the CATHEDRAL WINDOWS PILLOW, featuring my Cathedral Windows fabric.

 
If you live in the Central Illinois area, don't miss my appearance on Saturday, September 28th from 1:00 - 3:00 p.m. at the Bloomington Jo-Ann store. I would love to see you there! Below is the flyer for it:

The first 17 people to come by and see me on the 28th will receive a FREE copy of Generation Q magazine (the issue that features my studio!), compliments of my friends at GenQ!

What's new?

WOW, it's been nearly 6 weeks since I blogged! This Summer has proven to be one of the busiest Summers I've had in a long time (if ever). Lots of new exciting projects coming up which, as it usually goes, I have to keep hush-hush until it's all said & done.

But I did want to keep you abreast of some of the stuff that's been keeping us busy for the past few weeks.

On the PDF pattern front, we are working on a few new designs, and we just released a new pattern yesterday. It's called the JOSIE Retro A-line dress.

Josie is a sweet A-line dress with retro styling. It features a center gore with wrap-around tabs and adorable cap sleeves. With only 5 pattern pieces to cut, this dress will be an easy sew, so you can make it over and over again in all your favorite designer fabrics!

At the moment you can buy JOSIE (along with all of our other e-patterns) here:

• Our Etsy Store
• You Can Make This
• Craftsy

Here's some wonderful pictures I received from my tester, Debbie Clifton. This gives you a clearer idea of the fit and construction. It has adorable button-back tabs for a more fitted look and sweet cap sleeves. How perfect is this for back-to-school wardrobe? I know, I know... they just got out of school, but it's never too early to start planing ahead, right?

On the PAPER CRAFTING front, I have been creating lots and lots of new shapes for my Silhouette store. My most popular, by far, have been these fun and colorful cupcake wrappers shown below. And I can't lie... I do love that in order to photograph them well, we need to get some of these amazing cupcakes from Sugar Mama Bakery here at the studio. It does sweeten our day quite a bit. ;)

Can I just say...YUM!

On the PUBLISHING front... oh boy, where do I even begin!? I am in the middle of signing contracts for not one, but two (yes, 2!) books to be published in 2014. Sorry that I can't reveal anything more on that, but just trust me when I say it's exciting and NEW for us, so I hope you all will be just as excited about them.

We have also been working on LOTS and LOTS of projects for different magazines. In addition to the quarterly SCRAP LAB projects for American Patchwork & Quilting (a new one will be out on August 13th!), we are also busy designing projects for Modern Quilts Unlimited. Actually, we will be featured THREE times on MQU this year, including a studio tour later this year! Stay tuned.

Currently, we have a quilt in the current issue of QUILTY Magazine (a Fons & Porter publication):

And a table runner in the current issue of Modern Quilts Unlimited:

On the FABRIC FRONT, a little birdie told me that Just My Type is shipping in just a couple of weeks, so we have been busy creating projects for the fabric launch. Check your favorite store and see if they have Just My Type on pre-order. I hear it's selling out FAST!!

Thank you all for the wonderful comments on my blog reveal last month! I am thrilled that you love it as much as I do. :)

OK, that is it for now!! PHEW. Like I said above, LOTS and LOTS more exciting projects coming up soon... new patterns, new fabric, new magazine projects, books and paper crafting items, so STAY TUNED!

Introducing... Textured Basics!

I am thrilled to announce my newest fabric collection with Michael Miller Fabrics, being revealed next week at International Quilt Market (Booth #1318) and shipping to stores in November. My heart skips a beat when I look at it... Textured Basics features six basic geometric prints, designed in six delicious colors (plus a "multi") and printed with a faux canvas texture, for the “look” of canvas but the “feel” of quilting cotton. There is even a Natural Basic Texture, which is perfect for quilt backgrounds and sashings, all printed on premium quality quilting weight cotton.



Here is a full color card of all 43 SKUs... if you'd like to print it, just click on this image, which will take you to Flickr, and download the largest file size, so you can get a good quality print-out.



Of course, as it is always the case when we release a new fabric collection – which usually coincides with Quilt Market booth prep – we have been busy little bees creating items made with Textured Basics. Below are some of our projects and ... pssst... here's a little secret for you: you will be seeing some sneak peeks of new patterns for the Fall. These will be fully-revealed tomorrow (hopefully) as soon as we get them up on our site. It is a new format for us, so we're super excited!

First of all -- and possibly the project we are most enamored with -- is this Houndstooth Quilt. It came out so bold, modern and fun! And yes, there will be a pattern... more like a sewing card... well, you'll see tomorrow!



I designed this easy-to-piece quilt, Emalee pieced it in one afternoon and my friend Lisa Feeney of Sew Memorable Quilts quilted and bound it for us. Isn't it awesome?



And because we loved this design so much, we even came up with a lap quilt version of it in pinks and creams, which we thought would be perfect for a baby's nursery:



Here's my girl, Sophie, modeling this woven version of the Hailey dress (View D) made up in Diamonds Tangerine with a ruffle made of Vintage Houndstooth Multi. Doesn't she look adorable?



A trio of MODKID  cuties... from left to right, Piper in Houndstooth and Shoreline, Baby Hannah in Cool Dots and Swell Stripe, and Kyoko in Hexies and Shoreline.



And because we love that fabric combo for Piper so much, we created another colorway of it, which can be seen in the United Notions booth next weekend at International Quilt Market!



This fabulous wrap skirt for women will be another pattern being revealed tomorrow, so this is all I will show or say about that for now.



Same goes for these mod cases. I just adore how the bold prints work so well for these!



Emalee sewed up some bold pillows for my mini booth. You can never have enough pillows and I'm thinking some of these would make awesome free tutorials for the blog! ;)



Last, but certainly not least, this is all I can show you at this time of this super fun quilt. If you are attending Quilt Market next week and want to see the full thing in person, head on over to the GenerationQ booth (#960). For the rest of you, you'll get to see the full thing soon, soon... in a future issue of the magazine. ;)



OK, that's it for the fabric reveal. Stay tuned for the new patterns reveal coming tomorrow. If you have an iPhone or iPad and would like to sport some Textured Basics, check out the cases I've designed on Zazzle. I got mine in the mail yesterday. It's this one.



So, what do you think of Texture Basics?

Free Fabric Friday, Part Deux

Well, it wasn't planned out to be a weekly event, but it's just so happened that way, so let's just roll with it, k? If you missed out on winning some awesome bundles of Heaven & Helsinki last Friday, here you have another chance, courtesy of the awesome folks at Quilt Home.



Quilt Home and MODKID go way back! Jon and I met Heidi and Roland Porth years ago when we launched my debut line with Michael Miller Fabrics, Andalucia, and we had an instant connection. A husband and wife team, whose kids are actively involved in the business... a business that they are deeply passionate about... what's not to love? Needless to say, we saw a lot of parallels with our own business. Over the years, the support we've gotten from Quilt Home has been amazing. I once saw someone on Twitter say that they love Quilt Home because "they stock deep". That phrase resonated with me because it is so true. While most other online retailers will retire fabric lines after the first run, Quilt Home will keep reordering (and reordering BIG) until they can no longer get it from the manufacturers, so you are bound to find older lines that most other places don't stock anymore. Just the other day, someone asked me on Flickr if I knew where she could find the doll panels from Playdate (a line that has been out of print for about 2 years now). I knew where to send her immediately!

So... needless to say, when Heidi called me earlier this week to ask if I wouldn't mind hosting this giveaway on my blog, I didn't hesitate to accept.

In their words, "The giveaway is a package of five half yard cuts. It includes three fabrics from the Heaven & Helsinki Retro Palette and two coordinating Cotton Couture Solids."



For a chance to win this package, leave us a comment below and tell us what your favorite print from Heaven & Helsinki is, and why. It doesn't have to be from this bundle, you can take a look at the entire collection here and let us know.

We will randomly choose a winner on Wednesday, July 25th and Quilt Home will send the package directly to the lucky one!

Good luck!

It's me... on print, web and TV!

Happy Friday the 13th, friends! This could be your lucky day. If you've entered the free fabric contests, today is the day they announce the winners, so best of luck to you all.

Well, I have been lucky enough to be featured in a few awesome places the past few weeks, so I wanted to share the news with you.

First off, the newest issue of WebCents has a 3-page spread on yours truly. The lovely Teresa Coates and I had an hour-long phone chat right before Quilt Market, in which we covered everything from my newest collections to how I got started in the business. It's really an interesting read. It's a printed publication, but you can also subscribe to their website and read the articles online. Check it out!



Then, I had a dynamic chat over Skype with my buddy, Monica Lee, from Smart Creative Women. Every little nitty gritty detail of my career was covered, from my old days working as a Creative Director back in FL to my boutique selling days on eBay to receiving the fabric contract from MMF to hiring Emalee, leasing our studio space and beyond. Since I am so chatty, dear Monica had to break up the interview into 2 parts (haha) but make sure to catch Part 2 because I take you guys on a virtual tour of Modkid HQ! You will see everything, from the warehouse to the sewing and designing areas... you'll even get to meet my assistants, Emalee and Jessica! These fun little videos are not to be missed!!





And last but not least, my fabrics, ribbons and catalogs were featured in Episode 7 of the latest season of HGTV's Design Star!!! Yes, we all squealed when we saw these screen grabs a few weeks back and then seeing it on TV this week was just surreal. In the gray tub on the top right hand side of this picture there are several bolts of Grand Bazaar and Lush. Then they have the ribbons and catalogs on the table (click each photo to see a larger image on Flickr).







And yes, silly little me paused the TV and took a picture of the credit screen (I know I'm a dork!)



Here's a little video clip of David Bromstad discussing one of their previous episodes and my Lush fabric bolts sit behind him the whole time! Squeal!!



Have a great weekend, all!

Free Fabric Friday

I don't know about you guys, but my Friday came rather fast for me this week, not sure why. ;) I say we petition to have every Wednesday off from now on. :) I hope you guys had a great Independence Day celebration. We had two parties to attend, so I made a patriotic fruit salad, which was a TON of fun to prepare, and my kids' personal favorite party food: deviled eggs.

But I'm sure you're all wondering what my title up there ^^^ was all about, right? Well, if you all enjoy free fabric (don't we all?) then you're in for a treat! I am over that the Michael Miller Fabric's blog, Making It Fun, today chatting it up about my new collection, Heaven & Helsinki and I even give you a peek at my mood boards, my color palettes and my design process. I know you guys always enjoy behind the scenes stuff like that. Well, the best part is that they are giving away 1 yard cuts of EVERY fabric design in Heaven & Helsinki... that's 31 yards of fabric! Run, run, run...

And as if that wasn't cool enough, Fat Quarter Shop's blog, The Jolly Jabber, also has a fabric giveaway today, but this one's a bit tricky... you have to guess what the fabric is, and I'm not giving any hints! ;) Go, go, gooooo!

Stay tuned for a giveaway of our own... we are putting it together as we speak, er, type.

Heaven & Helsinki KNITS!

I spent all last week in Kansas City at the International Quilt Market, then half of this week in Des Moines at the Meredith Corporation headquarters, but more on all that real soon (as soon as I download my 300+ pictures and wrap my head around everything I experienced in the past 2 weeks). But, more importantly, I am way overdue for a new knits reveal! I promised to blog this last Friday, but time got away from me, so I apologize. This all worked out for the best, though, because now I can actually share the video we all got to see at schoolhouse last week... YAY!!!



First of all, let me tell you a little bit about the new Heaven & Helsinki knits. These new knits are jerseys (not interlocks, like my previous ones) with a fiber content of 58% Cotton, 38% Poly and 4% Spandex. They are seriously the softest, smoothest knits I have ever worked with. The addition of that teeny-tiny percentage of Spandex means that you can use these for bindings or anything that requires extra stretch, like neck bands, sleeve bands, waistbands or yoga bands, because they have amazing stretch and recovery.

But what most of you will be pleased to hear (as was I) is that the addition of Poly means an incredible decrease in the shrinkage factor. I couldn't believe it when I heard that these new knits shrink less than 1% so I needed to find out for myself. I cut a piece of fabric at 36" long by 63" wide (the full width of fabric!). I took it home and washed & dried it in Normal cycles. As a matter of fact, I just threw it in with some laundry I needed to do because I wanted to make sure it didn't get any special treatment. When it came out of the dryer, I laid it flat and it measured 35.5" x 62", which means it had shrunk a grand total of 1/2" on the length and 1" on the width!! I let it sit over night and then I took it to the studio to sew up my schoolhouse dress... it did not shrink any further over night and as a matter of fact it had almost gone back to it's original length by the time I started cutting! Wooohooo!



So, what about the designs? There are 20 prints in this collection including 6 near-solids which we are loving for bindings, waistbands and such. There are some prints that you'll also see in the woven version of this collection and a few that are new and unique to the knits.

Here is the whole collection, but you can also see it here. They ship in August, but if you want to see them for yourself, we do have some knit scrap bags on the website (along with some Heaven & Helsinki woven scrap bags!) Make sure you specify you want H&H, or you might get an assorted variety.



Now, without much further ado, I want to present to you the video that we showed at schoolhouse last week. It features all the projects from my book, Sewing MODKID Style, sewn in Heaven & Helsinki. This was definitely a labor of love and we couldn't have done it without the help of our assistants, Emalee and Jessica, our adorable little models and the contributions from our sponsors, Chooze Shoes and Fox & Hounds Studio.



Hope you enjoyed the video! Let us know what you thought of it. An abridged version will be found next week on our Amazon page.

Now, for a few quick links:

• Purchase signed copies of Sewing MODKID Style here
• Purchase Heaven & Helsinki KNIT scrap bags here
• Purchase Heaven & Helsinki WOVEN scrap bags here
• See Heaven & Helsinki and pre-order it for your store here
• Join the Sewing MODKID Style Flickr Group and share your creations here

xoxo

Evolution of Lars

(and a book winner!)

I have a super fun project to share with you guys today as we head out to Quilt Market, but first, I need to announce the winner of the Sewing MODKID Style book copy. Thank you all for your lovely comments and for following along with the tour. Random.org chose comment #15, which is.... drum roll please...

VickiT 4:14 PM, who said:

I cannot wait to see Heaven & Helsinki Patty. Of course, I'm still in LOVE with Lush. I am still hoping to buy some of that gorgeousness this month.

Anyway the first thing I would love to try making from your book when I get my copy (hopefully one I will win) would be the Yoga Pants and also the Bloom dress. I might even attempt making a shortened version of the Bloom dress as a shirt to go with the Yoga Pants.

Congrats, Vicki!!! Please email your address to info@modkidboutique.com and Wiley will send you a copy of my book right away!

So, who is this Lars character, you ask? Well, he's nothing less than our Heaven & Helsinki booth mascot! We are so in love with him... we've even joked about buying a crate for him to travel down to Kansas City and putting a leash on him, water bowl, treats, etc.

He started out when I spotted him at our local Neighborhood Thrift while Jon, Emalee and I were shopping for Mid-Century Modern furniture for our booth.

He was made of resin or something, not quite sure, but we all knew he'd be perfect (with a few minor alterations)!

We spray-painted his antlers, hooves and nose.

Then we spray-painted it again and again and again until he had full coverage (boy, that hot pink color is hard to cover!)

Next, the girls took our hundreds of Heaven & Helsinki scraps and Mod Podged him. Oh, the fun they had! I did learn a valuable lesson that day: always put my hair up in a bun when working with Mod Podge! My hair is so long now that even with a ponytail on, I couldn't keep it from dipping into the glue pan and splattering everywhere.... niiiice!

Anyway, after he was completely covered in scraps, we let him dry overnight. The following day, I blinged his eyes... each eye has about 25 rhinestones! Yes, Lars is quite in touch with his feminine side, wouldn't you say?

A couple coats of Polyurethane Spray to make him nice and shiny, and VOILA!

If you'll be at Quilt Market this week, come meet Lars at our booth (Booth #3024-26) and take away one of our catalogs ... you can't miss it!