Patty has some very strong ties to the Orlando community. She not only lived there for many, many years, but she went to college there (at the University of Central Florida), worked there, got married and had both of her children down there. So, as you can imagine, the Orlando tragedy is very near and dear to her heart. The Orlando Modern Quilt Guild is collecting rainbow heart quilts and/or heart blocks to donate to the surviving victims (many of which are still in the hospital fighting for their lives) and the families of the deceased. Patty and her daughter, Sydney, will be sewing up some quilt blocks and they are inviting you to participate as well. You can find all of the details for the Pulse Donations here.
Sydney even created a great video tutorial for creating the quilt block!! Sew with them for a great cause!!
Sunny Days Tank A free pattern and video tutorial for Baby Lock
Yes, I know! With temps being in the arctic range in most of the country right now, it is difficult to visualize "Sunny Days", but I promise those days coming and when they do, you'll be ready to celebrate with this adorable tank I designed for Baby Lock.
Fabric shown is Mod Tulip from the Heaven & Helsinki knit fabric collection by Patty Young for Michael Miller Fabrics.
This easy-to-sew top uses two of my favorite sewing techniques,lettuce-edge rolled hems and shirring, which always add lots of pizzazz and flair to any garment! Even if you've never done these techniques before, you'll be able to master them in no time with our detailed instructions and companion video tutorial.
You can download the free instructions for this tank by going to the Baby Lock website and scrolling halfway down the page to the section, "We're on a Serge & Rescue Mission". There, you will find the pattern download link and the video tutorial link, which I've also embedded for you guys below.
Hope you enjoy this first of many exciting projects coming this year, as part of my new partnership with Baby Lock. Can't wait for you to see what we are cooking up!
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.
See Heaven & Helsinki and pre-order it for your store here
Join the Sewing MODKID Style Flickr Group and share your creations here
xoxo
This 'n That
I've been immersed in the studio working non-stop on some pretty exciting new projects that I hope to share with you soon. Was meaning to blog about First Fridays last week, but time got away from me. Funny how that happens around this time of the year. But then a couple more exciting things happened yesterday and today, so now this is going to be one of those hodge-podge kind of posts, like this one from a few months ago.
We were so thrilled to be featured in our local newspaper, The Pantagraph, yesterday. They did a two-page spread on Modkid HQ, myself, Jon and Emalee... pretty much everything you ever wanted to know but were afraid to ask about my life, background, how we started the company and how we make things work. If you're not local to Central Illinois, you can catch the article online here.
It was in the MONEY section, so I hope that's a sign of good things to come. ;)
There's Emalee with one of her designs and Jon showing off the ribbons in the warehouse.
Then, this morning, I get a tweet from my good friends Kim and Kris, from The DIY Dish, saying that the segment we taped back in September at The Creative Connection Event is finally up on their site. I share a Holiday craft that has been a tradition in my home for a few years now. I hope you check it out. I am incredibly honored to be in the same segment with the amazingly talented Kim Stoegbauer and Susan Branch. (!!!)
Here's a link to the video on You Tube or you can go directly to The DIY Dish and watch it there.
Finally, I wanted to share some images I captured from our December First Fridays event, because it was beyond my wildest dreams... from the wonderful window display design to the adorable little girls modeling MODKID dresses and accessories to the swarms of visitors -- old friends and new faces -- who stopped by. It really was an awesome evening!
So that the girls wouldn't get bored just standing up there with nothing to do, we gave them some glittery paper, funny-shaped scissors and had them cut snowflakes out. Boy, they LOVED this activity!
Just look at the concentration! Love those faces! :)
The girls waved at the passers-by and made everyone smile.
As more little girls came to the studio, we'd throw a MODKID on them and let them stand up there with the others.
The girls even got a surprise visit from their favorite jolly ol' man.
They told him they were very nice this year. Hmmmm... we'll see if he believes them.
Thank you to my sweet friends, Nikki Barr and Anna Snyder for letting their sweet and beautiful daughters be the MODKID Girls for that evening!
I bet you thought I was gonna keep that Halloween post up until Christmas, eh? Well, I fooled you. I've plunged back into full work mode after a few days of r&r following the madness of Quilt Market. Full work mode around here pretty much means very little sleep and infrequent blogging, tweeting or talking. I work late into the night, am crabby every morning until I have my caffeine infusion then I work, work, work till the kiddos come home... and then I work some more. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?
But what prompted that silly title up there is all these post-market little flip cam videos of me that keep popping up here & there. I always cringe when these come up because, 1. I hate the way I sound on tape and 2. I never know what kind of crazy things I said or promised on video because it's usually all a blur for me.
Case in point, last Spring Market, Ms. Sandi did a quick little flip cam interview of me in which I apparently promised I would do a pattern or a tutorial or something on that lollipop quilt I had hanging up on my booth. Well, as you all probably know, that never happened. Between designing a new fabric line, a whole new slew of patterns, doing a little remodeling, and taking care of household duties it just got pushed aside. And to be perfectly honest, the pattern needed some major tweaking. I did those pinwheel shapes in a hurry and fudged with them until they were right (on fabric, not on paper) but I never really sat down to polish up the pattern and make it sew up right... so that's that.
So, as you can imagine, when this new flip cam video showed up on Boutique Cafe (shot by the lovely Bari J.) I watched with trepidation to see what kind of crazy things I promised this time. Well, I was so pleasantly surprised when I realized I am actually following through on all these promises!!! Yay me!
Check it out... I mentioned doing a pattern for the Hummingbird Quilt (DONE) and a pattern for a Pillow Trio (DONE) and even a pattern for the Mini-Ava (DONE, and more on that later!) All of these patterns and more are part of my January 2010 release. Most are on the way to the testers this week and I couldn't be more ecstatic!
So, see... sometimes I do keep my promises! ;)
Oh, I have so many new things to share with you! We've added a couple of new members to the MODKID team and I will be doing proper introductions here in the next couple of weeks. We've also added a whole new slew of pattern testers that are eager, willing and able (haha). Things are shaping up great for 2010!
And since I'm here now and don't know when I'll get another break to blog again, I thought I'd share some awesome findings from my MODKID Flickr Pool.
I spotted this adorable Nina set yesterday and the sewist, who happens to live in Malaysia, even blogged about it!
Loving these Frida and Sydney sets from Creative Works By Ann:
I seriously gasped when I saw this breathtaking version of my Kyoko pattern by NanaKidBoutique in Abu Dhabi! Add a ruffle here & there and... VOILA!
And last, but certainly not least, check out this super fun Kyoko made by Melanie of Above All Fabric. LOVE IT!! Check out the pattern review she posted on her blog on this Kyoko and on her Sophie 3-Way Pants.
And there are tons and tons more where these came from. Check them out! And please post your own if you want to share with us. :)
