Happy Valentine's Day!

One more little goodie from the ADORNit blog in celebration of Valentine's Day 2012. The page was made by a store owner in Texas, and ADORNit used it in the Happy Hearts scrapbook paper catalog.

When Georgana asked me if I had a photo of the two of us, I had to look for quite awhile to find this one. It was weirdly hard to find a photo of us without other people, or Scott (or me) looking goofy, or without lots of stuff in the background such as open cupboards or crowds of people, It made me realize that we need to take more "couple photos." I bet this is the case for most everyone.

- from the ADORNit blog -

On the ADORNit blog, we're showing ideas for Valentine's projects using both ADORNit fabric and paper. I wrote the blog posts for the Happy Hearts blog party, and I also made the cute pincushions.

Pincushions = perfect Valentine gifts!

Here’s why:
1. They’re easy to make.
2. Quick too! With our instructions, available in ADORNit’s Happy Hearts Pattern Book, you can make a pincushion in under an hour.
3. Post office friendly. They’re lightweight and square (usually) making wrapping and mailing a breeze.
4. You can never have too many pincushions!

Look closely at the photo above and notice the darling hearts and flowers. Debbie Raymond, designer and sewer of the pincushions enjoyed the process of finding designs and fussy cutting them to sew into tiny quilt blocks for the fronts of the pincushions. She added embroidery stitches, buttons and ribbon for a little extra dimension.

Debbie didn’t need to use time-consuming appliqué, but took advantage of the designs printed on the fabrics. The fact that there are so many heart-happy possibilities is part of the fun.

Make a pincushion today to keep for yourself or give away.

Fabric used: Happy Hearts by ADORNit.

done, done, and done

I lifted this post right off the ADORNit blog. (I thought it was OK, since I'm the one who created the post and sighed a huge sigh of relief.)

I wrote most of the words for this project book and also made four pincushions and sewed a quilt. We've been so seasonally mixed up lately at work...we were sewing the heart projects through the Halloween season, writing the words over Thanksgiving, and editing while we planned Christmas. Our book is really very charming and accomplishes our goal of showing off the new ADORNit Happy Hearts fabric line. The book will accompany the fabrics when they arrive at quilt shops all over the world!

Here's what I wrote:

Did you hear that huge sigh of relief? Maybe you saw an extra sparkle in the sky because of the big smiles here at ADORNit. Why are we so happy? Well, we finished the Happy Hearts Pattern Book – a huge, love-filled project that we’ve been working on for the past six weeks.

This pattern book seems extra special because the projects are for Valentine’s Day – though any of them are adaptable to any time of year. Still, there’s something wonderful about the colors and sentiments that are related to Valentine’s. Sewing our quilts gave us happy hearts – the fabric just does that to you. You’ve got to love designer Carolee’s touch of folk art and smattering of hand-written sayings. And of course, hearts everywhere! This fabric collection is fun and easy to use for both quilting and crafting.

We can’t wait to share our pattern book with you! It should be arriving at your local quilt shop in a matter of weeks! Watch for it alongside the Happy Hearts Collection – 18 fabrics with ribbon (and paper!) to match.

We’ll be sharing more about the projects & products after Christmas.

love these layouts

The new catalog for ADORNit's fall scrapbooking collections is out and some of the layouts have photos of my cute granddaughters Brookelyn and Bailee. I love how Georgana (ADORNit president) scrapbooked their photos using the latest papers and embellishments.

Quilt Market 2011

It was my first Quilt Market! I loved it - I loved everything about it - except that my camera battery died, and I didn't get all the photos I wanted. Above I had to get a picture in the yummy Kona Cottons booths. And the rest of my photos are of the ADORNit booth where I spent Friday meeting customers and WRITING ORDERS!

ADORNit's new Long Live Vintage line just hanging out at Quilt Market.



Carolee, company owner, and her daughters Alison and Georgana. They worked so hard to put the booth together and make it appealing. Their hard work has paid off with a great response and three very busy days at market.

Janet and Georgana next to the Life's a Hoot display.

Tammy Anderson, our graphic designer, with her delightful appliqued "Bugs Away" quilt from the new (and very cute) Bugaboo fabric line...which Tammy designed. The papers are coordinating scrapbook papers also by Tammy. This girl does it all from drawing the art to creating the graphic design to the final (tiny) stitch on her quilt's applique and binding.

I'm excited that my "Hip to be Square" quilt is at Quilt Market - it's made from the Vintage Groove line. The pink and white and brown quilt is Tammy's

Janet's rag quilt from the Bugaboo line is hanging on the right - that's Janet enjoying visiting with a customer.

Alison is one of the most creative people I've ever met! She brings that creativity to making a fun and unusual booth and to the graphic design she does. She also runs ADORNit's clothing and accessory boutique.

I grabbed a picture of Kris and Kim, the DIY Dish girls as they were walking the floor with Tammy. They're planning to feature a project by ADORNit on their cute website soon.

Here's my pinwheel quilt hanging at the booth. The pinwheel is my favorite quilt block to make, and I can't wait to start a new pinwheel quilt that's in the back of my mind using all of the ADORNit fabrics that have gray in them.

Yup - here's me with the girls from Purl Soho fabric shop. When Scott and I went to NYC last year, one of my main goals was to find the Purl Soho shop which we did. I bought some fat quarters and buttons. I've always been inspired by their blog... The Purl Bee and love what they're doing to promote quilting to younger and urban quilters.

Quilt Market Sample Spree

Quilt Market is in full swing and what an event it is! I spent the day there yesterday working in the ADORNit booth with Carolee, Georgana, Alison (pictured above) and Janet and trying to suppress my excitement as I met lots of "famous" quilt shop owners and buyers. I kind of lost my cool when I realized I was talking to the girls from Purl Soho in New York City. I think I squealed and then had to have my picture taken with them. I also loved meeting people from Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia. Sewing is alive and well all over the world!

But the most fun was...

SAMPLE SPREE! It was Thursday night - a pre-market frenzy for shop owners to buy samples and extras from the manufacturers. It takes place in a huge hall (the areas you see are not the fabric company's Quilt Market booths, just tables for Sample Spree) with a line outside that starts forming hours before. Since Janet and I were inside with ADORNit, we were able to wander around the hall before the event started and take photos as the crowd ran (yes, literally ran) in. Never seen so many grandma quilter ladies move so fast!

Stacks and stacks at the Robert Kaufman tables.

The sprint for the Moda tables (about sixteen long tables placed in a big square).

Janet (sitting on far right) watches the action at the Moda tables. The shopping strategy is to run the the table, grab all the fabric stacks you can - I mean armfuls - and then take them to the side to sort through them and decide what you want to keep.

Pictured above is one of my favorite Moda designers Joanna Figueroa (Fig Tree Quilts) watching the goings on at Moda.

And here is the ADORNit table - we had fun introducing our company to quilters and showing off our cute fat quarter packs of the Life's a Hoot, Buckaroo, and Vintage Groove lines.