Quilt Contest!!

Recently we held a contest which benefited Quilts for Kids- an organization which distributes quilts, made by generous volunteers, to hospitalized and seriously ill children. They also distribute quilts to comfort children who are confronting tragedy, such recent Hurricane Sandy, the earthquake in Haiti, Tsunami in Japan, and the children of 9/11. Because I think this is such a wonderful organization, I designed a fabric line called Happy Town to benefit Quilts for Kids.

The great thing about the contest is that it helped children in 2 ways- my royalties from all of my Happy Town fabric sold went to Quilts for Kids, plus all of the quilts entered in the contest will be donated to children in need. Henry Glass Fabrics, who manufactured the fabric, sponsored the contest and also made a donation to Quilts for Kids.

I met up recently with Linda Arye, Founding President of Quilts for Kids, and Harriet Clemens, Design Director for Henry Glass Fabrics, at the Quilts for Kids headquarters in Fairless Hills, PA. We took a tour of the offices, and got a look at all of the beautiful quilts entered in the contest!

Would you like to take a tour with me?? OK, here we go:

A "Happy Town" display with contest and fabric line information greets visitors at the entrance.

Linda (on the right) shows Harriet some of the many news articles and acknowledgements that the organization has received. On the left, you can see rows of tables which are used for monthly workshops. Volunteers can come and learn new techniques and make quilts to donate.

 Nancy Lacey, Director of Operations, fields phone calls in her office.

Volunteers spend countless hours making quilts from the kits Cindi cuts at Headquarters.

 Linda and Harriet look at some of the fabric that is donated by corporate sponsors and individuals. Quilts for Kids also uses monetary donations to purchase fabric for quilts.

 Every day, Quilts for Kids receives quilts from generous quilters all around the world.

 Stacks of quilts waiting to go to their "kids"!!!

Linda hangs some of the quilt contest entries.

Would you like to see some of the beautiful quilts entered in the contest? Prepare to be inspired...

So now you want to see the winners, right?

First Place (winner of $500 cash) goes to :

Dana Followwell of Texas

Second Place (winner of $250 cash):

Sally Cottrell of North Carolina 

(that's Harriet, Linda, and me in the photo)

Honorable Mention (winner of a box of Henry Glass fabrics):

Pauline Francis of Michigan

A Really Huge HUG and THANKS to all who entered!!! Some very grateful children will be snuggling up in your beautiful creations soon :)

For more information about how you can get involved with Quilts for Kids, click here.

Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks Volume 7 Blog Hop!

It's the very first day of Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks Volume 7 Blog Hop! Yippee! Read to the end of this post to see how to win a copy of your own....

Please check out Quilty Pleasures blog, by the wonderful folks at Quiltmaker Magazine, to see other features regarding this issue and blog hop.

This is the block that I designed for this issue, called Candy Stripe:

For the sample block for the magazine, I used my Fruitful Hands fabric line (shown above). But I also tried making a block using my Oh Holy Night fabric line:

I got the name for the block because it kind of reminded me of a wrapped candy for some reason

and also because, it is obviously striped.

You could arrange these blocks in a couple of different ways:

 All blocks going in same direction.

 Rotating alternating blocks 90 degrees creates a cool pattern.

Adding sashing really looks neat.

Blocks set on point.

Blocks set on point with the addition of sashing.

All of the above designs were done with the Christmas fabric. Here is one done with Fruitful Hands, which is more Spring-y/ Summer-y:

Speaking of Spring-y/ Summer-y things... what did everyone think of our latest e-magazine which went out last week? I hope you tried the cookie recipe- they were so good :)
 Haven't seen it yet?? Click here.

(What? You don't have your free subscription yet? Click here to sign up.)

OK... so I know this is the moment you've been waiting for....

Quiltmaker is giving away a copy of their magazine! You can enter up to 3 times.

• Comment on this post and answer this question-

When do you normally start working on your Christmas/holiday projects:

A) I'm an over-achiever. I start working on them on December 26 and have them finished by June.
B) Slow and steady wins the race. I work on them all year round and pretty much have them done by Christmas week.
C) I start on December 15 and fuel myself with espresso, Red Bull and dark chocolate, baby!! Woo Hoo!!!!!!!!!

• For an extra chance to win, "like" my Facebook page and leave an extra comment here that you are a Facebook fan. 

• For one more extra chance to win, post a direct link to this post on your blog and leave the link to your post in the comments here.

You must comment by 11:59 pm EDT on Sunday, May 5. Winner will be drawn at random.
I MUST BE ABLE TO CONTACT YOU THROUGH AN EMAIL ADDRESS OR GOOGLE ACCOUNT. If I draw your name and you are a "no-reply blogger" and there is no email address in your comment, I will choose another winner.

Good luck!

April/May Newsletter Preview! New Fabric Line Preview!!

Hi there! I hope everyone is doing well. The weather here has been crazy- just 2 weeks ago, my daughter was home from school due to a late-season snow storm, and today it is going all the way to 85 degrees! And while we are basking in the sun and heat here on the East Coast of the U.S., I hear that some parts of the country are having record snow and ice right now!! But I do love the warm weather, I have all the windows open and I'm enjoying the heat. I am a little disappointed that tomorrow it is going to be seasonably cooler, with highs only in the 60's...

My daughter, husband, and I are working feverishly to get the next issue of the newsletter done... I am *hoping* it will go out next week. Here is just some of what you will find in this issue:

Plus, be the very first to see my newest fabric line which will debut at Spring International Quilt Market in May! (That's right- you can see it even before the shop owners will be able to order it at the  trade show....)

If you would like a FREE subscription to the newsletter, please sign up at the top right sidebar of this blog. To see previous issues of the newsletter, click here.

Are you already a subscriber to the newsletter? Tell us what is your favorite thing about it!

Many of you know, because I've mentioned it a few times, that I am redoing my blog and website. For the most part, the fun part (i.e. the colors, design, etc.) is done, and now it's time for the hard part- getting together all of the copy (text), photos, etc. It will take up a good amount of my time over the next week or so, so I will be "recycling" some older blog posts (hey, recycling is good for the environment, right??) So please stick with me as we get the new site up and running....

Fabric Design Process

Last week I spoke at the Berry Basket Quilter's Guild in Medford, NJ. I met a lovely group of ladies and talked about my wool pins and my fabric design process. (Don't I have a weird look on my face in this picture??)

I also debuted my new book, Child's Play, and showed some samples from the book:

May is rapidly approaching- that means it's almost time for International Quilt Market in Portland, Oregon. I will have a new fabric line debuting at that show. I feel like I have been working on it forever.... This particular line has had many revisions. Sometimes a fabric line will come about quite easily, and other times it seems it takes a million tweaks to get it right.

I wanted to show you a little glimpse into how a fabric design might come about. This is a page from the Better Homes and Gardens June 2012 issue. I liked the pattern in the wall paper, with the alternating circular and diamond shaped motifs, and I thought an idea like this would work well with the line I was working on.

The description in the magazine says that the decorator was influenced by Indian prints. Indian prints are often done with a carved wooden block, which is stamped onto fabric or other surfaces. You can see that the circular motif in the wall paper has 8 "petals" and the center is a circle. Using that for inspiration, I drew a circular design that had 8 petals, but I had a different idea for the center:

 I also drew a square which I could rotate into a diamond shape:

The palette for this line has a lot of blues, so I painted my motifs in a pretty turquoise color. Also, I couldn't get a close look at the details in the wall paper so my design ended up being quite a bit different from the original. The original also had some extra "fan shapes" in the circular motif which I did not include. (Even if I did have a detailed look at the original, I wouldn't copy it- I look at something to inspire me and then do my own thing.)

Then it was time to start laying things out in a repeat in PhotoShop to see what would happen....

(I also had some versions with the circles rotated a bit, but apparently I didn't save those...)

I took the center of the circle:

and repeated it to make a border:

In the end, we ended up not using the circle & diamond repeat, but we did use the border and the individual circle and square motifs that I originally painted. When we get closer to Quilt Market, I will  show you some of the patterns that DID actually make it into the line!

So that is a little bit about the evolution of just one pattern in a fabric line.... And then you figure that there are anywhere from 5-8 patterns in a line... a lot of stuff that you like doesn't make the final cut because it just doesn't work with the rest of the line. It takes a lot of hours... (if I ever actually kept track of how many hours I spend putting a line together, I would probably shock myself!)