Beautiful colors...

We had an incredible thunder and lightening storm last Friday night. Of course the sky and light were really intense right before everything started. I took this picture of the Empress Tree out back...




The colors are amazing! I need to make a quilt like this, or an embroidery... or paint a room.... or something!

New Products at Mister Judy

My sister and I have added some new shirts for boys and some new tea linen sets for the tea parties over at Mister Judy.

More Eye Candy from the show

I'm getting very interested in these embroidery machines.

Wow.... what a day!

Quilt Market was in a word... incredible!

Here is a bit of the booth of Sandi Henderson of Portobello Pixie...



and Amy Butler's booth.


Yes, that is Amy in the orange sweater in the back.
And this booth of publications had a wonderful display of Hillary Lang's Wee Wonderful Put-Together Books and Hand Sewing cards.



And then there were winners from several national craft/quilting/embroidery competitions. The first display were these incredible garments. Not just wearable art, but gorgeous crafted gowns and coats...







And this corset inspired number...



Look at these modern interpretations of quilting. The first one is such an amazing log cabin.



In this one the pieces were so small, they were almost like mosaics rather than quilts.



To me this is so inspiring.... much more so than traditional quilt patterns or techniques. The visual effect is subtly shaded and almost 3-dimensional in appearance.



All in all we saw or talked with the following designers:
Amy Butler
Heather Ross
Joel Dewberry
Tina Givens
Valori Wells
Jennifer Paginelli
Anna Marie Horner
Kaffe Fassett
Denyse Schmidt
Sandi Henderson
Melissa Averinos
Tanya Whelan

And then Bolt hosting an evening gathering at their store. Heather Ross, Denyse Schmidt, Heather Bailey, and Anna Marie Horner were all there.

It was a good day.

And some more gratuitous eye candy...

Look at these gorgeous fabrics...




These are from Anna Maria Horner who should be at quilt market tomorrow. (Insert squeal of joy here)

And look at this!



.... and this...



from Tanya Whelan who will also be there tomorrow. I'm so excited I could burst!

On a sewing/crafty note, I made this little dress for Miss E for the summer...





She needs some simple summer dresses that she can just pull over her head and go. There is not much out there in the pattern world that is cute for kids. So many of the patterns from McCalls and Butterick have that "Yes, my Mommy made this look" about them. This is a top from a Burda pattern that we modified.

Ready for some serious inspiration...

So my friend Mo and I are going to Quilt Market this Friday. Once every four or five years it comes to Portland... and THIS year is it!!! We are so excited. Here are some tid-bits from Joel Dewberry's site.





And how luscious are these from Portobello Pixie





We are so excited, I think we are going pop!!! How ever will we make it to Friday???

Happy Mother's Day!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day yesterday.
Mine started off with some serious gardening planning...



This is my favorite book for garden strategy...


As a firm believer in zonal denial, I constantly plant tropical plants for their beauty and outrageous foliage. Of course they don't last much past October, but until then they look great!

Then it was off to Portland Nursery for some inspiration and plant purchasing..





Honestly, I could just move in here.



Everything is so beautiful.



All the purchases have been planted, but they are not really showy yet... sort of small plants in big pots. We are supposed to get some very warm weather this week which should make things grow quickly. I'll post some pics once things start filling out.

Vintage Suitcase Redo

I love old suitcases. But sometimes the remnants of their previous owner's uses are still attached.



In this case, the Sky Queen (how cool is the name!!!) spent some time as a tool box. There was a mysterious stain on the bottom resembling oil.



So I made a new bottom out of cardboard and covered it with some striped fabric. The new ties are twill tape that was laid in the suitcase before the new bottom was pushed into place.



Now I just need to figure out how to tighten up those pockets. The elastic is really baggy, but the pocket is sewn to the lining which is glued into the suitcase. I don't want to rip the whole thing apart. Maybe I can thread a new piece of elastic between the rows of stitching and hand tack it at either end.

New uses for old things

It's a VCR...


It's a Parking Garage!