HOME FROM MARKET

Janice just flew home from Houston after spending 10 days here. We worked those 20 hour days getting ready for the market. We had a great time. We met so many new friends and got to touch base with some old friends too. We debuted 10 new patterns. Eight quilts, a new purse, and of course the "ABBEY BAG." The Abbey Bag was a big hit and just as cute as can be. We had them all over our booth. A picture is worth a thousand words, so let me show you the show.

Here is the booth we started with. Not much.

So much stuff, so little space. Janice's daughter Nellie flew in to help us with the show. We couldn't have done it without her help.

We had a 10' x 10' booth, which isn't very big. We started with the floor. It was fun to put together and added a great touch. We also put up some fru fru berries to soften the look.

Each wall represented a different look, but it all seemed to work.

We kept Nellie in
the corner writing
orders. She liked
being there and we
would have been
lost without her.

We had two quilts hanging in Patty Young's booth. Her fabric is beautiful and we loved working with it. Thanks Patty.

One of the highlights of the booth was winning SECOND PLACE for Single Booth decoration. This is a big deal and we were very honored.

So, the website has all the new patterns up and we are in business.
Have a great week and thanks for looking.

THE END IS IN SIGHT

Can you start a blog with a P.S. at the beginning. We always seem to be working backwards but this is the finished top for andalucia earth, still will need to be quilted. Way to go Janice. check the design she achieved through fussy cutting. This quilt is amazing in person. We will have the pattern and great pictures next week.

While Janice is home slaving behind the sewing machine and quilting machine, I have been traveling the country. I started in a car saturday night in houston, on sunday I flew in a plane from albequerque to dallas to new orleans to orlando. Landed late sunday night. Janice and I blitzed through a thousand details monday, then i caught a plane monday at 5 pm to phoenix and then to salt Lake city. it was 25 degrees when i landed. This is the mountain i grew up on. My dad had 2 inches of snow on the lawn on sunday.


Now the good stuff, Janice is just about finished our second quilt using the new Basic Grey Fabrics. It is a fun, easy quilt that can be made in scraps or your favorite new fabrics. The pattern to this and all the other new quilts will be available next week on the website, just in time for market.















This quilt still gets a strip of red on top and bottom. I also took a close up so you could see how cool the piecing is. We used all 39 fabrics in the Basic Grey collection. This fabric will be available in November.



We told you about Patty Young, great new designer from Michael Miller. Janice almost has her second quilt done. The collection is called Andalucia Earth and the colors are very rich. This quilt is a piecing masterpiece, one reason Janice is doing the sewing. She loves the intricate work, did I tell you she is doing a Dear Jane. This quilt still has borders that will be put on it.

Ok here are the first borders. last one will be done and we will throw up a picture of it, too.

We are working very hard night and day to get everything done. I fly back to Houston this weekend and Janice flies into Houston Tuesday morning.

Here are two pictures of Patty's other quilt, "Miss Molly"

We will keep you updated with the sneak peaks.

The real thing will be on the website soon.

Have a great week.

Pulling All Nighters

I have now been in Florida for 6 days. I will be returning to Houston tomorrow. Janice and I have accomplished a lot, but there is soooooooooo much more to do. Before I get to the good pictures, I wanted to share with you pics of some of our pets. Actually, they just happen to live in the yards at our houses.

Let me introduce you first to Sassafrass. She is a chicken, and she stands outside the studio and waits for us to feed her. She belongs to Janice. A few months ago, Janice had 12 chickens and roosters, but, saddly, she is down to one.

I am staying out in the country outside of Houston. We have numerous squirrels, a family of baby racoons, two large hawks, and this cute guy. His or her name, I don't know how to tell on an armadillo, is NOSEY. Normally armadillos don't come out in the day, but this dumb thing runs around the yard all day, sticking his nose in the grass digging bugs.

Ok, enough of the animals, back to the quilts. I want to spend a minute to tell you about one of our friends. Her name is PATTY YOUNG. We met Patty at market in Portland last spring. She has designed a new line of fabric for MICHAEL MILLER. It is called ANDALUCIA, even the name is beautiful and the fabric is better. We designed two quilts for Patty's new fabric to show at market. The fabric arrived in Florida, I followed quickly, and we began. The quilt is coming off the quilt machine in about an hour. It will have some additional elements added, but we wanted to give you a sneak peak. Make sure to go to the bottom to see the finished quilt.

This quilt is perfect for a little girl, or even an old girl like me, I just want to hang it on the wall.

We added this striped backing and it made the back almost as cute as the front. The colors and patterns in this line are great. Ok enough on that quilt. The second quilt is still in blocks, so no sneak peak this week, but check back. It will be worth it. It is out of rich greens and browns with splashed of red and is a true quilters quilts. It is a piecing quilt, so Janice is sewing it. Did I tell you that Janice is a better seamstress than me. It is very sophisticated and I have already claimed that the finished quilt will be mine. Well, I can't say enough about this line other than to tell you to go to Patty's blog, http://www.modkidsboutique.blogspot.com/ and you can see the whole line.

Only the binding to go. Janice said the first two pictures were tooooo ugly. I like to use just ok pictures cause I want you to see the best when they are done, but this one is too cute to not show you the finished quilt.

Market is less than three weeks away. We have two more quilts, lots of abbey bags, a purse and an apron to finish, oh yeah, the patterns to go with them. Hope we make it. Thanks for reading and please, leave a comment, we love to know what you think.

THE SEWING MARATHON

So many quilts, not enough time. I have stopped for a minute just to give a little update. Janice is slaving away in the studio as I write. She has one quilt on the machine, this is the CHEZ MOI fabric that got lost in the mail.

Here is the sneak peak before it hit the machine. It will have some beautiful embellishing after it is quilted. It is a combination of old meets new, and, in my opinion, moda's chez moi collections are one of their best. Look for the finished quilt pictures in the next couple of days.

I have flown to Florida for the week so Janice and I can sew, sew, sew. We are getting about 4 to 5 hours of sleep a night. Two quilts have been finished so far.

The First one of the machine was the pink diamond quilt made with Westminster fabrics. It is absolutely my favorite. The pattern will be ready and on the website at the end of next week. We have already had quite a few orders for it. I LOVE IT!

The second one off the machine was MARMALADE SKY. This is such a great generic quilt for whatever fabric you want. And besides, you can never go wrong with black and white chains.

Last item for the day, we are so excited to show you our first picture of a quilt made from one of our patterns. Our friend Marcia, who helps us out once in while, gets the privilege of shopping in house. She and her daughter decided to make the baby quilt, "Baby, It's for You." Marcia added two borders and shifted the color scheme. It is beautiful. Thanks Marcia for sharing. We really mean it when we ask you to send us pictures. It just makes our day to see that something we have made has inspired you.

We have three more quilts to finish in the next three days. We will be posting some pictures as we go. Wish us luck.

THE CRISIS HAS PASSED

Just wanted to alliviate any stress you were all still having. The crisis is over. There is no more panic, no more fear, the box with the MODA fabric is HERE. OK, it doesn't sound like much in the face of hurricanes, (I will get to that in a minute), but new fabric from moda was lost in the madness of Hurricane Ike. It was horrible. Janice and I were freaking out. Well, I was freaking out, Janice has a much more positive take on life than I do. She was sure it would come. Anyway, Janice had mailed me a priority box on Wednesday, Sept. 9. It always takes two days, but because of the hurricane, my post office, 20 miles from Galveston, closed on Thursday and Friday and Saturday. No box. Why you ask all the fuss over a box. Chez Moi and Basic Gray fabrics. Yards of Fabric.

After the storm, I made 2 trips to the post office 30 miles away, three phone calls and I stood at the mailbox every day for a week. I left town, no box. 8 days after it should have arrived, the box came. Inside, the fabric to finish this quilt and make two more. Yes, on the floor in this picture is the beginning of one of our Basic Gray quilts. I can't wait to get back home and start sewing.

Back to the Hurricane. This was the sunset after a day of storms. We survived. Some roof tiles blew off the house, tree branches broke, and no power for four days. I went a total of 26 days without power four years ago from hurricanes in Orlando. Back to Hurricane Ike, apparantly it went zooming northward and knocked the power out at Janice's daughters in Columbus, Ohio. Then Janice found out it went through their property in Missouri. Janice left on Thursday for an emergency road trip to Missouri to check out the damage. I left very early Friday morning to drive to Lake Powell in Utah and then to Ogden, Utah for the Utah Quilter's Guild festival. We are working while on the road, and will both be back home this week.

My trip included dropping a boat off at Lake Powell in Southern Utah. I posted a couple of pictures from southern Utah. One on the water and one from a little town called Hanksville. Funny thing, we don't have rocks in Florida. We don't even have stones or pebbles. Have a great week. Thanks for reading.

HURRICANE WOES

I usually try to write on Sundays, but the storm is really coming. Yes, Hurricane Ike is supposed to go right over my house early Saturday Morning. We should have sustained winds over 100 miles an hour for 5 to 8 hours. The power will go out and they have said it may be two weeks before it is back on. Here is a picture of the storm from Thursday.




New fabric was arriving today from Moda. Some of it was to finish up a quilt made with one of their new lines, BASIC GRAY. We actually will have two new designs for the line. There is also fabric for a design using Chez Moi. Unfortunately, because of the pending storm, the mail, ups, fedex and all those other companies decided not to make deliveries. I thought postmen came rain or shine. Hopefully next week. It is also difficult to sew without power. Janice will have to work overtime. The good news, Janice has two quilts ready to go on the long arm quilting machine this week. Here is a picture of my favorite, just the top. We promised sneak peaks.





As always, we would love to hear what you think. Have a great week. Check back often. We have lots of new projects.

NEW STORMS, NEW BAG

Another week, another tropical storm passing by and a hurricane on the way. I figure with Janice in Florida and me in Texas, we got this whole storm thing covered. One or the other of us will be effected. As I am writing this, there is a beautiful quilt top sitting on my floor. I think this one is my favorite so far. It should be ready for quilting tomorrow. It will make it's grand debut here on the blog first.

Speaking of debuts, I am putting on a couple of pictures of our newest creation. The pattern isn't written yet, give us a couple of weeks, but our "Abbey Bag" is going to be a hit.

I almost forgot the BIG NEWS. Janice and I are officially going to Market. Yes, we are having a booth in Houston. We should have 6 to 8 new patterns. Yes, that means we are working like crazy right now. It will get even worse in a couple of weeks, when all the new fabric comes in.







This is the Pin Cushion.

















This is the Bag.

This is the "ABBEY BAG'

That's about it for this week. LET US KNOW WHAT YOU THINK OF THE ''ABBEY BAG."

the storms

Just in case anyone would like to know, Janice lives in Orlando and I am temporarily in Houston. Janice has only had one tropical storm this summer, but it rained over 30 inches in just a couple of days. She is anxiously awaiting the sun to return to the sunshine state.

I, on the other hand, had one tropical storm go by that barely did anything. I flew my father back to Utah on Friday and returned to Houston tonight, Sunday, in order to prepare for Hurricane Gustav. It looks like it will miss us, best of luck to all those in it's path.

There was a bright side to my short trip to Utah. I visited four of my favorite quilt shops, Pine Needles and Elaine's in Salt Lake City, Quilter's Haven in Bountiful, and Sweet Lavender in Roy. I picked up a few missing pieces of fabric for a new quilt and then got some beautiful new fabric. This week I hope to finish two new quilts and a special surprise.

One more bit of Great News. ABBEY LANE QUILTS will be attending the International Quilt Market in October as EXIBITORS.

Whether Texas or Florida, we are trying to stay dry and sew, sew, sew.

Kits are Flying

August 25

Good News! The kits have been mailed. We waited anxiously for the fabric to arrive. First one box, then the next another, then a third. It was about that time that tropical storm Fay decided to park itself in Janice's back yard. It stayed for 5 days and dropped over 20 inches of rain. School was cancelled, roads were closed. At least it wasn't as hot. Trying to look at the bright side. So, the clouds parted and the sun came back and the kits were mailed. Thanks to those of you who emailed us that you got them. We would love to see the finished products. Send them, we will share them.

We are super busy on new quilts. Janice is working on two, one made from civil war fabrics (her favorite) and another cute baby quilt. Did I tell you that Janice is making a Dear Jane, or at least she was before we started all this.

I have two new designs almost completely sewn. While I was working on them, I came up with a cute new version of an old standby "need to have" item. I will post a picture in the next few days. I leave tomorrow to take my father back to Utah. I am in Houston, Texas with him right now, and i decided to get him out of here before the hurricane gets here, if it does. Look at Utah quilt stores, Abbey Lane is coming to town.

Well, thanks for reading.

Oh Yeah, Here's a picture of us at the quilt market in Portland in May. I am not really that much taller than Janice. four inch high heels.

almost up and running

Now that our website, www.abbeylanequilts.com officially links you here, we are going to have to start letting you know what's going on. Right now, there is a lot. We have finally caught up with all the work from the spring quilt market in Portland, and have found ourselves deep into it getting ready for Houston.

New and Exciting:

We were just featured in two magazines. We have given our families our autographs, they are the only ones who would take them. We are excited though to see our quilts on the pages of a magazine.

Both magazines offer kits for the quilts which you can get on our website. Both quilts use Donna Dewberry's new fabrics which just arrived this week. THOSE KITS ARE ON THE WAY EVERYONE.

We want to thank Quilthome, one of our favorite online quilt stores, www.quilthome.com , for the great article they had in their newsletter and Joel Dewberry fabrics and our quilt patterns.

Look for updates more often, and we will be adding photos too.

Our kids are great at blogging, so, as to not be outdone, we are attempting to blog. Janice and I are in the quilt design business. At least that is what we tell people. We have both quilted since we were kids. I sat under many a quilt frame at my grandma's house and Janice's mom was a quilter. We have been friends for almost 20 years. One of our favorite things to do together was quilt. We were always working on a quilt, the problem was, we changed every pattern. "This would look better," "We should try this instead," and on and on. So one day we decided that we could design quilts.

Testing, 1 .. 2 .. 3

Now for the pictures ...

"Sweet Georgia Black" is the quilt for the magazines. It will be in Quilters Newsletter in July.

This is our little girl quilt using Donna Dewberry's new fabrics and some Blooming Chenille for the flowers and butterflies.

We named this quilt "Just Let It Be" because we kept trying to add different things but finally we just left it alone and it was great!!!

"Garden Party" was one of our first quilts with Joel Dewberry's fabrics. I had a hard time quilting this one because it is free-form kiddiwampus quilting and that is hard for me not to want it to be perfect.

"My Old Brown Shoe" is the perfect photo. If we could only get all the pictures to look this good.