BUSY TIMES ARE COMING

So much for blogging once a week, but we have been busy.  I know, you have heard that before.  Janice flew to Utah two weeks ago.  Her son and daughter-in-law graduated from college and the next day her daughter Nellie, our trusty helper, had her open house.  Janice stayed a couple of extra days so we could finish sewing the new quilt from Moda's Authentic collection.  It is being quilted as I write.  We love this quilt.  Here are some sneak peaks of the almost done quilt.

A lot of the fun in doing a quilt is naming the quilt.  We usually have three or four names to choose from and once in a while we let you help us guess.  The name for this quilt came easy, in fact, we thought the name was perfect.  So, here we go, our newest quilt will be called:

"PAPER BACK WRITER"

The fabric arrives in stores in September and so will the pattern.  We should have it on the website early next week.

So you can have some things to look forward to, starting tomorrow, we will be creating the illusive computer bag.  While brainstorming for that, we found a design for Laura Gunn's (Michael Miller fabric) new line Lantern Bloom.  We love this fabric and it inspired us with a great new purse.  Previews coming soon.

We are also working on new quilts with three Moda Designers, Lila Tueller, Sanae, and Momo.  Sometimes we feel so lucky to see all the great fabrics early.  We also took a peak at Sandy Henderson's new line, (Michael Miller), and it is BEAUTIFUL.  We are going to use it in our first ever, official bed spread.  Can't wait.  So much to do, so little time.

I took a break this week and we met some friends who flew into Las Vegas.  We drove up through Southern Utah and went to Zion, Bryce Canyon and Lake Powell.  We did hiking, off roading (had a tire blow out), boating and all kinds of fun things.  The good news, I took 300 pictures before my camera broke.  That is the bad news.  I wanted to share a couple of pictures with ya'll.  The scenery was breathtaking.  Our first stop was Zion's National Park.

I couldn't resist taking pictures of all the beautiful sunflowers.  I caught someone else who was also checking out the flowers.

Our next stop was Bryce Canyon National Park. 

All those little spikey things are called WHO DOO'S.  Along the drive we saw tons of them.  Here in fact is a whole family.

We put the boat in at Lake Powell and headed down to Rainbow Bridge.  You can see it peaking around the corner in this picture.  It was about a 100 mile round trip.

Lake Powell is surrounded entirely by Red Rock.  The scenery is constantly changing up and down the lake.  Here is one more picture. 

Hope you enjoyed the vacation photos.  I just had to share.

Have a great week.  Can't wait to share with you all the upcoming projects.

Janice and Marcea

WHAT HAPPENED TO SUMMER

The middle of August, kids are back in school, the sun sets earlier and the snow is coming. Ok, not in Florida, but in another month the temperature will drop below 72 degrees. The end of summer also means quilt market is right around the corner, and we are getting ready. So here is our update.

First, thanks to all the help on the blog. I am slowly getting it fixed up. I even got a counter to know how many people stop by and I was shocked. There were a lot more than I would have guessed. In the past, we only posted when we had finished products, but it looks like we will let you know more about the "PATTERN BUSINESS" and any new updates on fabric, projects, ect.

First, we have been trying to do a COMPUTER BAG pattern. The first problem is, I want to use the bag and so it has to have certain requirements. I travel on airplanes a lot and my computer goes everywhere I do. Not only do I need it to look good it has to be functional. That means great padding, sturdy handles, places for the cords and cd's and all that other stuff. So, night after night I put myself to sleep designing. Finally, I think I have it. So this week, using some great Amy Butler home dec weights. It doesn't hurt to match the fabric up with our cute green apple computers. So this is Project #2 on this week's list.

Project #3. We are redoing one of our favorite patterns, ALL TOGETHER NOW. We debating whether to do it in Batiks, a Florida favorite, or Kaffe Fassett fabrics, everybody's favorite. Kaffe won and look at the selection. It will be beautiful. It is fun and easy to make also.

Project #1 for the week. The one we are looking forward to the most. One of our favorite new fabric lines at Market was from Moda. It is called Authentic and will be in stores by September. Some shops are already carrying the small cuts of this line. It is great, sophisticated, interesting and of course, green, black, white and cream. Can't beat that color combination.

We will be using it for two projects, a quilt and a project bag. This week it is the quilt. To design a quilt, we start in our heads, then paper, then the computer. This is a couple of the computer designs for Authentic. (The fun quilt name comes last). You should see the finished top by the end of the week, and you can compare the drawings to the real thing. Sometimes changes get made as the sewing takes place.

So, we started with what happened to summer. The temperature in Northern Utah yesterday dropped to 49 degrees. Those are January temperatures in Florida. As you know, Nellie, Janice's daughter, and our trusty volunteer employee was married on July 31. I headed to Florida and Janice is heading to Utah this week. I am still waiting for the wedding photos to post a couple, but the picture I can show you is a Florida Native. Everyone went out on the boats to hunt for alligators. We found two. Yes, alligators. We were about 20 feet from this one.

Get those projects out and start sewing. We are. Have a great week.

Janice and Marcea