Thursday, February 14, 2013

Shop Update!! Loads of new goodies!

Super excited to announce that I have a whole bunch of NEW limited release fabric and pillows panels now available in my Etsy Store!

The designs are bright and cheery and perfect for ringing in Spring, which is already starting to make an appearance here in Austin. I hope you love the new designs and can't wait to see what you make!
I hope you'll hop over and take a peek















And of course, the original Oh La Llamas are still available!


Sunday, February 10, 2013

Giveaway winner | And a sneak peek of my new Spring Etsy goodies

Thank so much for the great comments about the new embroidery patterns! Its always fun to try something new and I had such a great time playing with the embroidery. Must. Get. Embroidery. Machine. :)

The lucky winner of the thread set is Mama Spark who was number 20. Congrats!! I hope you love the goodies, courtesy of Embroidery Online!
And a quick reminder of the new designs and the pillow I made out of the embroidery motifs.


You can find the patterns over at Embroidery Online.  Happy sewing!

I'm off to take some pictures of all the new goodies that I'll be adding to the Etsy store soon. I have 6 new pillow panels + and 7 new fabrics to share with you. You know I love a good pom pom trim for a pillow, so I stitched up some pillow panel samples with all sorts of pom-pomy pretiness. :) Stay tuned for the shop update!

  • New spring llamas
  • New donkeys
  • Foxes
  • Swans...oh my!






Tuesday, February 5, 2013

New license! Embroidery designs and a giveaway!

Guess what!? Some of my designs are now available as digital embroidery patterns through OESD on Embroidery Online! There are 25 designs in our first collection, Trucks and Transport, and I think they might be just the thing for little boys who love big machines. Fire trucks, earth movers, cement mixers,  and even a trash truck and traffic cones. The designs are available for use with just about any embroidery machine and can be downloaded from Embroidery Online or your can order a CD.

My current sewing arsenal doesn't include an embroidery machine in its ranks, so the team over at Embroidery Online stitched up some of the applique samples for me and I designs and sewed up these 2 cutie pie Trucks and Transport pillows. What do you think?!



And the backs!


Look at all of the fabulous little  details that are worked in automatically using the embroidery patterns!



(Basic instructions for the pillows are listed at the end of this post, along with a few work in progress shots to help illustrate how I put everything together.)

Oh, and guess what else? Robert Kaufman will be releasing a coordinating line of fabric this fall.  Fabric AND coordinating embroidery designs. Squee!! So excited!!

All the thread you need for the Trucks and Transport designs come in a handy 26-spool (600 yard) collection of Timeless Thread. And the team at Embroidery Online has a complete thread set (valued at $78) to share with one of you! Just leave me a comment here before the morning of 2/10/13 when I'll randomly choose a winner. I'd love to hear how many of you have an embroidery machine or if your sewing machine has embroidery capabilities. And if you don't, is a machine on your wish list like it is on mine?

Here's a preview of all 26 designs in the Trucks and Transport embroidery patterns collection!

Here are some guidelines for you on how I made my pillow covers.

Embroidery Motifs (each done on a single piece of white quilting weight cotton) with lots of extra space for trimming
1 - Trash truck - 4" wide
1 - Dump truck - 4" wide
2 - Cement trucks - 5" wide
2 - Flat bed trucks - 5" wide
1 - Fire engine - 5" wide
1 - School bus - 5" wide
1 - Tractor - 3" wide
1 - Earth mover - 4" wide
4 - cones group of 6 - 1 inch tall
8 - cones single - 1 inch tall
2 of each - text - 1 inch tall

Other supplies: 
I used white quilting cotton for stitching the embroidery motifs and for piecing the pillow
A dark grey quilting cotton for the road strips and orange quilting cotton for the stripes on the back
White cotton embroidery floss
2 orange 20" invisible zippers
Black pipping

Finished pillow size - 19" x 19"

Use 1/4" seam allowances for piecing

1. Trim the bottom edge of the fabric for each stitched motif leaving 2" between the bottom of the motif and the bottom of the fabric

2. Layout the strips in order, stacking and folding to get a sense of how you want to compose your pillows. Once finished, your strips will be 21 or 22"  wide, so as you lay everything out work with that as your width. Here's a guide I used for a rough height of each of my strips:

white (top) 5.5
grey 2.25
white 5.5
grey 2.25
white 4
grey 3


See how they're just sort of  folded into place for positioning? 

3. Now that you're sure of your layout, trim the bottom of the fabric for each stitched motif to leave 1/2" of white space below the motif.

4. Sew each of the white stripes (left to right with 1/4" seams) piecing the elements together to leave roughly the same spacing between elements that you laid out in 2. Remember, its an art not a science, so don't worry about making spacing between elements perfect.

5. Make sure that each row is at least 21 or 22" wide so you have some extra to trim later

6. After you sew the 3 white strips, trim them to the heights listed above


7. After you sew all the strips, start piecing the strips together. Start with the 3" grey strip at the bottom and work your way up to the top


8. For the back of the pillows, I followed the same basic idea but added an invisible zipper below the top orange panel.

9. Use an embroidery hoop and hand embroider the white road lines onto the grey strips.

10. Trim to 19" x 19"

11. When sewing the front to back, I added a basic black pipping to give the pillow a nice finish. I always,  use 20" pillow down forms in 19" cases so they are nice and full and fluffy.

Friday, February 1, 2013

Spoonflower news and a giveaway!

Happy Friday everyone! I am so excited to share that Spoonflower has added my Mastering the Art of Fabric Printing and Design book to their Welcome Pack. So if you've been wanting to give digital fabric printing a try (or it makes a great gift!), here's a great way to dip your toe in the water.

Included in the pack are:


  • $35 in Spoondollar credit for the recipient to spend on Spoonflower
  • A Spoonflower swatch book with samples of all the fabrics and materials, including wallpaper and wall decals
  • A copy of my Mastering the Art of Fabric Printing and Design book which includes step-by-step tutorials for designing patterns (both digitally and by hand), as well as insider tips for developing a collection and bringing it to the marketplace.

I've teamed up with Spoonflower and we posted an excerpt from the book on the Spoonflower blog about how to create a seamless repeat by hand using paper, pen, tape and good old fashioned scissors. The full tutorial Paper Cutting Repeat tutorial from my book is available here.

AND, the fabulous folks over at Spoonflower are graciously giving away threee FREE welcome packs! Just hop over to register to win here before 2/5/13. They'll draw a winner on 2/6/13. Good luck!!


On a personal note, this is such a huge full circle moment for me. I started my entire fabric design journey by trying Spoonflower and just seeing what I could do. To have them including my book as part of their Welcome Pack is really, truly astounding to me. Never in my wildest dreams did I see where this all would lead. [Insert giant happy smile here] Thank you so much to Stephen, Kim, Garth and the entire Spoonflower team for making me a part of your family!
xo