These next few months are a little unbelievable for new fabrics. SO many amazing  new collections coming out. Today I’m just going to mention Greenfield Hill, the new line from Denyse Schmidt, one of my idols.

Not only does this collection have 21 quilting weight cotton prints, but there will also be 9 voiles too, you know–just like butta! I love the way she describes the inspiration for this line:

Inspired by Ladies’ League luncheons and Preservation Society socials, Greenfield Hill evokes afternoon teas, polite gossip, the faded wallpaper in Mrs. So-and-so’s drawing room, the slightly musty library on the green, and motoring on a perfect, crisp and sunny day.

Take a peek at the other “New England/Goth” colorways, and start dreaming of what you might make out of this.  I’m thinking dresses, napkins, garden party decorations, summer duvet covers, and just maybe it’s time to design the urban bonnet!  Greenfield Hill will arrive this December at Suppose, from Free Spirit Fabrics.

The other day my mom came up to me and said, “Look! I designed a quilt!”

I know you wish you had talent like that too.

Fall classes are in full swing here at the shop. One of my favorites to teach is our intro to quilting class, which has had various incarnations, but this time around it’s called Patchwork 101 and we’ll be making this quilt. I designed it especially for this class to give us the chance to work with half-square triangles, strip piecing, butting seams, and adding borders, among other things. I’m excited to see all the different versions of this quilt from our students.  There is something so intereseting about seeing the same pattern worked up in different fabrics. Plus watching new quilters learn all the tricks and then be amazed with their new skills is always such a blast. Can’t wait!

Patchwork 101 starts this Wednesday 9/15 at Suppose and lasts 4 weeks. We will cover everything from cutting & piecing, to basic machine quilting and binding, so you go home with a finished quilt!

One of Kathy’s favorite things to do while in the shop is choose 3 coordinating fabrics for pillowcases. Here she shows her choices for the body, trim flange, and hem of a pillowcase out of the Wee Woodland collection by Keiki for Moda. She can literally plan pillowcases all day long, and then we have to think of excuses to make them. Actually, the Million Pillowcase Challenge is a great excuse. If you haven’t heard of it yet, take a look and consider participating!

Our favorite pillowcase pattern is a double trimmed pillowcase with a clever trick that makes it super quick and easy to sew, and gives you a lovely hem with an enclosed seam. In fact, we’ll be teaching this method in a class this Saturday!  It’s the perfect project for a novice sewist, or anyone who just wants to feel the satisfaction of completing something in less a couple hours. (I’d love the satisfaction of completing a project in less than a month!) Once you make one, you just want to keep going. In fact, our teacher Evelyn Greene made boatloads of pillowcases with this pattern for Christmas last year. What a great gift!

I think the holiday pillowcases might be our favorite.  I have great memories of finally being allowed to pull the Christmas pillowcases out of the closet after waiting all year, and seeing what little treasures were to be found in the print of the pillowcase as I laid in bed.  But before Christmas is Halloween, and Alexander Henry’s spooky prints have just been begging to be made into pillowcases.

Our glow-in-the-dark fabric makes the perfect touch as a little trim piece. And I adore all the little different haunted houses in the Boo! Street print.  Just so perfect!

Join us this Saturday 9/11 for the Magic Pillowcase class, the first in our Beginner’s Series. It’ll be a blast!

Two amazing friends and their kids were about to move across the country (Miss you, Mylers!), and I just kept thinking of those hours in the car, and what they might want to listen to. So I burned some cds and made these little sleeves for handy keeping.

I chose fabrics from Alexander Henry, Anna Maria Horner’s Good Folks, Art Gallery’s Filligree, & Tufted Tweets and loved how they just went together.

Thinking I might want to recreate them sometime, I started taking notes, but this is as far as it got

because it was pretty simple, really. For each cd envelope, I used heavyweight fusible interfacing inside & made 2 identical 5″ pockets that I just slipped inside each other and sewed closed around the top. I quite liked the result and may be making more of these for little gifts, and for the cds that get tossed around my car.

Then there was a package to send to California for my dear friends who always act as home when I just need to get back there for the beach and some good shopping.  These new Kaffe Fassett prints (Ombre and Radiation) in the Pastel colorway were just calling to be made into something for them, as they could go with all the vintagey pastel kitchenware they have.

I ended up making 16″ square napkins and 4″ square coasters. It was a simple right-sides-together-turn-inside-out-and-topstitch kind of project. The coasters have some heavyweight interfacing for sturdiness too.  Looking at them does kind of make me want to have a picnic at the beach.

Been making any hand-sewn gifts lately? Show us in our Flickr Pool!