How’s that for a self-explanatory post title? Anna Maria Horner’s Loulouthi Needleworks prints are so cool you have to hardly do anything to them to turn them into something pretty and useful. Just sew up the sides and cut a boatneck like did for a cute new shift dress!

I followed our Exposed Waistband Skirt instructions but left out the pleating for this one.

The added twist was that I used black mini-ball fringe to trim the hem! Seemed to add to the gypsy feel of the skirt without being too crazy.

I dare you to try it with regular sized pom pom fringe. Not really. Wait, there probably is someone who could pull that off without looking silly. Just not me.

We alluded to this project a bit ago, and now we can show some progress!  This is the Wild Garden quilt. Well, quilt top. It still needs to be quilted, which I have been having internal debates about how to do.  But the bamboo batting is ready and waiting, and then it will be time for a pattern release!  Yup, Wild Garden will be available from our own Golly Patterns in August.

The idea is simply to frame a panel with border-after-border, which we love for showcasing fabric that we don’t to detract from with over-designed piecing. You may recognize the Loulouthi fabrics, obviously that collection. More photos and info on the pattern to come, if I can just make up my mind about the quilting…

Of the few things I take very seriously, my sleep is one of them. My bed has such a heavenly mattress that I love it a little more than a person should love a thing.  And of course, my comfy bed has got to be pretty too. (I totally believe that the aesthetics of our environments affect our mood.)  So the transitioning of the winter comforter to the summer comforter was the perfect time for a bed makeover.

For me the simple, right-sides-together duvet cover has become the go-to when I want something for my own bed but there’s not enough time (or I’m too impatient) to make a new quilt. When you have a large print to show off it’s especially perfect. I had been dying to get my hands on the the huge-scale prints in the Loulouthi collection in particular. The tricky thing is, a queen duvet cover requires 2 widths of fabric, and with prints this big they had to be matched. It turned out much better than I anticipated, only needed about a foot of extra fabric and I just pinned before sewing. Barely noticeable!

And since I like to change things up a lot, the back has a contrasting print so I can flip it if I’m in a more purpley mood.

The fabric particulars:

• duvet front fabric: Summer Totem in Grapefruit
• duvet back fabric: Framed in Shadow
  • 4 3/4 yards for each side of a full/queen duvet
• pillowcases: Stockings in Twist
  • 1 yard per pillowcase

My duvet cover sewing tips:

• Don’t bother squaring up until after you’ve sewn the two sides together. When I square up first, by the time I’m done sewing the sides and top together, the bottom don’t match up anyway so I have to square up again before hemming.
• As in making pillow shams, if you make your duvet cover slightly smaller than the duvet, the corners will stay put and be nice and full.  My duvet is 82″ square, and I usually make my duvet covers about 81″ square.
• Closing the bottom a foot or two in from the sides helps keep everything in place too, plus there are less ties to tie and there is still plenty of room to fit it over the duvet. I usually do this by hemming the bottom, then sewing it closed near the sides with the same seams that I sew my ties on with.
• If you’re lazy like me, use narrow twill tape instead of making ties.  I prefer ties just because once I had duvet cover buttons that would not stay done up.  For this project, it looked better than the grosgrain and satin ribbons I had on hand and saved lotsa time.

If you’ve got duvet cover sewing tips too, please add them in the comments!

I have about a million unfinished quilts in the works. I’m afraid to actually count for fear of the guilt that number would incur. So instead let’s focus on some projects I’ve actually finished!  Here are a few small things I’ve made in the last little while.

Meet Jaime Elefante, so named by my dear friend Amy, made with Indygo Junction’s Eloise & Elmore pattern, and featuring a print from Parisville.

Here is something that is true. I made the below zipper pouch in 5 minutes. It was to contain a birthday present for another dear friend, Erica. It might have been the most fun I’ve ever packed into 5 minutes. Raw edge appliqued with thread-doodling (is there a name for this style? idk.) on bamboo felt (soo soft). This is going on my Make More of These ASAP list.

A lot of what I make gets given away or displayed in the shop, but this is something I actually got to keep. I desperately needed a new everyday bag, and ended up with this Multi-Tasker Tote (one of my favorite bag patterns ever) out of an Innocent Crush home dec weight print. So far I am loving it, with my favorite part being the 4 handy outer pockets.

That’s not all, but it’s all for now.

I want to give you an idea of what’s about to happen over here. This week, we will have 17 20 boxes of fabric arriving from various fabric companies. And I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the deliveries the UPS man makes at the shop, but these are big boxes.  I still don’t think I am fully prepared for this. It will be like the Christmas of all Christmases.

And just imagining how much room all this new fabric will be taking up is why we are still having a Market Clearance sale, making room for everything we ordered at Quilt Market, which will keep coming for the next several months.  Continuing through this Saturday (if the fabric lasts that long) a huge selection is marked down to HALF OFF. We figured we’ve never had a sale this huge since we’ve been open, and probably won’t again for another 2 years. Now, those prices are in-store only, but we have also added new fabrics to our online Clearance section.

But back to my real purpose for this post, which is to share with you some of the new fabrics coming in. The indomitable Anna Maria Horner has a new collection that is her best yet, named Loulouthi, and in 3 colorways each named for one of her daughters.  Here is what she says about this collection:

Loulouthi is a treasure box of all that I love about flowers and fabric coming together in form and inspiration. The word loulouthi simply translates from the Greek as “flower”. But in an ongoing story, my cultural heritage has enlivened these fabrics with visions of needleworks in progress, the gentle tending of village gardens, and the luxury of living alongside everyday works of art. The language of flowers and floral handiwork has spoken to me since before I could thread my own needles, and this collection is my reply to all that beauty.

And here is what it looks like! These are the quilting weight cottons. The “Juliana” colorway:

the “Eleni” colorway:

the “Isabela” colorway:

some gorgeous voiles:

and the laminates:

These images don’t really do the real thing justice. The beauty of this collection is in the balance of fine details within the huge scales. I’m always a sucker for stripes and geometric prints, which combined with the massive florals are such a celebration of joyful design. I see some late sewing nights ahead.

Well, it’s taken about a week to recover from Quilt Market.  During that recovery we chatter a lot about the trends we see at market.  There was the first market to showcase organic fabrics, the market we saw SO many owl prints, and this time we predicted lots of butterfly prints (which we did see).  But best of all we noticed that hand-stitching is really taking over!

Last market Lizzy House debuted embroidery patterns to coordinate with her Castle Peeps line. And now there’s the increasing success of embroidery artists Aneela Hoey of Comfort Stitching & Alissa Thomas of Penguin & Fish, who both showed new embroidery & fabric lines at market.

Penguin & Fish "Golden" hand embroidery pattern

Then there’s the debut of new artists at quilt market, like Sarah Jane (who we mentioned in previous posts). Her charming embroidery patterns are the perfect complement to her new fabric line Children at Play, really emphasizing the innocence and joy of childhood. (Watch for them here in a month or so!)

Sarah Jane "3 Little Birds" hand embroidery pattern

And of course there’s Anna Maria Horner’s new foray into needleworks, with a range of embroidery floss, Aida cloth, embroidery patterns, and cross-stitch inspired prints coming out this Fall.  I covert this dress we posted previously, that has a stunning cross-stitched belt and hand-quilted bodice.

Anna Maria Horner's french knots

Anna Maria Horner's hand embroidery

There is something so appealing about the texture of hand-stitching, and the time and care it takes adds to the lure and impressiveness of each piece.  I’m so excited to see a surge in the popularity of hand embroidery, and you can bet you’ll keep seeing more about it here. In the mean time, if you’ve got the urge to stitch something check out our Poppies Embroidery Project.

It is SO nice to have quilt market in our own backyard in Salt Lake City!  Being able to drive our own cars instead of rentals and eat at our favorite local restaurants and have the entire Suppose staff come is making this market one of the best yet.  Not to mention all of the amazing quilty things we’re finding. I’m telling you, the bar keeps getting higher and higher in this industry. Rather than tell you, I’ll just show you. Here’s just a bit of what we’ve been seeing…

Tula Pink reveals her new fabric line, Prince Charming, in some new quilt patterns.  Look closely at the quilting, it’s pretty amazing and really accentuates the quilt design.

This quilt shows off all the prints in the Prince Charming collection.

Lizzy House tells the stories behind the stories of her new fabric line, 1001 Peeps, which will be arriving at Suppose in a matter of days.

Anna Maria Horner is releasing a new fabric collection called Loulouthi, as well as a range of embroidery & cross-stitch patterns & threads. This pillow shows off a big-stitch quilted panel from the collection. We’re a bit ga-ga over Loulouthi!

Those are just a fraction of the highlights from Schoolhouse Series, which we attended Thursday. Stay tuned for more from the show floor!

I hope our little teaser didn’t make you think we actually reupholstered that chair ourselves because we certainly didn’t. We did scavenge it from the Deseret Industries ourselves. But all the real work was done by John Hart & his dad at in Logan, who we enthusiastically recommend, btw.  What a transformation!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

We had them change the oh-so-80s ruffle to a more modern box pleat. And boy are we so in love with this chair now! (I think the husbands in the shop like having a soft seat to hang out in as well.)  It took about 3 yards of Lovesme Lovesmenot in Leaf from Anna Maria Horner’s Innocent Crush home dec collection.  Free Spirit, who makes AMH’s fabrics, does such a good job with their home dec weight stuff. They use soft heavyweight sateen that would be pretty awesome for a sturdy bag but isn’t so heavy or rough that you couldn’t just put it in a quilt.  But we’re having visions of EVERYTHING recovered in fabric now that we’ve got a good upholsterer. Watch out!

scarf #1 barely finished

I made the first one with Lovesme Lovesmenot in Golden Velveteen on one side and Mixed Signals in Cornfield Voile on the other side, especially for my friend Ali on her birthday. Before wrapping it up I had to try it on and I almost couldn’t let it go.

Ali models hood style

I promptly made another just the same for myself.  But of course I needed another combination…  This one features Maybe in Memory Velveteen and Shattered in Sun Voile.

scarf #2 all for me

Then Erica conconted this combo with Woodcut in Crimson Velveteen & Designer Solids in Water Voile for another gift, which I’ll be needing to make for myself as well, of course.

We love them so much, and have had enough requests, that we’ve cut kits for these scarves.  Each one takes a length of 2 yards each of velveteen & voile, but doesn’t use the full width of fabric, so cut into kits this project much more affordable than having to buy the yardage.  We have made our scarves slightly more narrow than AMH’s, which cuts the cost a bit more, but still keeps the scarf plenty full.  These 3 combinations are available now, with more to come soon (and/or as requested).

The kits are cute enough that you wouldn’t even have to sew it up before giving it as a gift, give them the box and they can make it themselves!

Check out our scarf kit selections, and visit Anna Maria Horner’s blog to learn how to make the Figure 8 scarf. And if you make one, show us how you style it to make it your own! Take of photo modeling your scarf and add it to our Flickr pool!

I’m not joking. That’s how long it look me to make this skirt.  I just HAD to have something  ASAP out of the velveteens from Anna Maria Horner’s new collection, Innocent Crush.  They are just calling out to be made into Wintery party clothes, and at this rate there’s time to make several more.

And as it turns out, these 100% cotton velveteens are a dream to work with. They take a light steam iron very well–we had our doubts but the result was quite pleasing.   Since velveteen is a new texture for many quilters, and we’ve never had it in the shop before, you may have a few wonderments about it.  (Yes you can wash it… expect 5% shrinkage lengthwise…) Thankfully, Anna Maria spells out the basics of working with the velveteen on her blog–pretty  much everything I would have mentioned here so definitely check it out.

If you want to try your hand at this very simple project, visit the 1 hour velveteen skirt project page.