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’re continuing our look at our new fabric collections today with Tula Pink’s Prince Charming. I highly recommend reading her interview over at Fat Quarterly where she talks a lot about this line and her design process.  What I love about her aesthetic is that even though there are often animals hiding in the fabric, her fabrics are not what you would call novelty or juvenile. She calls it “an elegant interpretation of a child like spirit” which is spot on. As always, there are unexpected things hidden in the designs in Prince Charming, and you can take that as a challenge: to find all those “Easter eggs.” I particularly like the fly in the frog prince’s stomach.  This line should also please fans of Neptune, one of Tula’s previous lines.  She has revisited some of the colors and themes of that line which is why those tonal toile and honeycomb prints may look familiar. The colors are similar, but more “electric” as Tula says. In fact, she considers aqua a neutral. How brilliant! And true. You can build nearly any color scheme or project around aqua.  Prince Charming includes quilting weight cotton as well as voile, in several colorways that can be mixed & matched.

Tula Pink truly is one of the most visionary designers in the fabric world today. Always original, and with such attention to tiny details, and always knowing what a quilter needs. Thank you, Tula.

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.

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.

There is so much to see at market it can be a bit overwhelming. With all the appointments and to-do’s there’s not a whole lot of time for leisurely checking things out, but we try.  How could you not stop when you see all these pretty trims sorted by color?

Of course we make time to visit the booths of our favorite designers and stroke all the pretty things like the little dresses in Little Folks at Anna Maria Horner’s booth.  The entire fabric collection will be arriving at Suppose in December and we’re nearly peeing our pants with anticipation.

Heather Bailey’s booth was homey and oh so happy.

This adorable dress she made shows fabric from her new line, Nicey Jane.   I couldn’t help but harass her to start making clothing patterns.  (It’s pretty hard to find cool, well-fitting adult clothing patterns for quilt shops. In the mean time, at least there’s Built by Wendy’s patterns.)  The Nicey Jane fabric will start arriving in the shop within weeks!

Whenever I was near the Moda booth and caught a glimpse of this homemade mannequin, I got a little freaked out.  The photo would have been better but I didn’t want to get any closer.  I can only imagine what my mannequin-phobic cousin would have done had she been there.

At least there was the Moda home booth to distract us with it’s giganto learn to sew cards.  Watch out for that sword-sized needle, Mom.

More to come about market including a certain quilt I’m now obsessed with.

Whether or not we have recovered from market yet is questionable, but we are ready to show you the awesomeness.

I love these patchwork looking installations in the park across from the convention center.  Quilt Market had it’s 35th anniversary this year, and is in Houston each fall along with International Quilt Festival, so we like to think they are in honor of quilting, but I have no actual knowledge of artist Margo Sawyer’s inspiration for creating them.

The day before the exhibition floor opens is Schoolhouse Series where we shuffle around crowded halls from mini-class to mini-presentation like 7th graders. Except with way cooler teachers.

Anna Maria Horner debuted her new fabric collection, Little Folks, which is printed on luscious voile and will make the softest quilts and cutest blouses and dresses. It will come in flannel too, which will make for the most sophisticated baby quilts ever. We still can’t stop freaking out about Little Folks.

Heather Bailey also debuted her new fabric line called Nicey Jane, after her husband’s grandma. It’s gorgeous stuff. You can see one print used in her Daily Spice apron here and we’ve some shots from her booth for later.  I also learned that Heather is a fellow BYU graduate. Go cougars!

One of our most anticipated schoolhouses is always from the Kaffe Fassett Collective. Westminster is putting out prints from the Liberty Art Fabric archives done in new colorways by Kaffe. Last market we heard rumors that Liberty of London would be putting out quilting weight cottons and now we know the details. There couldn’t be a better collaboration than Liberty and Kaffe. Here Kaffe shows a quilt made with his Liberty prints.

We got to see some glorious Kaffe quilts from Australian designer and applique queen Kim McLean.

And Brandon Mabley demonstrated what, as he said, he looks like in bed. Kaffe explained that for this quilt he chose fabrics that had circular motifs in them and kept the circle theme going with snowball blocks.

We left schoolhouse pretty anxious to get to the Westminster booth to do a bunch of ordering of all our fave designers. Stay tuned for more photos from market and details on when we’ll be getting in all these pretties.  If you want to cheat you can see all of our market photos on Flickr.

Here in Preston we have started a new sewing & quilting guild called Suppose Creative Guild. But like a dummy, I haven’t taken any photos at our meetings so far.  Last week we made the patchwork pincushions I blogged about here, and this week we will meet and start making memberships official.  We have a killer presidency to lead us, which I’m really excited about.  Lauree, our president, made this dress and purse for her little girl out of fabric from Erin McMorris’ Park Slope line.  The birds are especially perfect because her name is Wren. Can you even stand how adorable that is?

So if you live in the Preston area and are interested in getting together with other sewists and quilters, learning new things, and just having fun, consider coming to the guild.  Here is some helpful information about Suppose Creative Guild:

• We will hold a business meeting on the first Thursday of each month at 7pm in the Suppose classroom.  We won’t be sewing at this meeting, but will have show & tell, refreshments, and take care of other business.
• Optional classes will be offered during the other weeks on topics nominated by members.  These classes can be taught by our members or outside teachers, and may range in cost from free to a nominal fee.
• We will have opportunities to take field trips together for exhibits, shop hops, etc.; participate in humanitarian service, and any other grand schemes we come up with.
• All levels of sewing experience are welcome.
• Yearly dues are $20, which will cover costs of meeting space and give us a budget for teachers, events, etc.
• You may attend one meeting for free before choosing to join and pay dues.
• Email with questions or to be put on the guild email list.

So, this Thursday May 7 at 7:00 pm we will hold the monthly business meeting for May in the Suppose classroom.  Our presidency will be introducing themselves and Lauree is bringing refreshments (she is an excellent cook). Afterwards, those who are interested are invited to the Thomas home to watch the season premiere of the new fashion design competition show on Bravo, the Project Runway knock-off  The Fashion Show.  We’ll give directions at the meeting. See you there!

One of our local Preston creatives, Abby Chase Designs, had contrived an handy travel toothcare kit out of our Anna Maria Horner oilcloth, which you can check out on her blog.  We have been drawn to this extra-wide laminated fabric and thought of using it to make lunch bags, makeup bags, tablecloths, and coaster, and there’s another great idea!  Has anyone seen or come up with some other good uses for oilcloth?

As requested, here is a look at some more of the things we’ve been working on.

I made this easy tote bag with the pattern Jay McCarroll gave out at last Fall’s Quilt Market for his debut fabric line.  You can find the pattern here on the Free Spirit blog.  I used giant button holes instead of giant grommets, and I added a birdie applique with button eyes.  I will have to write about my experience meeting Jay another day. But really, I am obsessed with his fabric.

I’ve also been sewing lots of pincushions lately.  I love that I can whip one up in less than an hour and have the satisfaction of finishing a project.   These are just a few we’ve been using in the shop.  (Links to the patterns to come.)

At least someone’s finishing quilts around here.  Our associate Jennifer made Paisley Party, from the free pattern Red Rooster provided for the Paisley Party line of fabric.

And another staff member Deonna made this little quilt, the pattern for which has left my memory for the moment.  These two are the only quilts hanging in the shop right now, as we are getting ready to hang our permanent quilt hanging system.  And oh are we anxious for that.  We have so many pretty things we want to show off!

So much more to come, very soon.