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.

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.

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!

Everyone’s been all a buzz about Texture Magic, the stuff that shrinks your fabric to give it a gathered, puckered texture.  I experimented with it recently and every time I give it that first burst of steam and it starts to shrink it’s a bit of a thrill, especially if someone who hasn’t seen it before is there to shout in surprise when they watch it.

Out of the package, the Texture Magic feels like a synthetic satiny lining type material, but after the heat of the steam has shrunk it, it takes on a more plasticy feel, so you’d probably want a lining in whatever you’re making with your Texture  Magic.  Next we want to try putting batting between the layers to see how that feels.  On this piece I sewed the TM to the back of my fabric in a grid pattern, 3/4″ apart.

Based on the chart that comes with the TM, I calculated how big to cut my rectangle to get the finished size I wanted, but it didn’t shrink quite as much as it could have.  I sewed a second piece just like it but increased the stitch length to see what would happen and that one shrunk a little better.  I used those first textured pieces to make a handy little pouch (with fabrics from the Hushabye collection).  Haven’t decided yet whether it’s for lip glosses or pens.  This was just a quick little project to see what the TM looked like in something instead of just on a piece of fabric, but people are doing some really interesting things out there like using it as a substitute for smocking on the bodice of little girls’ dresses, or for visual and tactile interest in applique.

Here you can see a visual of the shrink rate. The piece on the right started out the same size as the piece on the left.  I sewed the Texture Magic to it with wavy lines that curve around the circles on the fabric.

You can create great effects depending on how you sew the Texture Magic and fabric together, for example straight lines can make it look similar to simple gathers.  Everyone around here thinks this one with stippling looks like brains. I’d like to try sewing it to a Kaffe Fassett print by following the design on the fabric and see how that looks.  Some have even tried quilting it into their entire quilt!  Surely there will be more Texture Magic experiments to follow.  Some of us started as skeptics but things are getting curiouser and curiouser.