Month: February 2011

Time just flies for me!  But anyway…Last week I traveled to Dallas to visit the Moda complex, to meet the “girls” and design the next line (which would be number 3!).  First of all let me say I spent time with…Cheryl, Lissa, Debbie, and Kathy and what a great bunch of girls they have…I can’t say enough good things about them…Cheryl, head of design and designers…gave me a quick tour and set me up to work…she was adamant about me getting a flannel line done while I was down there and get it ordered asap.  We wanted to do a line of flannels that looked like wools….this is going to work well for pieced flannel quilts as well as our beautiful wool appliques on these flannels…I had lots of work to do to decide on the colors, the patterns, the names of the colors & patterns and then the name of the line… then having to choose color combinations– what colors or print  to put on what patterns and I was to leave the next day.   This seems like a lot of work at first but it was actually pretty easy…I don’t have a hard time at making decisions…I pretty much know what I love and I believe this flannel line is going to be so awesome!…The flannel line will be called Wool & Needle flannels.  Here is a peek at the colors.  It was a tight schedule and I was treated very well, taken to some great Texas restaurants and to some of the shops.  I visited…The Silver Star and the Old Craft Store Quilt shop..The owner of The Silver Star, Susan was wonderful and her shop was very eclectic and she had WOOL!   She was very creative and I purchased a wool pincushion and a wood flag.  The quilt shop was awesome too, it had room after room of fabrics and the girls were hanging out for the day hooking and punching!  I wanted to stay…but I had some more shopping to do in the Moda warehouse…It was like one of those game shows where you had to run down the isles with so much time to shop…I had a plane to catch in 3 hours so I had about an hour to shop!…I was actually sweating when I was finished…found a bunch of new things to carry in our store…I hope it comes in soon!  Got to the airport in plenty of time to find out my flight had been cancelled due to fog in Milwaukee….so I had to stay another night which meant I had to get up at 3:30am to take the shuttle and be there in time for a 6am flight…The good this about this was I met a gal at the airport while we were all crabbin about the cancelled flight…we called a hotel…which was the most beautiful Motel 6  I have ever seen, it was revamped Y2Kish, very sleek and modern…for $45 a night with tax.  So Wendy and I hiked to the corner gas station, got some mini bottles of wine and some munchies and watched American Idol.  Wendy was in Dallas interviewing for a new job.  She called me last night and told me she got it…we both knew she would…but I wanted to know the end of the story and wanted to know for sure……lots of fun and adventure…LB

Good Morning Everyone…I hope some of you are checking out my blog for the first time and hope you come back again!…Since I am the “newest” Moda designer, I have the least to work with…I currently only have 5 sku’s! The primitive muslins in all the same colors, shades of tan…So whats a girl to do with this limited pallet?  Stay in it of course!   Lissa asked us to design a pillow that describes ourselves…Well I guess that would mean I would be using WOOL!   Here is my simple pillow…so simple it needs no pattern!  How green is that?

The pillow background is the darkest shade in the primitive muslin line cut 12″ x 16″.  Cut a 3″ square of the following: 1 of the lightest and two each of the next two shades.  Then from various cream/tan wools I traced on fusible web and cut 5 wool circles of 2 1/4″,  5 wool circles-1 1/2″ and then 5 wool circles-1″.  Place the 5 squares in a row at the center of your pillow background.  Stitch in a 1/4″ around the five squares.  Place the circles onto each of the 5 squares and iron with steam.  Blanket stitch with Valdani O196 #12 perle cotton around each penny, stitching to the next penny using long stitches.  Make a back and stitch right sides together leaving a 4″ opening.  Turn right side out and stuff…stitch opening closed.

Now for all those questions….

What is a little know fact about yourself?…I always try to do everything to the best of my ability…no half-a**ing from me.  This also means I expect this from everyone around me also…I have surrounded myself with great people and great things have happened to me…I am very blessed.

How do you relax?…I many ways now…I love spending time on our boat, but that is obviously seasonal…I get messages now and then… and I exercise and get mani-pedi’s when I can… A girl’s got to take care of herself!

What do you sleep in? I sleep in pajama pants and a matching pajama shirt…I love Nick & Nora…from Target!

What kind of pillow do you like?  I like a firm feather pillow that I can hug…

Did I sleep with a stuffed animal?  I don’t know…but I do remember that one Christmas I got a doll and all my brothers got cool trucks and sports stuff…I was so mad I threw the doll down the basement stairs…yes…you guessed it…I was a major TomBoy!

Do you sew in bed, Read watch TV eat?  No I do not sew in bed…i am very good at losing needles and that would not be a great place for me to sew…surely they would end up “stuck in” Nick somewhere…I do read, when there is not too much going on…if I have a lot on my place I don’t trust myself reading…I would stay up all night because I need to know what happened…so that can me dangerous for me…If it were up to me I would not watch any TV in bed….but Nick loves to…I never eat in bed…

How many night have you or your spouse spent on the couch…None…I love my bed…

Nighttime toddy?  Nope…but only when we are away doing shows…helps me fall asleep in the hotel bed…

Early to bed or all nighter?  I love to go to bed…so i am ready about 9:30-10:00 then I am usually up by 5am…

Who would I most like to have a pillow fight with? Brad Pitt with his little loin cloth on from TROY!  Yeah…now were talking…

Now tomorrow you need to visit Edyta from Laundry Basket Quilts…I just love going to market and talking with her…the girl knows her stuff…visit her at:   http://www.laundrybasketquilts.com/blog/index.php

I have been trying for hours to figure out how to put this image on my side bar where the ugly box is under Moda designer blog hop…can anyone tell me how to do it?

I can place it here..

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Well our first “wool” weekend at “The Gathering is in the books…I know I had a great time…all my new girlfriends I think had ball too!  All of them were from Illinois, Minnesota and Delaware.  By the time they left they were well fed and their wallets were a little less full…I think most of them went to the shop everyday it was open, they had a $50 gift card in their pocket and they were itchin to spend it!  I can certainly understand it when they tell me there is no shop like ours where they live….good for me,  not as nice for them..but that is why we have the internet!  Buy the time they left we had 15 rebookings for the same time next year…can’t wait to see them, a great group of girls.

On Sunday after the wool weekend…I went to see what my husband was up to all weekend…He was Sturgeon Fishing on Lake Winnebago for the first time…He and our neighbor Scott have been on the ice every morning at 6am…here is their new Ice House…Nikki (Scott’s wife) and I drove out to visit the boys…then went to the bar to see what fish got registered…there wasn’t many and here are two that I seen…

I think my quilting weekends are a much better way to go… I am in Dallas visiting MODA  it is very excititing and I will “fill” you in…No more fish stories, I promise.I miss my CA boys…(that would be the puppies)

LB

No, not here yet, but Jules has a new wool applique quilt using big easy squares that is called Signs of Spring Tulip Quilt…this quilt makes you wish it was Spring right NOW!…It has been below zero here in WI for awhile with double digit wind chills…but it is supposed to make it into the 30’s today!  So I thought I would share Julie’s new quilt with you from Primitive Gatherings It is 57×65 shown but could easily be made any bed size with it’s big squares showing off it’s beautiful fabrics….The pattern will be $8 and don’t you think Moda Layer Cakes would sure be pretty to use in making this quilt…it will be on our site soon…Enjoy!

Last Saturday I attended the first class of Bag-ology!…Nancy taught the class and I can’t tell you how fun and how much I learned…I have really never sewed clothes so this was all good to know….every bag was finished except for a few buttons and bottom inserts.  I can’t wait to make the next months…the best part of this class is if you buy a kit from the shop the 6 hour class is free!…So come join us if you can…space is limited and we had it at The Gathering!

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It’s a full page ad!!!!    Click this link a customer sent me to read the ad…….Lisa on the back cover It was written by Nancy  Dey  my friend who works for me and who also took the picture.   This is so cool!  They never told me about it…everyone starting coming up to me and saying I seen your ad???

I am currently working on the next set of fabrics…they are a bunch of what I would call backgrounds with little prints…some with black and some with tone-on-tones…

I have a lot going on and will fill you in soon! LB