Inspiring Apple Pie!

What's your design inspiration? My muse is often one of my favorite things...yummy, delicious foods! So when Spoonflower, the lovely print-on-demand fabric company, posted the weekly competition was about PIES I knew I was up for entering!

Just last fall I discovered a wonderful recipe on Kathy Patalsky's "Healthy. Happy. Life." blog (http://kblog.lunchboxbunch.com). It's her Vegan Caramel Apple Pie and it is delicious! I've made it several times, including her recipe for crust (which melts in your mouth!) My favorite way to make the apple pie is with about half the apples WITH peel on (getting those good nutrients) and about half peeled. The pie pictured here used some tart green apples and I hadn't made my caramel sauce yet. Check out Kathy's recipe here
http://kblog.lunchboxbunch.com/2011/01/vegan-caramel-apple-pie-recipe.html
and dig in to warm, sweet, cinnamon and ginger-infused soft apples in a flakey, buttery crust.

So when it came to creating a design for pies...well, I knew apple was my pie of choice and I get a big sense of satisfaction from making this pie from scratch. From rolling out the crust to peeling the apples, this process is a good activity to share with my kids and when it's done, it's just that much sweeter to eat!

Spoonflower fabrics: http://www.spoonflower.com/designs/2472564

and http://www.spoonflower.com/designs/2472515

Drink Your Juice! Spoonflower Citrus Contest

Happy 4th of July!! I got to sleep in today due to the holiday (yes!!!) and awoke to an excited email from my Mom about the Spoonflower weekly competition. Yay! I won first place and am so thrilled! Thank you, thank you to everyone who voted!! There were many entries of fantastic designs (around 480 entries I believe) and I feel very grateful and honored to be selected to be in the top ten and as the pick with the most votes. I'm blushing brighter than a ruby-red grapefruit...

http://www.spoonflower.com/contests/199

Summer Pears bag and wallet

Just in time for summer, wonderful Crazylady (a.k.a. my mother Ruth, and the nickname is one of love and fun, not a statement of her mental condition- which happens to be great!) sewed up these projects with my modern pear fabrics! Thank you Mom! I love that on the shoulder bag she made the pear the pocket design and used it for the lining as well. I think this is the perfect size to carry my money and phone when we go to the farmer's market. Both of these look light and summery and are great when I don't want to be lugging around heavy bags and wallets- generally lightening up for warm weather.

Both of these projects are from the book Free-Style Handmade.
The wallet is their Zigzag Pocket Wallet and the purse is loosely based on the Pocket-Sized Shoulder Bag. The book has lots of cute bags, skirts and projects that are easy to understand and modify to your specifics.
Have fun!

Refreshing Modern Pears

My juicy modern pears and seedling coordinates are in at Hancock Fabrics. I loved working in a summery light palette just like a cool, crisp pear, ready to bite into on a hot summer day.

http://www.hancockfabrics.com/index.htm

3171444 Allover Pears
3171477 Thread Stitches on Yellow
3171469 Blue and Green Dots
3171451 Yellow Flowers

Modern Garden at Hancock Fabrics

Exclusively at Hancock Fabrics... My Modern Garden fabrics in butterfly, dragonfly and flower motifs. The fabrics are in jewel tones on purple, fuscia, green, orange, etc. I can't wait to make up some placematts to go with my Modern Garden plates!

If you are interested in ordering fabrics from this line, go to www.hancockfabrics.com and search items numbered:

3079746

3079795

3079761

3079787

3079753

3079779

Happy gardening!

Deco Park Trees

I saw this image on the Robert Kaufman Fabric website. I love how they put the Deco Park patterns into the tree shapes! How cute! I think this is a great idea for handmade cards or wall art. I think I'll try one myself...

And Robert Kaufman also has bundled Deco Park into fat quarters and roll-ups for fun with a whole color family.

Right-brained quiltmaking

I have a variety of projects in various stages of progress. I'm a great starter but a bit more challenged in the completion part of the process. Ah, but part of creativity is the DOING, the joy of the activity. And with quilting I love the piecing. Being a right-brained, intuitive kind of designer, I like to randomly cut and put together and cut some more, replace, lay it out and see how it feels. I don't follow a pattern because my life has enough logical rules and instructions. For me, this is a time to be free and play with color and blocks and pattern. This grouping of blocks (and I don't know if there is a name for such a rectangular pattern/random piecing as this) I started in the hopes of making a quilt for our king sized bed. I'm scaling down my vision a bit because I would like to get to the sewing part someday. So a bit smaller but probably big enough to wrap up in while watching tv. I usually spread my pieces out on the floor to get some perspective and see how I am balancing the composition overall. Of course the downside to this method...my dogs. I believe Roxy thinks I'm making this for her.

Colorways

So here are snippets from two of the other colorways of my Deco Park fabrics for Robert Kaufman. It's impossible for me to pick a favorite color group because, just like children, they are each unique and beautiful in their own ways. I think I will first work up some projects with the Autumn-toned group. There is something warm and calming about them. Perhaps it is because I love Fall and its crisp woody smell. I am imagining a table runner since I have some great green and black dishes and a lovely Walnut dining room table. I can picture candles softly picking up the glint of the gold. Today I'm off to look at some patterns and imagine what could be...

Gloriously Happy.

Gloriously happy is how I feel when I get new product samples of my designs. I take the samples out of the box and rub my fingers over the smooth new surface, smell the fresh printing ink and lovingly  inspect the items. It is such an exhilarating feeling to have your work out there in the world. Sometimes I'm so thrilled that I do a little happy dance. I'm glad no one is here at the time to see it other than the dogs because I'm not the most coordinated, but the dogs get excited, jump and bark and think they are getting a treat. So when I opened up my box from Robert Kaufman Fabrics I expected to be happy, but was surprised at how truly emotional it felt. My fabrics, 7 designs in 3 different colorways, took my breath away. They did a beautiful job taking my designs and crafting them into colorful repeats, glinting with gold metallic ink and saturated with color. The quality is excellent and I am so proud to have my name on them. My line is Deco Park and it will be shipping in July. Thank you Robert Kaufman Fabrics!