Happy New Year from Fancy Tiger!

We really appreciate all of your support during our past 2 1/2 years in business. We have some awesome and exciting plans for 2009 to keep you crafting and inspired! Look forward to more Fancy Tiger-made and Fancy Tiger-exclusive products, kits, and patterns in 2009. The first product we'd like to introduce is our new all-natural wool wash! This locally made wool wash comes in two scents - the Fancy blend and Tiger blend and is great for blocking or washing your handknit items. We look forward to surprising you with more great crafting products and hope that you all have an abundant and creative 2009!

Holiday Peacock Ornament Fun!

Here is a little holiday gift for all of our blog followers--a cute handsewn peacock ornament pattern! Jaime made this ornament for our Fancy Tiger holiday tree and it is super cute. You can download the pattern to make your own Peacock ornament right here. Enjoy!

Happy holidays - thanks for all your support!

New Echino Fabrics by Etsuko Furuya!

We have tons of new Japanese fabrics in by our favorite fabric designer - Etsuko Furuya. The colors, imagery, and scale all come together to form pure awesomeness that we can hardly keep from eating. Come and get it.
Also in - new Amy Butler fabrics (Midwest Modern II) and more Japanese fabric by Kokka featuring tiny bikes floating in clouds (eek!!) and dutch horses!

Holiday Gift Guide part 3 - Gifts For Folks Who Knit

Today, some holiday gift ideas for the knitter on your list.

Always a great gift for any knitter is super special yarn. Some of our favorites right now are: (clockwise in the photo from top left)

• Zealana Possum Yarn--New Zealand possum naturally hand dyed in Colorado!
• Twinkle Soft Chunky--100% merino super duper bulky lusciousness
• Malabrigo--super soft kettle dyed yarn
• Pinon Woods Handspun--beaded "single origin" alpaca yarn from Norwood, Colorado, each skein of which includes a picture of the little alpaca it came from (Elana is shown here)
• Ohsuzanna's Handspun Mohair--so soft and fluffy with cute curls of mohair locks spun in

We've got lots of great kits for the all in one, easy-peasy kind of gift giving. For the knitter who wants to dabble in dyeing--the hand dyeing kit includes three skeins of yarn, dyes, woolwash, and instructions for dyeing and knitting your own one-of-a-kind scarf. The sock knitting kit is a great gift to for those ready to take on socks. It includes sock yarn--enough for one pair of socks--a set of needles and six different style of sock instructions for to choose from.

Some fun knitting accessories which make great little gifts or stocking stuffers--how about locally made fancy stitch markers with cute sheep on them, a pom-pom maker for fun embellishment of handknits or a festive peppermint twist measuring tape.

Holiday Gift Guide part 2 - Gifts For Folks Who Sew

We've got lots of great holiday gift ideas for the sewing addict in your life.

Just in--the newest Amy Butler, Heather Bailey and Portabellopixie sewing patterns! We've got great new patterns for aprons, handbags, pincushions, cute baby toys and more.



Does your favorite stitcher have a pair of Gingher fabric shears or thread snippers yet? These are the crème de la crème of sewing scissors--an essential for every sewing studio! Also for the sewing room, some really cute accessories, are our cupcake pincushions and cake tape measures.

As always, we have great fabrics to choose from--a yard or two makes a great gift--and we have cute fat quarter bundles that are great for small projects or quilters.

Holiday Gift Guide part 1 - Books!

This is part one of our Holiday Gift Guides featuring awesome books for crafty types.

For General Crafters: Switch Craft - an awesome new book all about incorporating electronics into your crafts. Handmade Nation - all about crafty people who are heading the craft revolution in America, a gorgeous and inspiring book. Stitched in Time - various projects for machine and hand sewing that are all adorable and old-timey.

For the Seamster: French General Home Sewn - sewing projects for the home, inspired by Provencal French living! Zakka Sewing - a cute Japanese sewing book translated into English! Seams to Me - by fabric designer Anna Maria Horner this book features awesome patterns from skirts to bags to sewing organizers!For the Knitter: Picture Perfect Knits - super sweet designs and instructions for intarsia knitting. Knitting America - a coffee table book that celebrates the history of knitting. Continuous Cables - the new book from the authors of Cables Untangled featuring all new patterns!

For the Felter or Spinner: A Fine Fleece: lots of patterns to knit with your handspun yarn. Beautiful Sheep - stunning photographs of tons of different breeds of sheep (cute!!) Wool Pets - our favorite book for felting!

Needle Felt Taxidermy Art!!

We are super excited about the art show going on right now at our neighbors Sputnik. 58 artists and crafters each designed a diorama. Fancy Tiger did 2 and of course we had to showcase needlefelting. They are available in a silent auction with all proceeds benefiting Share our Strength. The opening party is tonight starting at 8pm and the auction will be going on through the month! Be sure to stop by and check it out!

Do you like Angora Goats? We do!

We think these cuties are the cutest things we've ever seen. They produce some of the softest, most lustrous and silky fiber around. We just received a shipment of 100% kid mohair yarn from Wagtail Yarns, a small farm in Queensland, Australia. They raise, shear, spin and dye all their mohair - from little curly guys like this. Do you know why they call their farm "Wagtail"? Have you ever seen an angora goat that is happy to see you? They wag their tail like a happy puppy. Omg, we want to live on their farm!



You might want to come by and see this stuff in person. It's irresistible! We also have some fantastic one skein patterns for it.

Holiday Gift Series

Of course, we're all about handmade gifts here at Fancy Tiger. We know that can be a lot, especially if you have a large family or a lot of friends to account for. That's why we've created the Holiday Gift Series - this series has you complete a handmade gift in an hour, for minimal cost. This year choose from Herbal Sugar Scrubs, Melt and Pour Soap, Patchwork Scarves from felted sweaters, Needle Felt Jellyfish Ornaments and Scrap Fabric Pin Cushions. Each class is $20 and includes all materials! Check the schedule here.

Malabrigo Sock and Lace Yarn Now at Fancy Tiger

We are so excited--excited enough for triple exclamation marks!!! We just received our Malabrigo order and now carry Malabrigo Lace and Sock yarns. Check out the loveliness. If the world were made of Malabrigo what a soft, soft world it would be!


The colors are amazing, as always. Also in--tons of Malabrigo's worsted and chunky. Perfect for Holiday scarf gift knitting!

Holiday Ornament Needle Felting kits!

We have a new series of needle felting kits for the holidays! Ornaments! Needle felted friends make great ornaments that you can finish quickly - the perfect handmade holiday gift! All 10 holiday ornament kits are available to purchase at Fancy Tiger, or if you live out of state, get them online here.

Halloween Jack-o-Lanterns

Happy Halloween!
Our BYOP (bring your own pumpkin) craft night was lots of fun with many a jack-o-lantern being carved. We ate pumpkin bread and cookies and saved our pumpkin seeds for roasting. Nikki wins for the cutest little pumpkin. Check out her her mini lumina pumpkin sitting atop the momma pumpkin! Teeny!




Yum!

Quilt Market Report (Part III): Prairie Goth and Jane Sassaman

Jane Sassaman is the designer behind my newest obsession - the Prairie Gothic fabric collection. I want to cultivate a new style for myself that is Prairie Gothic, inspired by her collection. It is my new favorite thing. When i see clothes and accessories now, i have to ask myself, "is that Prairie Goth?" We love her design and look at how awesome she is. What an inspiration!


Check out this tie made out of the Prairie Goth fabric. HOTT!

Quilt Market Report (Part II): Is the quilt world ready for Jay McCarroll?

You may know Jay McCarroll - he is the winner of the first season of Project Runway and has been taking the fashion world (and Bravo TV) by storm ever since. He debuted his new collection of quilting cottons for Westminster fibers at the Quilt Market. We are totally excited about his fabrics (which will be here in March), but I'm not sure the quilt world is ready for him. Our Westminster rep referred to him as "er, Jay Smith?" when showing us the line, and when Jay won an award for best new booth, he was announced as "Jay Caroline". Hopefully everyone will learn his name because his fabrics are super adorable. Jay was super friendly and we can't wait to get his fabrics in!




This is a picture of Jay's inspiration for his collection, which is titled "Woodland Wonders". We love it. One bunny lost his ear in transport. Sad bunny.

Quilt Market Report!

Amber and Jaime just got back from the Houston International Quilt Market, where we got to preview and order new fabric collections, sewing patterns and more! We were able to meet lots of the designers which was super exciting. There was so much awesome-ness we are posting it in parts. Here are some of our highlights:

Amy Butler was there, she has two new sewing patterns - an apron and a halter top - coming out soon as well as a new fabric collection coming out in December. She was super-friendly and tall! Doesn't she look like a glowing angel taking us to a heaven filled with Amy Butler everything?


Anna Maria Horner has so many great new things going on! We are so excited about her sewing patterns - an adorable paneled skirt, a lovely dress and two super cute bags - which should all be here in late November. She also has an awesome new book out which we will be getting in any day. We can't wait to start sewing all the cute projects. Most exciting is her new fabric collection, Good Folks, that will be out in the spring. For a sneak peek, check out the swatches framed up behind us in the photo of us above. Whats better than a new Anna Maria Horner fabric collection? Anna Maria Horner oilcloth! That's right. Stay tuned.



Jaime's favorite booth at Quilt market was Seven Islands, who distribute most of our Japanese fabrics. We don't have any pictures because while we were there we couldn't think about anything except the super cute fabrics, but check out the amazing Echino fabrics that are coming out soon. Check out the zebras and deers walking though a field of awesome-ness and the tigers and owls relaxing on giant flowers. We also ordered two Echino bag sewing patterns that are super cute. We can't wait to get our Japanese fabric with cats and pretzels, dutch horses, and friendly pandas and kits to make cookies out of felt. Seriously, we spent about 3 hours in this booth. We could have moved in and worn their little slippers made from fabric featuring pigs with spider webs on their butts and their tunics with birds and dew drops. What else could you want?

Halloween Crafting Time!

We have some spooky options for Halloween-inspired crafting. You can knit a creepy spider or praying mantis with our new patterns by Hansigurumi. Or if perhaps you'd like to stitch a zombie onto your nephew's onesie, or a tombstone on the pocket of your button-up western, Sublime Stitching embroidery patterns have got you covered. Our crow and pumpkin needlefelting kits would make awesome Halloween ornaments. Also in stock - glow in the dark embroidery floss!!

Camp Pluckyfluff 2008!

Last weekend we held Camp Pluckyfluff here at Fancy Tiger. Lexi Boeger came in from California to teach 10 lucky ladies techniques for spinning gorgeous art yarns. It was amazing! Here are a few of the adorable yarns we made. If you're interested in seeing all of the yarns, you should check out our flickr set here. Enjoy!





Are you inspired to spin? Check out our drop spindle class and stop by the store to see our new and improved spinning and fiber section in the loft!