New Melody Miller and Echino Ni-co

Hot new fabrics are here from Etsuko Furaya and Melody Miller!

Etsuko's newest Echino Ni-co line features big, adorable polka-dots and transportation of all kinds, from buses to planes to bicycles. No one makes buses as cool as Etsuko!

Retro awesomeness + sparkle = Melody Miller's Ruby Star Sparkle fabrics! Roller skates, rotary phones, kitschy pyrex and old-school 110 cameras--add a touch of metallic and you get these magical prints! We have the full collection so you can make all of your glittery dreams come true.

Those hot pink roller skates want to be my newest Market Tote! What will you make?

New Fabric Collections from Japan are Here!

Echino + Nani Iro + Melody Miller + Heather Ross = Yay!

We finally unpacked it all and can't take the magic of our newest fabrics! 

Melody Miller's Ruby Star sheeting is here! These stunning prints on lightweight linen/cotton are large scale and make super fantastic bags and skirts and curtains and more. Below, see each of the fabrics with the whole print from selvedge to selvedge. They are 62" wide!

We've been anticipating and planning for the new Echino line since we got a peak at quilt market. We've got a major crush on Etsuko Furuya. Those animals in fancy frames? They're destined to be sewn up into hot bags and skirts.

Naomi Ito's newest Nani Iro fabrics are pretty dang dreamy. Printed on a soft double gauze, they'll be great for dresses and blouses.

Heather Ross's newest line, Nursery Versery, has cute storybook characters for little ones, with adorable illustrations of the itsy-bitsy spider, little piggies and mice.

Plus, we have even more super-cute Japanese prints for all your adorable to the max projects!

Happy sewing!

Jaime's Echino Beignet

You probably know that I am obessed with Echino fabrics. Each time a new collection arrives I always plan out a million projects. This time I decided I had to have a bright mustard skirt and this parrot circle print was the perfect candidate.

I have never made a Colette skirt so I was excited to give the Beignet a try. The Beignet skirt is a high-waisted, straight skirt made with lots of panels for a perfect fit.

I took my time with the one and worked on it over the course of a couple of Featherweight Fridays, which is a nice break from my usual frenzied sewing pace. The skirt turned out great. It is fully lined and has pockets. I finished it with some bright coral buttons and I love their unique oval shape.

I was able to debut this skirt at the midsummer farm party for our CSA farm, Pastures of Plenty. So beautiful and summery!

A New Year and New Echino!

As you may know, we just moved into our brand new store and that means we have a ton of new fabric and yarn. There are so many new collections out, you should probably stop by asap! We are most excited about the new Echino collection of which we have every bolt available! Etsuko Furuya, the woman behind the Echino design is my favorite fabric designer and this collection does not disappoint.

The colors are the same bright colors we have all come to know and love with lots of fuchsia, yellow, black and aqua all on the 55% linen/45% cotton blend that is great and sturdy for bags, skirts, and even quilts! There are border prints of flower fields, a cheater cloth patchwork print, and cockatiel dots. Etsuko has added some new animals to her repertoire and this time we get to see zebras, okapi, and leopards.

Rejoice! Stay tuned to see and hear more about our brand new store!

Epic Quilt Market Report: Spring 2011

Amber and I just got back from Salt Lake City, Utah for the 2011 Spring Quilt Market! Salt Lake City was beautiful. We enjoyed excellent weather and were treated to great food and friendly faces everywhere we went. Here's our report on all the amazing upcoming new fabrics!

We were super excited to see Lizzy House again. Lizzy calls SLC home, so she had lots of great recommendations of where to go and took us to some great spots. Lizzy's booth was beautiful with her brand new 1,001 Peeps collection made up into gorgeous quilts! The patterns for these quilts will be in her new book coming out this summer and the 1,001 Peeps fabrics should be here any day. We also got a sneak peak at her Outfoxed line coming out this fall.

Lizzy House and her new quilts featuring 1,001 Peeps

The organic fabric company Birch Fabrics has some great new collections coming out. The Avalon collection will be here soon and we love that it features bikes - we can't get enough bike fabric. Later this summer, look forward to their sweet, Scandinavian, Storyboek collection with beautiful soft colors.

Avalon on left, Storyboek on right

Moda fabrics always a great booth and this year was no exception. We were really excited about using their photo booth which we took advantage of several times. We also got to spin a wheel and won a sweet wet/dry vac. Thanks Moda!

The Moda photo booth was soo fun!

Here we are winning a prize with our wonderful rep, Melody!

We loved the Northcote Range collection by Cabbages and Roses which features super pale roses on pale background - lovely! 

Northcote Range by Cabbages and Roses

We also can't wait to get the new Aneela Hoey collection Little Apples this fall. It will be perfect for back-to-school outfits!

Aneela Hoey with her new line, Little Apples

Quilt Market is our one chance every season to check out the Japanese fabrics from Yuwa. Yuwa produces some our favorite fabrics of all time and this season was no exception. We were floored by the new collection from Japanese quilt designer Yoshiko Jinzenji. Jinzenji's fabrics are abstract prints on a huge scale with sparse and interesting color combinations. This fabric is so unique, we think you will love it!

Yoshiko Jinzenji's new line of fabrics for Yuwa

Anna Griffin is known for her stunning florals and she did not disappoint. This floral dress sample displayed on floral wallpaper was one of my favorite things from quilt market - beautiful! She is also releasing new patterns to work with the recent Fifi and Fido collection so you can sew a bone pillow for your pup friends or make a miniature Scottie dog.

Free Spirit Fabrics have so many great designers and they have lots of exciting things coming up. Most interesting (and causing us the most anticipation!) is the new needlework collection from Anna Maria Horner that will debut this fall. Anna Maria has designed fabric using cross stitch designs that could be used as is, or could be stitched onto and then used in a project. The result was stunning and it is even better with her new line of embroidery floss and pearl cotton. We can't wait! Also from Anna Maria, LouLouThi will be out soon and includes voiles and printed bias tape (hooray!)

We finally met Joel Dewberry! Joel Dewberry and his wife Laurie were so charming. Joel's new collection, Heirloom includes some of his signature color combinations, but we were pleased to see him exploring new colors as well. As always, the results are fantastic and we can't wait for them to get here in July! Laurie has designed some sweet new patterns for adult garments and bags that we will soon be out with Heirloom.

Tula Pink already has another collection coming out! We are still recovering from the amazing-ness that was Parisville and now we are ready for Prince Charming. Prince Charming is another stellar collection and guess what? There will be voiles. That's right - now we can have luscious fashion fabric from all of our favorite designers! Tula Pink's booth was amazing as always (she even won a prize for it!) and she showed off the new fabrics in her fun new quilt patterns.

Michael Miller fabrics has some exciting things going on. Sandi Henderson has a new collection coming out called Secret Garden that is going to be amazing. We feel this is her best collection to date and can hardly wait to get our hands on it! Sandi also won a best booth award!

SarahJane is a new designer for Michael Miller. In addition to her first collection, Children at Play, she also has adorable embroidery patterns. Yay for embroidery!

Super-Cute Sarah Jane Embroidery Patterns

Amber and I usually run straight to the Seven Islands booth as soon as Market opens. Somehow we feel an urgency, like they might sell out right away or something if we don't place our order their first. This time, however, we saved Seven Islands for last. It was our reward for 3 long days of looking at hundreds of prints and talking to tons of people and walking miles in a convention hall. Seven Islands is the distributors of all things Japanese and amazing! We ordered fabrics from all of our favorite Japanese designers, but here are some highlights...

Echino has another Nico line coming out featuring cars, buses, scooters and London in her signature bright colors. We also ordered the Echino webbing in bold coordinating colors for all your bag-making needs.

Heather Ross has a new collection, Far Far Away 3. This is my favorite one yet because in addition to her sweet fairytale prints, there are prints of little girls playing with horses (eek!). Don't worry - we ordered it all.

Melody Miller was new last Quilt Market, but she has fast become a favorite of ours. Her newest collection is soo awesome! We are already hyperventilating because there are only 6 prints (all 62" wide sheeting!) so keep your eyes out for when they arrive - they are sure to go fast.

Also new and exciting from Seven Islands are a new Nani Iro collection and (drum roll please...) Hello Kitty fabric!

So what does this all mean? It means that this summer and fall will be amazing! We will keep you updated though this blog and facebook as all these new fabrics arrive... stay tuned next week to hear about all the new patterns we brought back. If you've been thinking of taking up sewing, now is the time people!

Jaime's "Put a Bird On It" Echino Quilt

As many of you know, I love Echino. Echino fabrics are the designs of Japanese fabric designer Etsuko Furuya. They are vibrant, bright, and bold and often feature all sorts of amazing animals such as zebras, leopards, owls, peacocks, and the ubiquitous bird. In fact, there are so many birds on Echino fabrics that I now refer to this quilt as my "put a bird on it" quilt in honor of the hilarious Portlandia skit. Echino releases 2 fabric collections per year, and it is always a happy day when those boxes arrive. For 2 years now, I have been collecting 1/3 yard cuts of all of my favorite prints. With the arrival of the latest collection, I finally had enough Echino fabrics to make this quilt.
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Oh joyous day! This quilt is so bright and colorful, I absolutely love it. Echino prints are often large scale so I had to choose a design that would show off the prints and allow me to feature large panels of my favorites. I decided to do a simple strip quilt design. I cut my fabrics into 3 different widths and kept the lengths totally random. Once I had all my strips pieced, I decided the quilt needed a bit of solid cream to seperate things and make the prints pop a little more. Because all of Echino fabrics are a cotton/linen blend, I used our un-dyed cotton/linen Essex fabric for this.

For the back, I used the new 62" wide Echino sheeting. That means I only had to seam this queen sized quilt once down the back - yay! All Echino fabrics are printed with the same signature eggplant selvedge so I choose this color for my binding.

And now for your viewing pleasure, here are my kitties enjoying the new quilt. Kitties and quilts! Kitties and quilts!!

New Echino is Here!

It's no secret that Etsuko Furuya is amazing! Her new line of Echino prints are here and once again we are swooning over them.


These prints are so bold and lovely that even the most simple sewn project will look like a million bucks.


New from Etsuko are these prints on 62" cotton sheeting. That's wide enough to make a throw sized quilt without any seaming! Hooray!


If you are as excited as we are about Echino then stop by soon, because these are selling fast!

Fall 2010 International Quilt Market Report!

Amber and I were just in the lovely state of Texas attending the Fall Quilt Market. This is where we get to preview and order new fabric collections, find new pattern companies, and look for any other sewing/quilting related products we can find. Here are some of our highlights:


There are all sorts of famous crafty people at Quilt Market--we were super-excited to run into Meg McElwee who designs and owns Sew Liberated patterns. We love her Schoolhouse Tunic pattern. Amber happened to be wearing one of her Schoolhouse Tunics which Meg spotted right away. She was so nice and looked adorable wearing the original Schoolhouse Tunic which you may recognize from the pattern cover.


Amy Butler's booth is always filled with inspiration and ideas! She was showing off her highly anticipated collection, Soul Blossoms, at the market and we can hardly wait to get these fabrics in this December.


We always love visiting the Seven Islands booth. Seven Islands distributes fabric from Japan so we order all sorts of amazing-ness from them. This market, they were debuting a new line from our favorite Japanese designer, Etsuko Furuya, who designs all the Echino prints. Her new collection is as colorful and striking as ever and we even ordered laminates of it! Here we are with her and a weirdly cute deer mannequin.


Seven Islands was also debuting a new designer, Melody Miller, who has a 60's inspired collection coming out for Kokka. We love the interesting colors and the vintage kitsch designs. Check out the impressive explosion of Kokka sewn goods on display!


We also picked up some new Japanese sewing kits to make these precious creatures. How can you resist?! These are available now to purchase in the store and include English translation.


Hokkoh is another Japanese company that does some crazy prints! We loved the candy they offered to keep us going--too-cute Mameki Neko cat candies.


Michael Miller had some awesome new prints coming out - our favorite were reproductions from mid-century designer, Tammis Keefe. We ordered so much fabric from Michael Miller that I got to spend 30 seconds in their "wind-of-fortune" room. This experience made me really glad I've never been a game show contestant. I did manage to collect enough dollars to win 2 charm packs from their upcoming "Bonnes Amies" collection!


We love the embroidery patterns from Penguin and Fish and were pleased to see Alyssa is coming out with new dog embroidery patterns. These fancy embroidery patterns are just available in a few breeds, but we can hardly wait to get them in stock, they are soo cute. She also has a new sewing pattern out for a sweet alligator toy.


FreeSpirit Fabrics are really killing it this season. They have so many great designers and collections we can hardly contain our excitement! We are absolutely loving the new collection from Tula Pink. Parisville is a fantasy explosion of ships, hidden mice, geometric dot damasks and lion wigs. It is really inspiring us and we will be sure to post when we receive it!


Ms. Pink herself was delightful as she shared with us stories of living on her hundreds-of-acres ranch in small-town Missouri. Her booth was beautiful and really showed off the Parisville collection.


Jay McCarroll's new collection and is very different from his first two and we love his new direction. Habitat is really fashion-oriented and are dreaming of sewing up tops, skirts, and dresses out of these prints. Nice work, Jay!

Anna Maria Horner was there promoting her newest collection, Innocent Crush. We just received all of the home dec, cotton velveteens and voiles from this collection and it was great to get inspired by her booth. Anna Maria is always pushing the envelope with her fabric choices. Last year she brought us her beautiful voiles and this year we are excited to be carrying her cotton velvelteens. These fabrics are super soft and we love that they are made of natural cotton! Ms. Horner also had some bias tape made up from the collection and we really hope this goes to production so we can carry it! Anna Maria spotted me from afar in my brand new Innocent Crush top and so of course we had to stop for a photo-op.


Ty Pennington of TLC's Trading Spaces and ABC's Extreme Makeover is expanding into the world of fabric design. His collection for Westminster was the talk of the show and he was swamped with eager fans getting autographs.


Some of the smaller fabrics companies are our favorite ones to visit at quilt market. We get to talk with the people who are designing and manufacturing their own fabrics. Birch is one of these companies and it was so great to meet Cynthia, the woman behind it all. Cynthia and her husband, Jason, collaborated on their newest collection, Avalon. We know you will love the bicycles and birds - together at last!


Another small but amazing company is Cloud 9 Organics. Cloud 9 is introducing 3 new collections by 3 new designers - Heather Moore, Julia Rothman and Geninne Zlatkis. Each of these designers has a very distinct style and we are looking forward to these more sophisticated and grown up collections from Cloud 9.


Last, but not least, we got to meet Lizzy House! Lizzy is the designer behind the Castle Peeps collection and has another new collection on the way. She was adorable and sweet and we are excited to get to know her better. That's right, Lizzy will be in Denver next Spring so stay tuned for uber-exciting-hang-out-crafting-action!


I know you all are probably as excited as we are about the new fabrics! Most of these will be coming out starting in January and then throughout the beginning of the year into spring. We can all look forward to tons of amazing sewing projects in 2011!