Quilt Market Fall 2013 Report

Amber and I just returned from Houston Texas for the fall Quilt Market. This is where we get to preview and buy new and upcoming fabric collections! We were able to meet all sorts of fabric and pattern designers, chat with other shop owners, and get completely inspired by all the amazing things happening in the fabric industry. Here is our report of the most exciting things we saw this fall.

The people over at FreeSpirit and their parent company Westminster Fibers have a lot of amazing designers on their roster. Amy Butler, Anna Maria Horner, Parsons Grey, Ty Pennington, Tula Pink, and Denyse Schmidt all have new collections that they were debuting at market. So much awesome stuff! Anna Maria Horner's new line Dowry is scheduled to be released first (any day!) and we love it. Dowry is classic, beautiful Anna Maria Horner style and we ordered it all. Her booth featured an amazing inspiration wall for Dowry and of course, tons of color!

Amy Butler's new collection, Hapi features Amy's bold florals and interesting geometrics. Her booth was bright and fun - we love the fabric wrapped, rustic god's eyes.

Tula Pink's new line, For Field won't be out until next spring, but it will be worth the wait. Ponies, bunny-dots, foxes and feathers grace the prints of this new line. Now you, too, can upholster your Louis XV chair in pink ponies!

Speaking of ponies...Sarah Jane's new line Wee Wanderer for Michael Miller Fabrics is a collection that perfectly captures any little girl's dream childhood. Lightning bugs and ponies frolic across the fabrics in beautiful hues of green, blue and pink. Perfection!

Birch fabrics is getting ready to release their highly anticipated collection of Charley Harper fabrics. We are hoping to get these in this month (soon!). We were excited to see things sewn up in them and even more excited to find they have added canvas, knits, and flannel prints to the quilting cotton collection - all organic cotton.

Leah Duncan has another beautiful collection coming out next year for Art Gallery Fabrics. We can't get enough of her unique illustrations and love the saturated green colorway she has in this new Meadow collection.

Ellen Luckett Baker has another collection coming out for Kokka. Garden features her bold graphic style on the cotton/linen canvas base we all know and love from Kokka. Her booth was adorable and we loved meeting her! Ellen has some inspiring projects for her fabrics in her books, 1,2, 3, Quilt and 1, 2, 3, Sew.

Just chillin' with Carolyn...surrounded by her beautiful work.

One of the collections we are most excited about is Carolyn Friedlander's Botanics for Robert Kaufman. Botanics features Carolyn's fine line drawn style in soft and bold colors. A few of the prints have a hint of metallic gold that is used perfectly. Get ready to sew with these fabrics in December and January.

the ladies of Cotton + Steel: Alexia, Sarah, Rashida, Melody,  and Kim

The talk of the market was the announcement of a new division within RJR fabrics formed by Melody Miller including herself, Rashida Coleman-Hale, Alexia Abegg, Kim Kight, and Sarah Watts called Cotton + Steel. Cotton + Steel will release their first fabrics next July so we don't have any prints to show you, but we know it is going to be awesome. Stay tuned to see what these ladies have up their sleeves for us. You can learn more by watching their awesome video here.

Look for all of these amazing fabrics and more to hit the shelves of Fancy Tiger Crafts in the upcoming months. Thanks, Quilt Market!

Portland Sewing Parties!

-jaime

While Amber and I were in town for Quilt Market we were able to go to a couple of awesome parties held for Quilt Market attendees! The first one was held at Modern Domestic, a sewing studio in Portland.

Modern Domestic had just expanded and their new larger space was beautiful and inspiring! Amber and I loved being able to chat with owners Lupine and Michelle about their shop and experiences.

Lupine, Amber, Jaime and Michelle

Sarai of Colette patterns lives and works in Portland and hosted a party at her studio for Quilt Market attendees with Amy Butler. Sarai's studio is in the renovated Ford Building--originally built as an assembly plant for the Ford Model-T, and now a home to creative offices and studios.

There were beautiful old windows that let in tons of natural light. Amy Butler had her garment fabrics on display and there were sewn samples of all of the Colette patterns.

Amber, Amy Butler, Sarai Mitnick and Jaime

We had a lovely time with Sarai, Amy and lots of other shop owners, fabric designers and pattern makers!

Thanks Portland ladies for showing us a great time!

The Magical Makerie Sewing Retreat!

Jaime and I had a fantastic time at the Makerie Sewing retreat at Chautauqua. We spent the weekend taking workshops from instructors that Ali of the Makerie brought to Colorado from all over.

Our little pop-up store     photo © Linda Winski

Amy Butler stopped by our shop on her way to the Makerie and Fancy Tiger customers and staff gave her a warm welcome to Colorado.

     photo © Linda Winski

This was the first Makerie focusing solely on sewing, and it was a dream come true. The instructors were Amy Butler, Liesl Gibson, Jenny Hart, Heather Jones, Kaari Meng, Tamar Morgdorff and Cal Patch--amazing ladies and inspiring crafters each and every one!

Wonderful ladies Heather, Kaari, Liesl, Amy, Jenny, Cal and Tamar     photo © Linda Winski

Kaari of French General taught a workshop on shibori indigo dyeing techniques. Jaime and Sadie both took this class and made some stunning fabrics.and hand-dyed lace.

Kaari, Jaime and Sadie     photo © Linda Winski

Jaime and I both took Cal Patch's Design Your Own Clothes class, and learned to draft dresses and skirts to our own body measurements. Everyday Cal wore cute dresses and leggings and crocheted shawls that she made--totes adorable. We can't wait to stitch up our new custom garments!

Cal Patch and Heather Jones

Tamar Mogendorff taught a soft sculpture workshop where we learned to mix our stitching with materials like wire and cardboard to create sculptures. Tamar's sculptures are an amazing blend of art and hand craft, so inspiring.

Tamar with her birdcage      photo © Linda Winski

Liesl Gibson is known for the garment patterns she designs under the name Oliver + S. and Lisette, but at the Makerie she taught a class on smocking. Smocking is a hand stitching technique that makes beautiful pleated embellishments. Jaime took Liesl's class and learned how to smock while making a necklace. Smocking was passed on to Liesl from her grandmother so it was a special craft to learn from an amazing woman.

Liesl wearing her smocked necklace

On the left is a sample of smocking from Liesl's grandmother, the right is Liesl's modern take on smocking

Emily, Liesl, Jaime, Cal, Amber, Heather, and Ali     photo © Linda Winski

♥♥♥ Having miss-out syndrome? The Makerie now has a Summer Series--three single-day mini-Makeries that will include a farm dinner at Lyons Farmette. Perfect for locals! Jaime and I will be teaching handspun at the June one, so come have fun with us there! ♥♥♥

New Amy Butler and New Tula Pink Fabrics!

Oh my gosh can you believe it--Amy Butler's and Tula Pink's newest collections are BOTH here! We are giddy with new fabric overload!

We fell in love with Tula Pink's new collection, The Birds and The Bees, at quilt market, when we saw Tula's Space Dust quilt. Holy space dust, Tula! That is one hot quilt! Already several Fancy Tiger folks have purchased their fabric to make this quilt. We are in capital L-o-v-e.

Amy Butler's newest collection, Cameo, features Amy's classic style with a bright twist! These prints hark back to times past, but with an updated, saturated color palette. We especially love her small florals and geometrics for tops and dresses, like this Miz Mozelle dress she had on display at quilt market!

We hope you are as excited about these as we are!

Quilt Market Report Spring 2012

Amber and I just got back from Kansas City for the Spring Quilt Market! This is where we get to shop for all the amazing fabrics and patterns we carry here at the store. We also get to meet and talk to fabric designers, pattern designers, bloggers and other shop owners. It was super amazing and we were really impressed with the strength of the new collections. Here are some highlights:

Amy Butler has a new collection coming out this July, Cameo. Her booth was a beautiful mix of vintage with her bright prints forming a fun contrast.

Anna Maria Horner's newest collection for Free Spirit is Field Study due in August. Natural elements such as feathers, flora and fauna inspire these designs. We loved the life-sized crouching leopard decoupaged with fabric!

Can you believe this quilt?! The pattern for this strip-pieced quilt by Anna Maria Horner will be available as a free pattern for her Field Study fabrics through the Free Spirit website. I can hardly wait to make one - it was stunning.

We really love what's going on over at Cloud 9. This organic fabric company started out so tiny and is growing into the most adorable fabric company of all time. Their current and upcoming collections are awesome, and they keep working with amazing artists. We have Monsterz in stock now so here is some inspiration with these awesome baby quilts.

Seven Seas is another Michele Brummer Everett collection for Cloud 9 coming out this summer. More of her adorable drawings, but this time with a maritime theme. Those little boys shirts are too cute!

We were thrilled that Denyse Schmidt had her first ever booth at quilt market. Her booth was amazing and featured an inspiration wall for her upcoming collection, Chicopee. We went ahead and ordered the full collection so you are all set come August.

We also got to see all of her quilts from her newest book in person - talk about inspiration! Meeting Denyse was awesome - she was lovely and it was so magical to chat with one of our favorite quilters.

The buzz of quilt market was the new Liberty of London quilting cottons. Quilt Market was the debut of this new venture for Liberty and we think it's going to be amazing! Their first collection is called Bloomsbusy Gardens and each of the 11 prints comes in 5 colorways. We ordered a ton of it, so you can quilt with Liberty to your heart's content come late August. The Liberty quilting cottons will be much more affordable than their Tana Lawn counterparts, but you can expect the same great designs and colors.

Melody Miller had a booth! Yay! Her booth was a perfect picture of her unique, vintage-inspired style and highlighted her newest collection for Kokka, Ruby Star Vinyl.

We couldn't resist a photo-op with the lady herself!

Oh Tula Pink. So much awesome fabric and I can't believe this Gem quilt!! Tula Pink has another new collection hitting the shop in July called The Birds and The Bees. We love the bright colors, but mostly I can't wait to get my hands on it so I can make this quilt.

Here we are with Ms. Pink in front of this amazing Gem Quilt. Looks pretty good, right?

And now here are some sneak peeks from the land-of-all-awesome-Japanese-fabric, Seven Islands! There will be a new Echino collection coming out featuring birds and animals, our favorite. I couldn't get over the giraffes and owls in ornate frames and of course the hipster deer-in-glasses polka dot print. The zebras are looking pretty hot too. We ordered all of it and several laminates so don't worry - there will be plenty to choose from.

Fancy Tiger favorite, Nani Iro, has a new collection out as well. She is working with some new and different colors and designs that we are excited about.

Finally we will leave you with this double gauze tunic - we need to make this!

Lots of great stuff is on the way - we didn't even show you the new Lizzy House, Moda, Sarah Jane, Lotta Jansdotter, Bari J., Dear Stella, Blend or Alexander Henry fabrics! OMG so much awesome stuff to sew!

Amy Butler's Lark Collection is Here!

New Lark fabrics by Amy Butler are here! We are seriously digging her fresh color palette--deep indigos with pops of coral and chartreuse. These bold, modern florals are available in quilting cottons, sateens and laminates.

Get in here and get sewing!