Horseshoe Market Report!

We had a fantastic time at Horseshoe Market this past Saturday! Many of our favorite local crafters were out selling their wares and there were amazing vintage goods to be found. Some of Denver's fine food carts were serving up delicious treats as well!

Amy is the wonderful woman behind Horseshoe market and she looked super happy and proud on Saturday. She should be - tons of shoppers came out to show their support for over 100 local vendors. Great work, Amy!

Here are a few of our favorite finds:
1) Mukee's new recycled skateboard jewelry raises money for relief efforts in Japan. 2) Graynbow is the newest line by makers extraordinaire, Brett and Crystal, of Vital Industries and Tomte. 3) We are excited about Larka Designs, a new designer of geometric necklaces and screenprinted and embellished pins! 4) Local letterpress Matter was there with some of their paper goods. 5) Alex Watson let us in on his trade secrets for making this amazing pottery! 6) Helliemae, our favorite purveyor of caramel treats was there with her two newest concoctions, jasmine salt caramels and banana pudding with homemade caramel swirl! Delish! 7) Resplendid was there with cute and cozy rag quilts. 8) The Mr. Christmas we know and love from Holiday Handmade was there with his little magical worlds, but this time they were full of springtime-y cuteness with tiny deer and handpainted miniature foxes! 9) The Gold Bug's recycled watch parts jewelry is pretty darn cool. 10)  Hot Butter's handmade wallets are totally functional and we love the patchwork embroidered pouches! 11) Tilly Whistle makes freaking cute little slippers for kids. 12) We cannot even handle how adorable Sister Hipster's new animal portraiture embroidered wall art is.

If you missed it be sure to check out the Summer Horseshoe Market on August 6th and the Fall Market on October 1st!

New Pillow & Maxfield Gypsy Bandana Fabrics

Summery Gypsy Bandana fabrics are here from Pillow & Maxfield! Bright and colorful, these prints make me dream of sunshine and summertime picnicking under the shade of a cottonwood tree. The 20" panel fabrics are perfect for making a sweet and simple pillow--perhaps to go with that summertime quilt I'm dreaming of?

Our sewing instructor, Sadie has already whipped up a sleeveless schoolhouse tunic in this hot yellow kaleidoscope print Check out the class here!

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! Be Sweet T-Shirt Yarn

We have an awesome new yarn in from Be Sweet! Be Sweet is a woman-owned company that works to create employment opportunities for women in Cape Town, South Africa through handcrafts. Be Sweet T-shirt yarn is one of the amazing products they create and is made from recycled jersey fabric remnants from the t-shirt industry. Each shipment is totally unique as yarn is made in the colors and styles of the fabric being produced in local factories. 

Customers often ask what to make with t-shirt yarn. Lucky for you we have several great ideas. Bags are the first thing that comes to mind and each skein of Be Sweet T-shirt yarn comes with a pattern printed on the label for a "Honeycomb Camera Clutch." Tote bags would also be amazing and the stretch of the yarn means they could hold all sorts of things. At TNNA, where we first saw and ordered the t-shirt yarn, I was inspired by a necklace one of the women had made from it. There wasn't a pattern for it so I've recreated it and written the pattern out for you. This knit necklace knits up in 20 minutes and you can make 2 - 3 from each skein. You can experiment with different numbers of cast-on stitches for a shorter or longer necklace. What a fast and fun summertime project!

T-Shirt Yarn Necklace Pattern

20 yards Be Sweet T-shirt yarn
24" size 13 needles

Cast on 60 stitches and join in the round.

Knit 20 stitches. Knit the next 4 stitches wrapping twice for each stitch. Knit the next 3 stitches wrapping 3 times each stitch. Knit the next 6 stitches wrapping 4 times each stitch. Knit the next 3 stitches wrapping 3 times each stitch. Knit the next 4 stitches wrapping twice for each stitch. Knit the last 20 stitches normal, bringing you to the end of round 1.

Next round, cast off! Cast off normal and just let the extra wraps fall off the needle as you go. When you get to the middle 12 stitches that have 3 or 4 wraps, you will want to knit 2 together for each cast off stitch, still letting the extra wraps fall off the needle. Continue casting off the rest of the stitches normal.  Done!

Fancy Tiger Crafts in Sunset Magazine!

I was super excited when my May issue of Sunset magazine showed up last week. There is an article about all things awesome on South Broadway in Denver and Fancy Tiger Crafts received a full-page feature photo! Fancy ladies Emily, Amber, Jess and myself were shot hanging out with shop-dog Branwyn. The article talks about our awesome craft products and highlights some of our favorite neighbors on the street. Can you guys count how many hand-crafted items we're wearing in this photo?

Thanks so much, Sunset!

Liesl Gibson Book Signing this Saturday!

Join us this Saturday, as we are happy to host author and designer Liesl Gibson, the woman behind Oliver + S sewing patterns and the new book, Little Things to Sew. This book is full of the-most-adorable sewing patterns for children. With it's stunning photography and inspired projects, this book is perfect for anyone who wants to sew cute items for cute kids!

Liesl Gibson Booksigning

Saturday, April 30th

3 - 5pm

Fancy Tiger Crafts

Liesl will be signing copies of her book and we will have the brand new Oliver + S patterns available for purchase.

Class Picnic Blouse + Shorts

Family Reunion Dress

Seashore Sundress

Liesl's newest fabric collection, Modern Workshop, will be here too! Come by for treats and fun times!

Almost A Million New Fabrics!

There are too many cute fabrics coming out! What's a crafter to do!? We are totally inspired to sew our little hearts out by these amazing new fabric collections!

Sherbet Pips by Aneela Hoey

British designer Aneela Hoey's debut collection features her adorable illustrations of "pips" messing about on scooters and swingsets. The colors are fantastic--reds, greys, pinks and blues. I'm imagining making a sweet little quilt with white sashing (but I'm a little quilt obsessed lately.) The pips would also make cute tote bags and the spots and squares would make a fantastic shirt!

Fifi & Fido by Anna Griffin

Anna Griffin's Fifi and Fido prints are adorably retro in their soft 1950s colorways of mint, pink and baby blue. A fancy pet bed or an a-line skirt would be equally fabulous out of these prints!

Aviary 2 by Joel Dewberry

Aviary 2 from Joel Dewberry is a reworking of his amazingly popular Aviary collection. The new colorways of these modern prints are selling fast, so come by soon if you want some of this collection!

Kayo Horaguchi

Do you like your deer to be adorned with bows and your zebras to be prancing on lace doilies? Well, we just found out how awesome that can be with the new fabric collection from Kayo Horaguchi! Make anything from this fabric and it is guaranteed to make everyone swoon!

My Folklore Lecien

The newest collection in Lecein's My Folklore series is absolute retro-Swedish cuteness with Dala horses and Nordic folk flower patterns.

Flower Market by Martha Negley

Another collection inspired by fabulous 1950s style is Martha Negley's Flower Market. The prints are bright and the scale is large, filled with roses and peonies. They would be beautiful sewn up into a full skirted dress, or one of the new classically styled Colette sewing patterns below!

Happy stitching!