I was looking for something quick and fun and found this great pattern for a pillow. I like that the pattern has the embellishments included so that I don’t have to search all over town for them. Kits are available here. Stay tuned for more of these, I’m hooked! What are you making today?
Beach Baby Pillow
My friend Kathy visited our booth at NCQS and took some great pictures of some of the quilts displayed. Enjoy!
We had a great time during our first ever vending experience at the North Carolina Quilt Symposium. For those of you that could not attend the symposium, here are some pictures of our booth. Maybe we had a few too many quilts in the booth, eh?
Ok, I really should be posting fabric to the shop tonight, but I was so excited after I saw Amy Butler’s newest product Softwares that I had to tell you about it.
This is Amy’s first collection of sewing projects on a CD! Amy partnered with Electric Quilt to make this amazing new tool with 22 unique and stylish projects for quilts, pillows, bags and more – plus 9 bonus projects! You can make the projects as designed by Amy– or customize them in thousands of possible ways using the software’s tools and virtual swatches of Amy’s fabrics.
I bought a copy at Quilt market to try it out and it is fabulous! You get a skinny version of EQ and 31 projects designed by Amy Butler for $29.95. What a bargain! If you would like to place a preorder of softwares, it will ship out in a couple of weeks.
The other great thing that Amy is doing is celebrating the one year anniversary of Midwest Modern with a contest. Make anything with her fabric, send her a picture and you are entered to win! Very simple. Here are the contest details. Here is a FREE pattern to get you inspired, enjoy and tell us what you are making!
I used the handy random number generator to select the winner of the blog giveaway. As you can see, post number 67 wins! Congratulations 
Thank you all for your comments and inspiration! I’m more excited than ever to go to Quilt Market and find just the right things that you will enjoy. I will post some pictures from market, so check back next week to see the latest and greatest.
Happy Mother’s Day to you all, don’t forget that we have a FREE SHIPPING online special and a FREE FAT QUARTER in store special to celebrate!
Happy Quilting!
Happy May Everyone!
I’d like to hear from you and will give a $25.00 gift certificate to a randomly selected winner from all of the comments we receive to this post! I will do the drawing on May 8th and post the winner here.
Here is the deal…I’m gearing up to go to the next Quilt Market in Pittsburgh, PA in a couple of weeks to buy products for the store for the next 6 months. To make sure we have your favorites, I need your help! I want to make sure that we stock the fabrics, books, notions, gifts, etc. that you need to help create beautiful quilts, clothing, purses, etc., so I’d like to know what is on your mind…is there something that you particularly love, or are you having trouble finding supplies that you would like to use? Are there clubs, services or anything else that you would like to see available at Wish Upon A Quilt? Please take a minute to let us know what is on your mind and you may be the $25.00 winner!
I’m looking forward to hearing what is on your mind..Happy May!
One of my favorite fabric designers is Anna Maria Horner. She is so amazingly talented and has 5 children with another due in May! In this past year, she has released fabric, a book and 3 new patterns. How does she get it all done? Read Anna Maria’s blog for inspiration! Her most recent collection, Good Folks 
, has been very popular. This quilt is called Folk Dance and the FREE Pattern is here.
I recently read Anna Maria’s new book Seams to Me, 24 New Reasons To Love Sewing, cover to cover in one sitting. I wish I would have had this book when I started sewing. The clear directions are great and would have saved me lots of time unsewing! The book includes 10 patterns with something for everyone. I am usually drawn to the quilt patterns in books. This book was different. Not only did I love the quilt pattern, I found several ideas to organize my home (fabric cubes for storage), decorate my home (fabric is fine art) and stylize with clothing! Ok, I confess, I have not actually made these things yet, but I was inpired enough to add them to my to do list. If Anna Maria can find time, I can too! What is on your to-do list these days?
Do you have old quilts or quilt blocks stored away in a closet somewhere? One of my favorite quilts is this one made from blocks that my Great-Grandmother made but never finished. These beautiful blocks stayed in a closet for about 60 years! My Mom found someone willing to finish the quilt (by hand!) and this quilt now has a home in my mother’s guest room. I sleep under it every time I visit and I feel very connected to my grandparents under that quilt.
This past weekend, Mom and I brought some of my Grandmother’s blocks out of the closet. We estimate that they are at least 50 years old. They were kept in a freezer paper box all of these years and are in great shape. We have 12 of these hand embroidered blocks and we are making them into two quilts. One for Mom and one for her sister. We have chosen a very simple setting for them with the plan of highlighting the blocks with quilting. I’ll keep you posted on our progress.
Do you have quilt blocks hidden somewhere in a closet? How about dusting them off and seeing what you can do with them? They may turn into your next favorite quilt!
Do you ever wonder who comes up with all of the great fabric designs that are in quilt shops today? I did and I thought it would be fun to start a series that highlights some of the different fabric designers. First up is Sandra Banava who designs for Robert Kaufman.
At market last Fall in Houston, I was looking for a design that really “wowed” me. I found Sandra’s latest collection Citronella and fell in love with the fabric colors and designs. I contacted Sandra with my idea of featuring designers on my blog and she was thrilled to be our debut designer. Here are some of the great projects that Sandra has created using Citronella.
Sandra Banava was introduced to the beauty of fabric at an early age. Her mother was a fabric lover, who kept her collection lovingly wrapped up in a couple of huge bundles filled with cuts of fabric that she had received as gifts or hand-picked for her sewing projects. From time to time, Sandra’s mother would say, “Let’s get the fabric bundles out and look at fabric.” To Sandra, this was always as exciting as opening a treasure box.
Sandra feels that creating is a way of responding to her surroundings. Whether she sees traces of the past in a city’s aging buildings, layers of patina and rusty surfaces or the wonder of nature such as the beautiful growth movement of plants or the iridescent wing of an insect, she seeks to create a fresh look at the familiar with her art.Sandra finds designing for quilters exciting. She likes to visualize how quilters can “compose,” “paint” or “choreograph” their quilts using each colorful pattern as “notes,” “paints” and “movements” to tell their stories. To see more of Sandra’s great work, visit her blog at www.sandrabanava.com. What do you think?
Ever since Quilt Market, I have not been able to catch up! I know I am not alone with not enough hours in the day but I have really wanted to share these photos from the Quilt Market floor. I realized after I came home that I don’t have pictures of all of the fabric that I ordered, but here are a few. Let me know what you think of them, they will be at Wish Upon A Quilt between now and March….
From the top left to right-Alphabuddies by Andover Fabrics, the Blank Quilting booth with a fun fabric tree, Citronella by Robert Kaufman (one of my favorites), City Blooms by Benartex, Etosha by Fabriquilt including the zebra, and Sakura by Red Rooster
Wait there are people in these pictures…Remember when I told you about my Mom? Thankfully, she has fully recovered and she attended market with me! She is in the middle on the bottom row, so meet my Mom, Jan….love you Mom! (She will not be happy that I posted her picture)
Many of you know Janice Pope from Wish…the last picture is Janice with her Two Hour Tulip Purse and Traveler’s Trio patterns by Anything But Boring at Quilt Market! Janice sold out of what she took to market and we are all very happy that she was a big success at the international market. She was one busy lady, she found time to keep all of our vendor appointments with me, work in a booth, and was a Quilt Angel at the Festival.
