V and Co: at spring market 2012

 summer is in full swing over here and i am working on small amount of time in between noisemakers needing something or needing to be redirected. :) (currently im on my couch with noisemaker's #3 feet up in the air arguing across my lap (and laptop) with the girl noisemaker about speaking spanish and french. i don't really know what they are talking about nor do i pretend that at the moment i want to touch that with a ten foot pole, or in my case lift my eyes and deal with it)

so here's a quick version of my quilt corner experience. it started on wednesday driving down to kansas city and then getting there and setting up. the heat was brutal in there setting up, i wasnt feeling that great and i think the heat was a little push for the need to buy some cleratin for the allergy relief i was looking for.
thursday was spent in meetings and schoolhouse.

 friday was when it all kind of became real. this is me standing on the floor of market in my little corner.
 the allergy thing got worse enough to make me want to squeeze my head to relieve some of the stuffiness going on in there, and i had some kind of sexy low voice thing that came with it. pretty sure i sounded like i should have been singing in a smoky lounge with the stage name of "Star" but you do what you need to do and i "sexy" talked all day long friday through sunday. maybe it helped my sales. don't know...

 i got to sign my book at the moda booth which was lots of fun. even if i forgot how to sign my last name for a minute (pretty sure the cleratin was wearing off by that time!)

i made a few pillows to demonstrate and show off some of the fun texture stuff we do in my book and in my craftsy class (dude, we have over 1,700 students in the class! whoot!!!)
and the faux pleated pillow can be found here

 

and i wanted to show off just how cool the ombre dots were in the line and how easy it would be to use it as a skirt for yourself,or in adorable poofs!

 and as cute dresses and skirts for little girls (top right hand side behind the lame-o trying to do a sexy pose to go with her sexy voice = fail...nope more like epic fail.) THANK YOU AMY who made the cute dresses for me. :) and the skirt im wearing. :)

 the thing i wanted to do with this line is make sure that it would appeal to a large variety of people. i wanted it to be used for quilts and blankets, but i also wanted people who like to make decor to like it as well, and then of course the people who love apparel and hand bags and accessories.
i love how it all came together.
i hope i can create another line i love as much. ;)

 here's amy of diary of a quilter, hanging out with the 3 monchromatic ombre quilts she made for my booth.

picture via diary of a quilter

just a little over a yard and half of continuous of the ombre fabric will make the top of these chic baby blankets.  and the backing fabric is as well part of my line. tutorial coming in the fall when the fabric comes out. :) that way i don't torture you too much by showing you how to make it without being able to get some of the fabric! :)

picture via in color order

the 2 amy's werent the only ones that helped me make this market happen.  megan (ahem and megan's awesome sheriff of a dad that likes to sew), jeni, and deedee were there to help me the month prior to market as well. these girls helped at market, but they were there when we were sewing up a storm to make the quilts in a weekend, and to test bag patterns, and keep me positive and not overwhelmed. 

and then of course my quilts needed to be quilted and they were shipped off to Darla Padilla, who did a wonderful turn around sometimes in one day a few quilts. :)

so yeah. all of it looked just how i wanted to look. and i had wonderful a bunch of people that helped make that picture happen up there happen, including my wonderful husband that put his life on hold of over a week and kept the house even cleaner than i had it when i left.

here's a few links:
bloom quilt (flowers): pattern by V and Co.
hopscotch quilt (stars): pattern by V and Co.
skirt: free tutorial coming in the fall
chelsea bag:  pattern by V and Co.
pillows: craftsy.com sewing texture with vanessa christenson, and make it sew modern by vanessa chrstenson. (e-book available as well)
ombre quilts: free tutorial coming in the fall

phew!
okay check on kids. they're too quiet for my liking.
we'll talk soon.

V and Co: argyle quilt and some friends

hello friends.
how the heck are you?
how am i?
short answer: "GOOD!" thanks for asking.
longer answer: "well, i had to ask someone what day it was the other day. and i've not blogged in...i don't know how many days because remember i just asked someone what day it was. duh. and my laundry has taken on a mind of its own. BUT the kids have had fun climbing "mount clean but wrinkled laundry" just to make it dirty again with their grubby little hands and feet. you know. a life of a mom." :P
i have been working on my next set of written paper patterns. the argyle quilt is one of them. :) yay! just waiting for it to come back from the printers, as well as two more. watch for those later on this week. i'll post them and give a discount code for them! :) happy day.

faith's blocks

 this last weekend we had some visitors over in our neck of the woods.
and in preparation i bought more chocolate and candy in one weekend than i have in like years. see, i don't buy candy just to have candy. (no i buy chocolate chips and pretend they are just for cooking instead) so my children...aka noisemakers 1,2,3, and 4 are not used to having a ton of free range candy and when they saw the candy, i kid you not, (okay maybe i kid a little but it wasn't far from) they became candy crack addicts and were doing as close to candy cocaine lines as they could.
they had chocolate smeared over the faces, and were shaking/ in a sugar coma by the end of it.
we definitely will not have that much candy in our house ever again. they cant handle it.
and no dear healthy family of mine that is reading this, they were not in fact shaking. but they did have glassy eyes and were moving really REALLY fast and talking a mile a minute and were super annoying. personally i would of taken the shaking. yes, im kidding.

so we had:

 megan, jeni (aka bunny jeni) deedee, faith, and anna.
im just grateful i got this picture of all of them as the one i asked someone else to take:

 turned out like this. oh well. sorry ladies, if you squint you can see it really is us. :)
i'm grateful for the fact that i didn't have to plan a thing, and really this little get together just fell into place nonchalantly and kind of really unplanned. i just provided the house...with kids. im sure they went home SUPER rested.

pretty sure the highlight of the time (beside sewing for a minute inbetween salty and sweet snacks) was this yummy rabbit cake deedee made for jeni for her birthday.
we all ate the rabbit and swore never to speak of it to george.
it kind of felt all wrong yet so yummy at the same time...
we'll talk soon.
i'll be over here trying to climb out of this pile i've created.