desimms clips 4u

YAY! For those of you waiting on the new oilcloths to be available I think these images speak for themselves! But I should add that they really JUST showed up on my front door step, and are located right next to the flip flops, empty boxes, baby jogger, and leaning against that spot of the house where the kids wrote 'WELCOM' in sidewalk-chalk (which should not to be confused with on-the front-of-house-chalk, of course). With my iddybit of sample yardage that we got a few weeks ago, we promptly whipped up two Multi-taskers and lined them each in the new oilcloths. I also made a two-sided changing pad (top pic), cotton fabric on one side, oilcloth on the other and quilt batting in the center. Simple. This could be an obvious detail, but when a change is particularly stinky- its quite convenient to use the slick, wipe-able side of the pad. Right. You knew that. Oh I also will be making a splat mat here soon since the little mr. is almost ready for high chair. (how is it t...

Finally here. Oh joy. Here for you today are up-close views and some words about my palette inspirations for my Little Folks collection. (There are other members of this fabric family that we'll meet later this week.) Little Folks prints and the solids included in each palette are printed on the softest 55" cotton voile, and have a beautiful hand, high thread count, gorgeous drape and sew up in the most buttery-soft way you can imagine. I'll have more to say about the qualities and performance of these fabrics in the coming days as I share the rest of the collection and project ideas. The images in the slideshows below represent about 5x5" of fabric so you can see they are on a much smaller scale than typical for me. The scale makes the fabrics so wonderuflly ideal for small patchwork, many applications of clothing for little ones and adults and I've just begun the sewing. While the artwork carries forth alot of my musings from Good Folks, I relished in desig...

I am not going to start every post with a bouquet of flowers, I'll eventually run out of flower money, but might be taking donations soon. Like an idiot, I let my publisher talk me into creating a video snippet for the new book (due April 2010) so yesterday we spent the entire day trying to get me to say 3 minutes worth of intelligent things about the book. Entire day. Not sure we got it. I'm not sure I said anything intelligent at all, and had to start over about 17 times just getting the title of my book out. Video is such a challenging thing, and while the crew made it as easy as it could possibly be, its just nervy, at least for me. I feel like my eyes get glassy and that I'm staring into the sun once I'm suppose to do something. But there were at least pretty flowers in the studio which I am almost certain are not going to be part of the final cut video. Yet its all I could think about in preparation for the shoot. Must have gorgeous flowers, must have gor...

So had you walked by, here is what you would have seen. At a glance, I'll run through and give you some words for all of this from the scenic view, then I hope to get down to nitty gritty and share a slideshow of the fabric collections, patterns, project inspirations and so on in the coming days. Flowers above from my favorite place to buy flowers (and candy) in Houston~ Central Market . This is a new/old couch that belonged to Jeff's grandma. I think she would have liked it like this-trust me. The coverlet on the wall is simply patched squares, turned on point, insulated with one single layer of muslin in the center, backed with more voile and hand tied at the corners of each square (thanks to my mom). Makes a lovely lighter-weight option for warm weather or layered with other snuggly items for cooler weather. In the back ground you see two of the three upcoming new sewing patterns. This is the cozy corner. A poster of Roman +flannel fabric was an easy pull into the b...

One item I relished in making was this patchwork coverlet from an assortment of my new collection of printed cotton voiles called Little Folks. This also includes squares of the "Square Dance" printed panels that are printed on dobby dot cotton (similar to swiss dot). I will introduce you to them all individually soon, but going through photos now and wanted to start leaking them out. It isn't very often that I make quilts with such large pieces. And though these are smaller prints, for the most part than I've ever designed, I was inspired to play with fields of them rather than cut them up too small or too complicated. I like how, as a whole, the squares of tinier prints take on a solid tone. Fun. More soon ~ xoxo, Anna

Please excuse Anna for not attending the blog for the past several days. She has been writing the final edits to her book, wrapping up book photography, shooting the covers of three new sewing patterns, finalizing the design of those patterns, sewing up a storm for quilt market, overseeing lots of sample sewing for quilt market where she launched a new family of fabrics including voiles, solids, laminates, dobby dots, and flannels, attending the quilt market which required a 28hr round trip pulling a trailer filled with lots of other stuff she made, caring for or arranging for the care of 4 of her children- 3 of which became ill - and of course nursing or pumping every 3 hours pretty much throughout. And there might have been a shower in there somewhere, but no evidence of that. We will be back shortly with evidence of all of that in no particular order. Thanks for your patience and understanding!