This is a great one for 4th of July coming up! To join my VIP group for free, go here: http://eepurl.com/dN2RcY. I regularly RESEND files so be sure to sign up so that you are getting all my free tutorials!
A couple of weeks back my glamper was being shown at the Utah Quilting and Sewing Marketplace and we decided to do a video for you! Come walk through the glamper with me!
I’m still decompressing a bit from market. In fact, when we finished and pulled the entire double booth down, I looked through my photos on my phone and realized that I had been so busy, I hardly took ANY pictures. WHHHAAAT? Whoops.
In the end, you’ll have to visit the hastag #carinaglamps on instagram to see all the going ons that happened in my booth over the course of the three glorious days at Quilt Market 2016 in Salt Lake City.
First off, a story. My glamper was suppose to go in before all the pipe and drape went up in the convention center.
Ya. They forgot about me. When I called the Tuesday before set up, they realized their mistake. So I pulled it in at 8am Wednesday before everyone else came to set up (important since we didn’t want to drive over anyone else and their booths). One of the dock workers pulled it into the Salt Palace for me since exhibitors were technically not allowed in yet. All good.
A bit later, a DIFFERENT dock worker came and asked me if I wanted the door facing out. I’m not sure what the expression on my face was, but I can tell you I was extremely puzzled and confused. I think I mumbled a, “Um, yes? I mean, I want people to actually go INTO it.” Apparently, they had pulled the glamper in BACKWARDS with the door facing the inside of the booth (as in, no one would be able to actually get into it). I believe I heard the dock worker mumble something along the lines of, “I told those idiots that.” as he ran in to the scene of the crime.
Needless to say, they fixed it. I’m not sure how well my booth would have gone over if no one was able to actually go into it to see all the pretty Posy Garden fabric (heehee!).
Because I didn’t leave my booth much, I only have highlights for you. Maybe the biggest highlight (for me) was that the booth won the Creativity Award. I was SO honored! I hadn’t thought about booth awards and I felt grateful to get one. (Photos below: Left—Creativity Booth Award; Right: Baby Coco visits the glamper)
(Photo below: Left—I spent a lot of time on the chalkboards for this booth; Right—First day of the show.)
Most of my double booth was taken up by the glamper (which is about 10′ Wide and 17′ in Length), but we also had a fun section of MiniLou at the front and a section in the back for patterns and block of the month. And that darling sign above (the white one with my logo on it) was made by my sister who has a darling etsy shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/SKWoodDesigns. She also made the MiniLou one below. (Photos below: Left—this was taken by @emmalinebags; Right—MiniLou).
I wish I could take credit for all the wonderful sewing in the glamper, but I can’t. I had some fabulous sewers put together many of the projects in the booth. A big thank you to @stitchingrevival Christine Cook, @quiltstorymeg Megan, @mystitchstory Angie Tackett, @amylouwhosews Amy Webb, @farmwifejournal Cherilyn Dunn, @diaryofaquilter Amy Smart 20.2, @jedicraftgirl Amanda Neiderhauser and @happylittlecottage1 Debbie Homick. They made wonderful minis for the glamper.
(Photos below: Left—Amy Smart shows off her mini; Right—Flying Geese Pillow and Garden Patch Quilt I made using my Posy Garden fabric).
(Photos below: Amanda Niederhauser and her mini; Christine Cook and her mini).
Last but not least, my mom came into town and helped with my kids, sewing, and cleaning to get me ready for market. She sewed all the curtains, cushions, and gulp, the piping for all the pillows. Did I mention I HATE doing the piping. Ya, she saved me!
(Photos below: Left—Minilou was all the rage at market!; Right—My mom and me at the Chinese bash we threw after market.—That’s my I-am-happy-it-is-all-over-with smile-wink, wink.).
It was so fun to catch up with new and old friends. The photos below include Heather Spurlock who works at Elaine’s Quilt Shop (BTW the glamper will be there with classes in August! Stay tuned!) and Deanna Hartvigsen who used to be with Mormon Handicraft but has since retired. Deanna is a dear friend and recently has gone through several rounds of chemotherapy. I couldn’t have been more glad to see her!
The photo to the left is of MOST of the Riley Blake designers. A few of the designers were missing in this shot.
The other photo is of Josh and I dressed up for the Riley Blake 80’s party. Anybody want to guess at Josh’s movie reference?
Any that’s the wrap up! It’s always such a treat to be part of the Riley Blake team and I can’t wait for Posy Garden to hit a store near you! Hopefully, I’ll have the swatch book up for it soon!
This little thing called Quilt Market has taken over my life. For the next two weeks, I will be cutting, sewing, tucking, and painting (yes, painting!) to get everything ready for Quilt Market.
For those of you who do not know what Quilt Market is, it is a tradeshow for retailers to purchase the new fabric lines coming out. It is twice a year and this spring, it happens to be in Salt Lake. If you are REALLY curious about what Quilt Market is like, you can check out the video I did of several booths in Portland 2013. Skip through to see the different booths (there are a lot!).
Anyway, I have some sneaky peeks of some of the mini quilts that have been arriving for the glamper. Because this Quilt Market is in Salt Lake, I have the awesome opportunity to feature the glamper in my booth!
(The photo above is a mini made by Debbie of @HappyLittleCottage1).
This darling little bike one is made by Cherilyn of @FarmWifeJournal. All the little hand stitching is SO sweet!
Most of these mini’s will be placed on the cabinets of the glamper for the show. We’ll also use them in a glamper stop we are doing at Elaine’s Quilt Shop a little later in the summer when my new fabric line Posy Garden is released (Right now we are using digital prints and strike offs!).
This one was made by Amy of @AmyLouWhoSews….little twinkling stars! Love!
The beauty above was made by Angie of @MyStitchStory. Love the little hand sewing of the stems of these flowers.
This little flower mini was made by Amanda of @JediCraftGirl. I love how well this one features all of the fabrics in the Posy Garden fabric collection!
How about the sweetness (and awesome machine quilting?) done by Christine of @StitchingRevival.
I have a couple more that we haven’t photographed yet, so you’ll just have to wait on those. But what a fabulous sneak peek, right?
I’m finally back from Quilt Market and so excited to be part of the Riley Blake Blog Tour! I have a few pics from Quilt Market in Minneapolis in this post too.
So building Wiltshire Daisy began with color. That doesn’t always happen for me. I generally start with a concept and begin drawing the master fabric from an image in my head. This time I knew I wanted to create a gray and pink colorway. I began drawing the cabbage roses and started adding little drops of orange and yellow into the mix. Yellow and pink are two of my favorite colors together (I call them citrus—lemon and grapefruit). It seemed natural at that point to also throw in the orange (for some extra citrus flavor).
(photo to the left—Baby Hexi Quilt—free pattern coming to the blog in the next two weeks / photo below, right—Me at Quilt Market arranging my booth / photo below, left—my girls sporting Wiltshire Daisy dresses I whipped up one Sunday for church)
Wiltshire Daisy is probably my favorite line to date. It’s very soft and shabby chic. (photo below, right—Little Love Nest Ruffle Dress for the 18 inch doll in the gray master fabric / photo below, left—my Quilt Market booth in the Riley Blake Booth with Emily Taylor)
If you love this fabric, make sure and take a peek at the free Around the World Quilt pattern here. You can also follow me on instagram to see what else I’m making with this fabric (as well as a sneak peek at my fall line for Riley Blake!).
At the moment, I am writing from the Denver Airport. I got on an early morning flight to come home from Quilt Market this morning (for a few pics of this, visit my instagram feed: carinagardner). I taught a schoolhouse, talked to distributors, and reconnected with others in the industry. It was the perfect in-and-out trip.
I also introduced two new sewing patterns that are now available in my shop and hopefully in a quilt shop near you with in the next couple of weeks!
First is my Toodaloo Back Pack. This is part of our Beginner Sewing Series and is sooo easy to put together! I specifically designed it so that there where no hard closures so that you can do this project with your tween or teenager. It’s also darling in boy fabric (see the back of the Toodaloo cover below).
I also came out with a new 18 inch doll pattern. I ADORE this pattern! It’s called the Little Sweet Lola Outfit and comes with a pattern for the blouse, ruffle shorts, drawstring pants, and ruffle pants.
Now that I’m headed home, Susan and I are working on getting together the schedule for the spring Glamper Tour. I also plan on painting the outside before the weather turns on me. Fingers crossed I can get it done!
As for today, I’m going home to snuggle my baby and girls. They had the croup last week and there were a few tears when I left on Thursday. Josh has been holding down the fort, which has been no easy job with all those sick kiddos.
My first class on my new site starts today—Illustrator Basics CS6 Course 1. It’s a foundation course for all the design courses I plan on teaching. I’m so excited to have everyone in class! We are going to have a good time and I hope everyone learns a lot of Illustrator!
I myself have been working in Illustrator pretty intensively the last month. I am finishing up our five sewing patterns in the hopes of getting them to print by Wednesday so we get them for Quilt Market. If you follow the instagram feed, you’ve had a sneak peek into what I have been up to. Full reveal to come in a couple of weeks.
I’m also trying to finalize our June line for Carta Bella as well as finish our August and Christmas lines. A lot going on around here.
I also just preordered Evening Blooms for our shop. I was thrilled to design Riley Blake’s black and white line. I’m more thrilled to sew with it.
For now I’m enjoying all the sewing projects I have with Remember.
I am finally getting around to putting away boxes and furniture from my crates from Quilt Market. As promised, my girls got their first pick of the Rini Dolls from the show. Then Josh was lovely enough to bring in all the heavy boxes. I’ve been pulling out stuff and replacing it in my studio so that we can get around to photoshooting it for the newsletter this coming week.
My camera has been out a lot this last week as I have been prepping marketing materials for Carta Bella. We’ll be revealing two more lines on Wednesday. I’m excited about both! Be sure and check those out along with the facebook page where Lindsay and I seem to constantly be giving away stuff.
Speaking of giveaways, it’s looking like I will have some extra goodies from Songbird™ for giveaways. There’s only so much my tiny studio can hold soooooo be on the look out for a giveaway soon.
I intended to post the day after Quilt Market, but it’s been almost a week and I’m finally just catching my breath! This was probably the most exciting show I’ve attended simply because it was my first time exhibiting. We had been working on the tradeshow booth for months and this is what we had to show for it:
I was ecstatic with how the booth turned out. Things I learned this time around:
+ There’s a reason you never see pictures of the booths during set up. You don’t have time to pull out your camera because you are so busy just trying to get it all together! After we had most of it set up, I went and grabbed my camera…too late. So I don’t have any pictures of the guys putting it up…which is a shame because it was pretty cool to see it all come together.
+ I couldn’t have done the show without Josh and the Riley Blake team. My booth was SO heavy, and it took some serious manpower to get it up.
+ I already feel sorry for the Echo Park and Carta Bella guys since they will be putting this up in a couple of months…yes, I will be supervising. Best. job. ever.
+ Help is necessary when you only have one week to sew (Thank you to my mom who made that huge quilt in only a couple of days and Lisa in my neighborhood who embroidered the pillow below).
+ Some of my favorite pieces were teeny-tiny and you had to get up close to really see them (like the cubby full of birds that is going into my studio the moment I get my crate back!).
+ That at the end of the day, my favorite thing about Quilt Market was simply getting to connect with sewers and reconnect with all the people I already knew. (The picture below is with the Riley Blake gals).
Hope you enjoyed all the photos! Josh and I had a wonderful time, and we are excited to do it again (especially when I am NOT pregnant:).
Quilt Market is a week away and I’m finally getting around to showing you my next line—SongBird™. My booth at Quilt Market will be featuring this line. Most of the sewing is done, and I even have a new pattern I’ll be introducing at Market (Don’t worry, I’ll show it here soon as well!).
Never heard of Quilt Market? It’s a tradeshow for distributors, retailers, manufacturers, and designers to show off what is new in the fabric world. I’ve blogged about the Minneapolis Show 2010 here and the Salt Lake Show 2011 here.
This is my first ever Quilt Market where I’ll have my own booth. I started thinking about it last September and started actual work on it this February. What started out as one crate became two + lots of loading issues. To get the crates from my house to Riley Blake we had two freight trucks arrive (one that was tall enough and one with a liftgate) to get them out to Riley Blake’s warehouse.
The actual loading of the crates wasn’t a picnic either. Poor Josh had to reorganize twice. We packed them pretty full.
Josh is coming with me to Kansas City QM to do the heavy lifting and to help me out in general.
If you are coming to the show, please come visit me in Booth # 1529. If you aren’t coming to the show, send your quilt show owners my way! They (or you) can also visit me in a Schoolhouse presentation at 10:40am in Room 2505A on the new line and how to make the new sewing pattern.
You can check out all the fabrics in Songbird by clicking on one of the photos in this post. It is all summery-goodness! It hits quilt shops in June (2012).
It’s been so busy since I got back from Vegas that I haven’t posted anything (well, much of anything) about Spraguefest. In fact, there was so much to show and write about that we decided to just add it to our newsletter.
In fact, we’ve got a lot of great stuff coming out in this quarter’s newsletter including an introduction to the fabulous Susan (many references, but never a formal introduction). How about a new quilt pattern? Simple and modern…you know me! Keep your eyes out for the 5th issue of our newsletter coming in a couple of days! Never seen our newsletter? You can check them out (and sign up for) them here.
So what’s been keeping me so busy? I just finished Art of Digital Design 2, which was critique-heavy. Everyone did a great job and it is sad to see that class end:(. The other thing I have been working on has kept my sewing machine a-humin’. If you attend Quilt Market, keep an eye out for my goodies in the Riley Blake booth. So what is it you say (the suspense is killing me!)? Four brand-new patterns! They won’t arrive until January, but I’ll give you lots of sneak peeks and Riley Blake will be showing off these new patterns in Dainty Blossoms™ at Quilt Market in Houston.
At Quilt Market this last May I had the opportunity to visit with Daria at the Boutique Café. She has the interview up and a giveaway of one my sewing patterns. You’ll notice I make a big announcement about where my fabric is going at the end of the interview (did you catch it?). We will officially announce and show you some yummy samples of the new fabric line in our next newsletter.
Speaking of sewing patterns, I’m in the middle of finishing up two more patterns! I hope to have them finished up by the end of the month (waiting on my Pinfeathers, Dress Up, and Baby Safari to arrive to finish them up!). I can’t wait to show you! So back to the sewing machine for me!
Crimped hair, jellys, and awful blue eye shadow…classic 80s. Here we are on our way to Riley Blake’s 80s party. My brother-in-law said that Josh looks like Glenn Gulia—the resemblance IS uncanny.
I haven’t posted for a while so here’s a few things going on:
+ I have been working hard on Art of Digital Design critiques. I hope to have them finished this coming week!
+ Art of Digital Design 2 will be up at JessicaSprague.com sometime this coming month. The class will start August 22nd. Plan on some serious designwork and a series of assignments that will help take your skills to a whole new level!
+ If you are a sewing superstar, check out my 3 fabric lines coming out June-July. Of course, we will have free quilt patterns and projects on the blog and newsletter.
+ Along with new fabric lines, comes sewing patterns! Expect 3 more patterns shipped to stores in July! I am SO excited about the new children’s clothing we are introducing! Hopefully, you’ve had a chance to get your hands on one of our current patterns & checked out the beautiful packaging and easy instructions.
I was a happy girl at Quilt Market this weekend. Susan and Emily walked the show with me and we have a fabulous time! It was nice to have market in town (here in SLC). Here’s a sampling of my Friday (prepare yourself for a long and picture-heavy post!):
This was fun! My little bio at Northcott and a few of my patterns on display at The Pattern Peddler’s booth.
Here’s one of my new favorite people-Rebeckah Merkle. Here booth was fab and she was sweet too! She has a new line with Timeless Treasures.
This fabulous footwear belongs to Anna Marie Horner’s daughter. Anna Marie passed on some serious style to her daughter.
If you attended market, you might have joined in the All Dolled Up contest that was going on. This fabulous quilt was at one of those booths. And that flower…well, how could I NOT take a photograph of it? Of course, I have no idea what booth it was in.
These lovely ladies (Megan of the Brassy Apple and Daria of the Boutique Cafe) are giving away one of my Ruffle Dress Patterns! Check out their podcast interview with me in a couple of weeks at the Boutique Cafe!
Finally, I had to show you a little goodness from the Seven Islands booth. I think Susan was drooling…literally.
That’s a pretty decent sampling of my two days at market. Hopefully, I’ll get some pics up soon of Josh and me in our 80’s gear for the Riley Blake party. If I haven’t scared you away yet, that post might do it.
A preview of what I did today at Quilt Market Spring 2011!
Much more to come, but for now I need to plop myself into bed! (If you are wondering we are at designer Amanda Herring’s booth-She is just as lovely as her designs!). Pictured here-Emily, Susan, Me, and Amanda.
On Saturday, I did a quick run down to the Southtowne Expo to visit the Machine Quilting Show. It was a busy day, but I’m so glad I had a chance to go. My friends Emily and Laura spotted my Love Next™ fabric in this darling quilt…it made my day!
I’m pretty excited about this coming week…it’s Quilt Market! While you won’t see me with a booth at this one, you will be able to catch me part of the day on Friday at the Riley Blake and Northcott booths. You’ll be able to check out my next three lines due out this summer at the Northcott booth. I’ll also be wandering the show. Feel free to stop me and say hello!
Couldn’t help myself! I had to take a photo in the Summit neighborhood while I was on Grand Avenue in St. Paul.
I had a little stop at Cafe Latte while on Grand Avenue. I got a little treat take home via airplane for my sweetie.
If you can’t tell I’m a total foodie. The people to the side of me could only stare at me taking pictures of my food! Sorry folks! I document my food if it looks this good.
As promised, I’m writing reporting back on Quilt Market! It was my first day, and as a wide-eyed newbie, I was completely enthralled with everything! One thing that made me happy, happy, happy, was to be in Minnesota again! Here are the highlights:
I hung out at the Northcott™ booth this morning before walking the show floor.
Shari Berry’s new line Child’s Play for Northcott™. So sweet! The ABC fabric is my favorite!
These felt cakes are SOOOOOO adorable! I loved walking the show for this kind of stuff!
Lunch with some new friends! Bloggers John, Kaye, and Jennifer (Jennifer’s friend Doe took the photo).
I picked up Jen Allyson and Deena at the airport after a day at the Convention Center. We went to one of my favorite restaurants Muffuletta in Anthony Park.
Here we are! Happy and full!
Okay, so that’s the wrap for the first day. Sorry there aren’t more descriptions but I need to get myself to bed for another fun-filled day tomorrow!
We’ve been a busy crew here at the Gardner house the last few weeks! Among other things we had family pictures taken (by the amazing Susan Haglund).Good timing too so that I could get these amazing photos of Siri wearing the first draft of a pattern I’ve been working on. Don’t you worry, I’ll be whipping this ruffly-thing up in Coquette™ too.
I ran into friend Melissa Esplin tonight (I was trying to sneak into JoAnn’s looking pretty awful and got caught!), who inspired me to try and get all those great projects I’ve been hoarding up on my blog. I have a few months of back log (I know, I know, did I mention I’ve been busy?), and I’m going to do my best to get them rolling out so you can be inspired too. Oh ya, and you certainly will be seeing a post from me this weekend: I’ll be reporting from Quilt Market in Minneapolis. I’m looking forward to seeing old friends there and attending this amazing show for the first time. I’ll be sure to snap a lot of photos of my favs!
I’m still decompressing a bit from market. In fact, when we finished and pulled the entire double booth down, I looked through my photos on my phone and realized that I had been so busy, I hardly took ANY pictures. WHHHAAAT? Whoops.
It’s been so busy since I got back from Vegas that I haven’t posted anything (well, much of anything) about Spraguefest. In fact, there was so much to show and write about that we decided to just add it to our newsletter.
Crimped hair, jellys, and awful blue eye shadow…classic 80s. Here we are on our way to 
I ran into friend