Happy Spring

I sure hope it's warming up for those of you who are eagerly awaiting the onset of spring! It's still a bit chilly around here, but there are little signs popping up each day and that alone is warming my spirits.

Early Bird, my new fabric collection for Moda is now in stores and I wanted to give you some cute and fun Easter-ie project ideas. The first are these adorable love birds. Tutorial and templates can be found here. I used fabric strips to wrap a wooden embroidery hoop, sewed the birds on and added a looped fabric strip to the top to make this sweet bird mobile!

Next is this fun fabric nest/basket/bowl. Tutorial can be found here. One tip (i learned the hard way), do not use hot glue to tack the ends of each fabric strip to the cording. I use mine as a catch all for large-ish scraps. All the other scraps get tossed on the floor ;)

Here is another bird style. This was infamously known as the "Spool Bird" and was designed by Michael Fulkerson. The template can be found on Pinterest, and you can visit Michael's Etsy shop to purchase his whimsical bird mobiles.

The next one is this super cute fabric Easter basket. It was designed by Amy Smart whose blog Diary of a Quilter has loads of creative sewing projects of all kinds! The basket is a free tutorial complete with templates and easy-to-follow instructions. And what would an Easter basket be without...

... Easter eggs! Kim Kruzich has templates and a tutorial over on her blog Retro Mama. 

They were so fun to make, i couldn't stop!

If you have any favorite Easter/spring projects you'd like to share, please leave a comment and link us up to more great ideas! Thank you.

And lastly, our Morning Glory and Nest patterns are available on our website!

Happy Spring! (and happy Autumn for our friends in other parts of the globe)

XO,

kate

Quiltcon Savannah!

What a pleasure to be with so many colorful creators from all over the world at Quiltcon in Savannah! Great thanks to Moda Fabrics United Notions for inviting me to join them there. Three creative leaders from Moda -- Lissa Alexander, Carrie Nelson, and Holly Hickman of "Urban Chicks" -- were joined by senior sales ambassador Amy Matheny. They did a wonderful job in hosting visitors to the Moda booth. The booth featured quilts designed by my friend and fellow Moda designer "Zen Chic" Brigitte Heitland, who conducted face-to-face consultations on designing quilts to go with interior spaces, based on her book "Zen Chic Inspired". Great work, everyone! In addition, I loved participating in the "Tap Into Your Creativity" panel moderated very smoothly by Jen Carlton Baily. We were joined by a thoughtful group of multitalented creatives: Heather Givans of Crimson Tate, the celebrated Bernina educator Nina McVeigh, quilt writer and creator Lisa Ruble, Janome educator and fiber artist Erin Schlosser, and an audience of several hundred attendees. In between the panel and joining the team at the Moda booth, I was fortunate to see or meet with friends, new and old, including Garen Brien Sherwood, Holly Broadland of Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild, Erin Sampson and Alex Veronelli of Aurifil Italian Threads, Sarah Craig, Sarah Golden, Australian quilter and author Peta Peace and her very nice husband Richard, Hannah Goldstein, Thomas Knauer, Maureen Weflen of the Quilters Guild of Indianapolis, Carla Lissa, Denyse Schmidt, Jenny Doan and the great Missouri Star crew, Lizzy Rockwell, Southern CT Modern Quilt Guild. I also got to view so many amazing quilts. I posted a few to my Instagram and my Facebook pages. My great admiration goes out to all of you who submitted your special works to this festival. You inspire me and so many others. Bravo!