Citrus Star

Here's a solids story that will brighten your day or your room. Quiltmaker's July/August issue features a cheerful, really beautiful quilt made from our FreeSpirit Designer Essentials. It's amazing how combining bright, vibrant, solid hues can make such an uplifting statement. Imagine this quilt in a warm solid or cool solid palette. Color can be the single most influential element in changing the look of your quilt and a room.

Anna Maria's LouLouthi and New Needleworks

Introduced at Quilt Market was Anna Maria Horner's new collection of fabric, LouLouthi, and her new needleworks collection. Watch this interview with Kris and Kim from DIY Dish. Anna takes you through her needleworks collection, the inspiration behind her new line, her new patterns and a bit of what inspires her.

To Market, To Market

Phew! Another Spring International Quilt Market has come and gone and we are certain you are going to love, love, love the fabrics we have created with our Designer's. This market found some of your favorite designers introducing new substrates, new designs, new Lifestyle products plus new patterns and books. So much newness, you will be overwhelmingly inspired to sew, quilt, organize and hand stitch everything you own.

For instance, Anna Maria Horner introduced her LouLouthi line. Greek for the name flower, LouLouthi includes cottons, voiles, laminates and her special new needlework (printed cross stitch) fabric. To go along with these gorgeous fabrics whose colorways are named after her daughters, are her four collections of hand-picked colors of size 8 Anchor Pearl Cottons and six-strand Anchor embroidery flosses as well as fabric covered sewing and lifestyle covered craft boxes. Edging all of this, were spools of LouLouthi single-fold bias binding in 1 1/8" and 2 1/4" widths, perfect for easily binding a quilt or edging any sewing project. All these new products deserved a celebration . . . cupcakes iced in the perfect LouLouthi colors, of course.







Leaping into our hearts, and almost certain yours is Tula Pink's Prince Charming. Now you don't have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your true Prince Charming,Tula has done that for you. Do, though, look for Tula's signature hidden surprises in her new collection. By the way, Tula's booth won an award for best decorated single booth.

Verna Mosquera's Tea Cakes created the perfect tea party atmosphere. Complete with cupcake pin cushions and appliqued candy canes and sweet treats, Tea Cakes will give you that feminine touch.

Valori Wells once again wows us with her Wrenly Collection. Showing these cottons, sateens and voiles in a comfy suite-like setting, you'll love the clean bold prints and all over florals. Wrenly is also great for combining with Val's linen collection Jenaveve.

New FreeSpirit designer Mark Cesarik enlisted Etsy sewers to create a special occassion dress as well as children's clothing, purses, tote bags and more to display in Calypso Swing fabricated booth. Mark also introduced a second collection Morning Tides due out in July.

Rowan designer Amy Butler brought new popular Soul Blossom collection to market in some gorgeous new substrates; rayon, corduroy, voile and organic cotton. Each of these new substrates are incredibly soft, including the corduroy, perfect for clothing or a summer quilt.

Joel and Laurie Dewberry were on hand to introduce Joel's new Heirloom collection, available in cotton, sateen, laminate and voile. Laurie designed fashionable patterns to accompany this beautiful collection which is Joel's take on his mother's, famous crafter Donna Dewberry, signature flower, the cabbage rose.

Also on hand to promote their fabrics where Jennifer Paganelli who also launched her new book A Girl's world; Erin McMorris with her colorful Summersault fabrics and Jenenean Morrison's retro-looking Silent Cinema.

Pernilla's Journey from Tina Givens was introduced. Featuing whimsical sea horses and child like elephants, Tina's new cotton and linen collection was inspired by a story book she used to read over and over when she was a child.

Heather Bailey introduced a new substrate, canvas, in her Garden District collection. The canvas is a nice weight suitable for home dec projects. Also in sateen, Garden District will be available in August.

But that's not all. George Mendoza's Color of the Wind, Nel Whatmore's Sleeping Beauty, Jazz City from Art of Possibilities, Dena Fishbein's Taza, Donna Dewberry's Glorious Garden plus two Holiday collections; Kathy Davis Ambrosia and Dena Fishbein's Kumari Holiday were some of the other collections seen on fabric for the first time at Market.

Rounding out these awesome collections were a plethora of finished products including Designer Essential fabric bundles and Ty Pennington Impressions fabric kits, panels and lifestyle fabric covered boxes.

It was a hetic but very exciting three days and we wish all of you could have been there to meet our designers, shop the show and just have plain old quilting fun!

FreeSpirit Artist Trio Sew4Home; Silent Cinema Giveaway

FreeSpirit has joined forces with Sew4Home to share with their readers our designer's incredible talents; what inspires their fabric collections, a tutorial and then a giveaway. Last month, Jenean Morrison was featured along with a pillow tutorial using her new collection Silent Cinema. To culminate the Silent Cinema series, we are giving away a FreeSpirit gift pack including one yard cuts of every cotton fabric in the Silent Cinema collection. Visit Sew4Home now through May 27 and leave an artistic comment on the giveaway posting. One random winner will be chosen. Winner must be from the USA. It is a a bag full of goodies for anyone who loves fabric, quilting and sewing! Make a comment today on Sew4Home.

Congratulations! Five winners selected

Congratulations to Cara, MamaT, CarrieP, Rebecca and Kaholly who commented on our post about Karen Gray's shop and each won the newest issue of Quilt Sampler signed by Karen. You should be receiving an email from us asking for your mailing address. Thank you all for your comments. We love hearing from you. Great quilt shops inspire our creativity and wrapped their arms around us in friendship . . . kind of like a quilt. Please look for the newest issue of Quilt Sampler on sale now. It's a keeper. Here is one last look at Karen's shop!