National Sewing Month Featuring Jennifer Paganelli

Jennifer shares her earliest sewing memory in honor of National Sewing Month!

In 1970, at the age of 12, I anxiously awaiting the arrival of my two sisters Shana and Meghan.  I was in 5^th grade at St. Croix Country Day School.  I knew my life as I knew it was going to change dramatically. It was such an exciting and thrilling time in our family.

Mom was committed to bed rest and I remember visiting her in her bedroom. We played games, thought of baby names and guessed the sexes. My twin brother Jimmy (yes, you heard that right, my mom had two sets of twins) threatened to run away if they were both girls. 

My mom had six kids all together with 10 years between the youngest and the oldest, Bridget who was 15, and had a boyfriend.  These babies were going to definitely going to cramp here style. 

I got busy sewing. I made my siblings pajamas and I overheard my brothers and sisters grouching that they didn’t fit and the crouch was down to their knees yada yada. My mother bribed them with candy and Cracker Jacks to wear them just one night without complaining.  I was blissfully unaware and just kept sewing.

My mom saw promise and sent me to the College of the Virgin Islands for extended education classes. We would stop at Woolworths to get the fabrics, thread, etc. – everything I needed. It was the icing on the cake! After the babies were born, I made matching baby outfits in class. My mom, being the wonderful mother she was, put them in the front row of church when they were old enough to wear the dresses and bonnets. I was beaming with pride…soaking up the love that welcomed the babies in their cherished outfits.  

Make sure to sign up for a chance to win fabric from Jennifer along with our Coats Quilt+ thread! You will also be entered for a chance to win our Grand Prize giveaway featuring SEW many goodies including a Janome AMH-100 Machine! ENTER TO WIN HERE!

The Artist UnSEWn Series presents Sunny Isle by Jennifer Paganelli

So picture an Island in the Caribbean surrounded by beautiful beaches and miles of ocean to forever and sometimes the shape of another island appears on the horizon or a ships silhouette and we all get excited and stand on the balcony or our home and the one who spotted it gets all the kudos.  

What we don’t realize is that we live differently from most folks and sometimes the extraordinary vision becomes everyday common place.  Its those memories of wonder that have seared into my memory and come through every time I sit down in my studio to create a collection. Sunny Isle is no different. It was the place we went to see a movie at the local theatre or shop at Woolworths.  It was on the other side of the island and felt so far away. I have never left there. St. Croix has never left me.  Salt water patinas on everything . Faded fabrics from the sun with highlights of their originality tucked into the folds of the fabric. That’s what I try to capture that faded piece with the unseen actual color way on the underside. The one that didn’t see the sun.  I like fabrics to glow that’s where I find the best of me.

So for quilters these fabrics and their resulting quilts love to make you happy.  I start with a happy heart and add joy. These colors burst on the scene with sunshine at their backs.  These colors inspired by the islands of my early childhood will take you places its almost like “vacation was woven into the fabric”  You begin thinking bright beach chairs,sun umbrellas, swimsuits and beach towels when you see these designs, its if we took your memories of all your vacations and wove them up.  So go ahead Welcome a baby, snuggle a pet , stay warm with your loved one, let it spark happiness in your mind. Let the fabric evoke that place in you where you first felt loved.  I hope I get to be that quilt. 

Sunny Stars Quilt designed by Monique Reynolds

Summer Time Stash Cleaning!

It’s Summer time and with the days getting longer it's a great time get your stash organized. . . hope that all those UFOs (unidentified finished objects) become what they were intended to be and hope that your stash of fabric, somehow miraculously may dwindle a bit! Dwindle you say? How could that possibly happen when more and more beautiful fabrics are being introduced every minute of every day!

Well our goal is to help dwindle that stash so that you can continue to take advantage of such treasures like FreeSpirit Beauty Queen by Jennifer Paginelli or Lovelorn by Jenean Morrison.  Here is a laundry list of quick ideas guaranteed to bust your stash and make room for some new fabrics!

Create a scrappy anthropology like pillow.  Inspired by an urban ready-made pillow, this uses Rowan Kaffe Collective fabric but certainly any color story would work.

 

Tea Towels are a nice hostess gift and or a nice detail to spruce up any guest bathroom. These are made from FreeSpirit Valentine Rose by Tanya Whelan but any floral, shabby chic fabric will do.

Novelty kitchen décor or a little gift for your friend who loves chickens, these Wired Chicks use a tiny bit of fabric for a whole lot of fun décor --  FreeSpirit Fowl Play by Luelle Doss is the perfect fabric for such frivolity.

 

Make this Garden-inspired Tote which can be the perfect complement to a spring shift dress using FreeSpirit Secret Garden by Nel Whatmore – a patchy tote with trendy hand stitched detail.

A modern twist on a scrappy idea can be found in the Beechwood Park Quilt featuring FreeSpirit Beechwood Park by Jenean Morrison.  Use any bright and colorful stash fabrics, big and small prints, to create this perfect picnic or veranda throw.

Create coasters customized to match your décor. A linen/cotton blend, like FreeSpirit Novella, looks classy but yet is totally machine washable and totally only requires less than half a yard of fabric to create four.  

Beauty Queen by Jennifer Paganelli

A Beauty Queen always gets flowers so I wanted big colorful bouquets, and to infuse lots of color and give her a bouquet to remember. How about a Beauty Queen quilt? Something to celebrate the Beauty Queen in all of us. I always reach for saturated color and greens, blues and pinks are high on my roster of color choices. But it was primarily the florals and the way they would interact with the two  dimensional designs that got me most excited. We have our wonderful crisp stripe and you can choose to go vertical, horizontal, and every which way to create the most dynamic of quilts, apparel and home decor products. I also included a border print that jumps around and gives it all that party vibration and a wonderful chain link for tying it all together.

 

Patterns available on www.makeitcoats.com

 

What is your New Year's Sewig Resolution? Tell Sew4Home.com and win!

Over the past four weeks we did a series with Sew4Home featuring Ten Collctions and Ten Designers.  Now, there will be TEN WINNERS!  At stake, for those who choose to participate, is 10 yards of fabric for each winner.  We, along with Sew4Home, are offering 100 yards of fabric for the taking.  The fabric represents the twelve projects featured during the series.  Some of the collections are shown here.

Sew4Home.com will randomly select 10 winners posted on the Giveaway story, click here, as well as the other articles within this 4-week series. The first two drawn names will be the "first place" and "second place" winners; these two lucky ducks will get a mystery grab bag of 10 yards of fabric plus an 18-spool thread gift box courtesy of Coats & Clark. The remaining eight winners will each get just (Ha!!! JUST!!!!) the ten yards of fabric.

Click here to read the details on how to enter to win.  TEN people will be randomly selected from everyone who posts a qualifying comment on one or more of the twelve 10 Designers & 10 Collections project articles as of midnight PT February 28, 2013. No purchase necessary to enter. Void where prohibited.

Happy winners for Jennifer Paganelli's Happy Land!



Wow! All you Jennifer Paganelli lovers really out did yourselves.  190 total comment to our question about what in your childhood inspires your creativity today. The six randomly selected commentators and winners of six, 1 yard cuts of Happy Land as well as Jennifer's book Happy Home are  CathyH, sweetdieseldesigns, Shirley C, Lorrie Orr, Sewfunbymonique, Heather A and Gale, KY Quilter.  You should receive an email from us verifying your good fortune!

Don't give up though.  Our next designer featured will be Nel Whatmore and her newest collection, beautiful Katharine's Wheel. Stay tuned!

Katharine's Wheel by Nel Whatmore

It's the end of August! Time for Jennifer Paganelli giveway!

Now that you have read about Jennifer Paganelli and her design process and you've enjoyed the FreeSpirit Super Fly and Crazy Love Lap Quilt, now it's time to comment to win.  Jennifer's inspiration is a rare combination of vintage flea market finds combined with the influences of a childhood living in the Virgin Islands. As a matter of fact, take a look behind closed doors and hear about Jennifer's inspiration in the Beyond the Fabric by Downy video.

How does your childhood influence your sewing and quilting today? Did you have the opportunity to live in a tropical or foreign region and do you still carry that experience with you? Was your family a crafting family and how has it influenced your creative lifestyle?

Comment between now and August 31 and six random commentators will win six, 1 yard cuts of Jennifer's newest FreeSpirit collection, Happy Land, along with her newest book, Happy Home!

FreeSpirit Happy Land by Jennifer Paganelli

August is Sis Boom month with Jennifer Paganelli

Editor's Note: Our series continues featuring our designers, their latest collections for FreeSpirit fabrics. Week one is a post from the designer, week two is a tutorial and week three is a great giveaway for you to enjoy. Meet the bubbly Jennifer Paganelli.



FreeSpirit Crazy Love by Jennifer Paganelli for Sis Boom



I love, love designing fabric! It's so thrilling to see a design come to life on fabric and then find its way into your homes, your projects and your hearts. It is a real passion and I try to bring something different to each introduction. I love when you recognize it as a Sis Boom fabric. It tells me that there is synergy with every collection I produce. As most of you know, I love a resort vibe and want everyone to see my fabrics and think tropical vacation. Your response to the color is why I do what I do. You tell me color makes you happy! a much larger scale with more geometric flare than ever. Adding a very robust 70's geometric to the mix gets us thinking dashiki's and bedspreads and all over hippiness. 

 

FreeSpirit Crazy Love, introduced earlier this year (25 100% cotton skus), features intense jewel-like colors that dance around on a dark rich saturated palatte.  Taken from love of vintage patinas, these fabrics are certain to charm their way into your hearts and sewing.

FreeSpirit Superfly

FreeSpirit SuperFly (12 100% cotton skus) will give you so many amazing looks. You never tire of the zebra animal print so I brought them back to you in And now, we are premiering FreeSpirit Happy Land (23 100% cotton skus and 4 laminate skus, available in October) which is a strong melody of colors to make your spirit come alive. Think tableclothes and timeless quilts. It's all about celebrating color, sewing and quilting!

To give you inspiration, for all these colors, here is a simple project certain to add a little touch of spunk and cuteness to a little boy's outfit.  The Bosco Bow tie, which happens to be rated among our top downloaded pattern, is an awesome, easy and fun project.The Bosco Tie hasalso been known to dress up little girls' hairstyles when in use as a head band, AND has even been seen around the necks of our furry friends.  Genius, right?! The pattern is super user friendly and it makes for a great afternoon project. Make a few bow ties and play with the different scales of fabric! You can go from Super Fly, to Crazy Love. You can't go wrong, either way. To check out photos of our Bosco Bow ties in action, visit our Look book. You'll see we're not afraid to pair these little cuties with a pattern dress shirt of little girl's dress. Happy creating!

quilt

 

Happy Land quilt design and sewn by Marsha Moore. Photos Tim Geaney.

FreeSpirit Happy Land by Jennifer Paganelli



On-line Sewing Tutorial featuring Jennifer Paganelli

Rick-Rack: Thread-Therapy for Sewers kicks off its new season of affordable on-line sewing video tutorials with a class featuring the incredibly talented FreeSpirit designer Jennifer Paganelli.

The on-line class is Mary Fancy's Sash Dress featured on the cover of Jennifer's newly released book Girl's World , 21 sewing projects to make for little girls (Chronicle Books).

Register today through May 12, 2011 and join Jennifer and Girl's World pattern maker and sewing expert Dolin O'Shea on May 15, 2011 for this exciting on-line sewing video tutorial. What you will learn:

• How to make a child size dress with a sash.


• How to fold, cut and press single fold bias tape.


• How to gather a skirt into a bodice.

Register today and receive an autographed copy of Jennifer's book plus sew much more!