New fabric is here at last!!

It's taken a while to get all of the new patterns just right, but I'm super excited to announce that the new fabrics are here and available for sale.

Animal Sherbet - Elephants, giraffes, rhinos and dots in a delicious sherbet colored palette. Also has a coordinating stripe. I just love the playful nature of these designs. Even though they have animals in them, they feel very grown up to me. But darn how cute would a wee little skirt in Elephants be?

Birdies on Couches - Birdies and chesterfield sofas, dots in a lovely aqua and lush yellow palette. I started working in this palette for the eye pillows and fell in love with it. The aqua dots is sooooo pretty. I can't wait to start sewing with it. Also part of this collection is a pattern that is my modern interpretation of Bird on a Wire. If only I could figure out how to get it made into wallpaper. It comes in yellow and white/aqua.

Would love to hear what you think of the new fabrics! I'm working on some pillow covers with all of the fabrics and should have lots of new pillows to list in the next 2 weeks. So stay tuned!

Adorable yellow birdie clutch

The divinely talented Jennifer Ladd has created another ADORABLE clutch with Scarlet Fig fabric. Hurry, she only made one, so go snag it for yourself! Don't you just love how the sunny yellow looks with the chrome hardware? All photos below were taken by Jennifer.

I really, really, really must get her to sew me one of these...

Yoga Mat Bag Tutorial

My sister asked me to make her a Yoga Mat Bag out of her favorite Scarlet Fig fabric, Wing Chairs...the one with the yellow chairs on the grey background. So while I was sewing, I made myself one out of Comfy Couches in red AND I wrote a tutorial. You can download it here (it's a PDF file):

Yoga Mat Bag Tutorial

The instructions are long, but it is NOT hard. I promise! I just wanted to take lots of pictures along the way. Have fun!

For the love of laminating machines

I've been a busy bee working on new fabric designs and on some consulting projects, but I was able to carve out a few hours this last weekend to make something fun with my fabrics!

Since I moved from NY back to Austin I've been living in this tiny lilliputian sized apartment. And since my dining room table is now cutting/sewing central, I eat a majority of meals sitting on my couch using my ottoman as my dining surface. (I know, very classy!) So I've been meaning to get some of those plastic placemats to keep things neat and tidy. And I have these great lacquered trays that I wanted to line with something pretty. And then I realized...Hey! I can make my own placemats and liners and use my Birdies on Chairs and Comfy Chairs fabric! It was easy peasy!

For 4 placemats:

-Cut (4) pieces of front fabric 11" x 17-1/2"
-Cut (4) pieces of coordinating back fabric 11" x 17-1/2" (I used a Kona cotton in Cactus which is a perfect coordinate for the greens in my fabric
-Cut (4) pieces of fusible webbing 11" x 17-1/2"

Follow the directions on the fusible webbing to attach it to the wrong side of the back fabric. You'll be ironing it to the wrong side of your back fabric.

Then put the front fabric on top of the fusible webbing and iron that down. You should be laying the wrong side of the front fabric ontop of the fusible webbing.

You should now have a 3 layer sandwich that's all fused together. (See...told you it was easy!)

Trim everything to 10-1/2" x 17" so all 3 layers are squared up. When I made mine, I wish I had put some simple decorative stitching around the edge to give a little something extra to the project. And I probably would apply some Fray Check to the edges as well... I had some thread escapees.

Now...carefully transport everything to the laminating store. Make sure you take some little scissors with you so you can trim away any little loose threads.

Feed your fabric sandwiches into the laminating machine. Trim away the excess plastic, leaving a 1/2" edge to make sure everything stays laminated. If you can get access to one of those guillotine cutter things you can cut a nice, neat edge. Ta da! Super cute, super easy! And super tidy!

Tip: Instead of taking your placemats to Kinko's (who charge a few $ for each sheet), find a teacher's supply store. Mine here in Austin only charged $.80 per linear foot. For all 6 of my pieces, I paid less than $6.00. Love that!

And many thanks to Margaret for letting me shoot my placemats on her nice sewing center-free dining table. ;)

Dressing your wee ones in Scarlet Fig fabric

How adorable is this dress from Jenn at peppermints and petticoats? See the Scarlet Fig Birdies and Chairs fabric next to the strawberries? Super cute, huh?!? All of Jenn's dresses are one of a kind so if you see one you like, make sure you snap it up. I can hardly get over how precious they are. And the sweet little buttons! Hmmm...maybe she'll make me one in a bigger size!

Giveaway winners, FINISHED eye pillows & passport covers for sale, NEW fabrics in the store

Thanks so much to everyone for the great suggestions for stores I should approach about selling my pillows. You were a huge help and I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. I've started reaching out to the places you recommended and I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

So without further delay, the two lucky winners of Eye Pillow Kits are:
Amy at the Fabric Bar
animegirlie

And I've added some new products to the Etsy site!
Finished Eye Pillows -If you'd rather just have me sew the pillow for you! All 4 colors are available.

Finished Passport Covers
Finished covers are available in both colors.

I've added two new yellow and grey fabrics to the store!

And the last bit of news...I've been working on some new fabric designs and have some color swatches on order. So stay tuned...Brand new designs coming soon...And this time there's an elephant in the midst...

It's giveaway time!!!

I'm really excited about my new DIY Craft Kits and I would love to get your help with getting wider distribution and sales! I need your thoughts and suggestions on which stores in your area might be a good fit for me to contact about carrying my kits.

As a thank you for your ideas, I'll draw the names of 2 lucky winners and each winner will receive:
1) Couch Potato Lavender DIY Eye Pillow Kit - These feature exclusive Scarlet Fig designed fabric
1) Wing Through Customs Passport Cover DIY Kit - These feature Anna Maria Horner designed fabric and a hand stamped passport label with my design

Here's what I think in terms of what kinds of stores I should target, but I'm anxious to hear what you think...
-Independent home goods / home accessories boutiques. They probably carry indie designers.
-Small fabric or crafting stores.
-Online fabric/supplies stores might also be a good fit.

Here's how you can enter:
Post a comment with your store suggestion = 1 entry
Make sure you include the name of store + city/state
International suggestions are welcome!

Sign up to be on my mailing list = 1 entry
Just enter your email address in the top right corner of my blog

Post about my giveaway on your blog = 1 entry
Make sure you leave me a comment with your blog URL

I will randomly draw the 2 winners at the end of the day on April 30 so make sure you leave me a way to contact you. Can't wait to hear your ideas and thanks for your help!


See the kits in my Etsy store


See the kits in my Etsy store



See the kits in my Etsy store

New Kits

The new kits are available for sale in my Etsy store! And in the next few days, they will also be availble on Curlin's site. I just love the way they turned out and am super excited to see how everyone likes them. They take less than 20 minutes to sew and I think they are really fun. Let me know what you think!! And stay tuned...the Pippingtooth Table paper products will be available in the next few days. It's going to be a busy weekend here in Austin! :)

Couch Potato - DIY Eye Kit Pillow
Comes in 4 color ways - Aqua, Green, Blue, Pink and features my own Scarlet Fig couch design. The kit includes fabric, an easy to follow pattern and 2 heaping tbsp. of lavender you can use to mix with buckwheat or rice.







Wing Through Customs Passport Cover DIY Kit
Comes in 2 patterns - Yellow and Ivory. The kit includes laminated cotton fabric from Anna Maria Horner and a hand stamped "passport" label from Scarlet Fig. The kit includes the fabric, an easy to follow pattern and the label.

New pattern

Pooped after a long day here. :) But wanted to share one of the new designs and share the new color palette I'm playing with. I think this may be my favorite design yet...

And in the next week or so I will have 2 new kits available for sale. So, stay tuned for more infor on them and on the paper tabletop stuff Curlin and I are collaborating on. Happy weekend!

New, new products!!

I've got so many exciting things in the works, I can hardly sit still!

Curlin Reed Sullivan from Pippingtooth Studio and I have been collaborating on some new products and we're rolling them out this weekend at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at their Wildflower Days event.

So if you're in Austin, make sure you come on out and visit us THIS Saturday 9-5 and Sunday 12-5. And if you're not able to come drop by face to face, stay tuned! We'll get the new products posted online and available for sale on our sites in the next 1-2 weeks.

But I'm too excited to make you wait, so here's a sneak peak...Curlin and I have combined both of our designs together and created Pippingtooth Table, a line of cheery, affordable tabletop decorations. We both love to set a gorgeous table and I hope these will make you *swoon*. Paper décor you can assemble yourself, adorable ceramics and one of the designs coordinates with Itty Bitty Chairs fabric. How much fun is that? And did I mention that it was affordable?

Here's a few pics from our photoshoot today. Yipee!!!