Quilt Market Sale - Final Week

Well, we made it to the final week of the Quilt Market Sale and I couldn't be more excited about this week's featured fabric designer. I have ranted and raved about Joel Dewberry before, but when looking at all of his collections as a whole, I am super impressed with the consistency of his work, which is not always the case for every designer. Nature and garden settings often seem to be the inspiration for much of Joel's work and I love how each collection has it's own personality. Aviary, is the collection that I first fell in love with from Joel Dewberry. It might have something to do with my love of bird-watching with a hot cup of tea at the breakfast table.Inspired by the Tuscan countryside,...

Read More

A Day Late, and A Dollar Short

I started a post yesterday wanting to express something life realizing or communicate the importance of being thankful in the tradition of Thanksgiving, and what the holiday means to an American, but as you may have noticed, I fell quite short. In my rambling I realized that perhaps writing about being thankful when I am already so emotional from pregnancy hormones, missing my family and the simple things of the life that I once knew, not to mention the soup catastrophe that had brought me to tears earlier (brings the phrase to mind, "don't cry over spilled milk"), that maybe I should just leave the post in the drafts section. Sometimes there is a bittersweet thankfulness that one finds in the...

Read More

Quilt Market Sale - Week 4

Wheh!... we made it! We just got back from our weekend show in Verden, which is why I am a little late with this week's post. Hauling displays and shelving, tables, and boxes filled with purses and jewelry is lots of work, but somehow seems doubled when one is "under the weather" with a cold and pregnant at the same time. I was excited to see a lady walking around in a skirt made with Jane Sassaman fabric, and immediately figured out that she was a customer of ours... it looked so great!It's nice to be home to recover and I am ready to settle in for a few holiday projects before Christmas is here... that's right folks, we only have a month to go! So if you are planning to get creative for...

Read More

Geschafft!

There must have been several of you that had your fingers crossed since this post. In case you may have missed it, or have just started popping in, we are expecting our first child in March. Wanting to sew many things for the baby's room, I feel like it is kind of important to know what we are having. But since we don't know that, for me it makes no sense to decorate the baby's room in yellow or green, only to trade it in a year or so later for blues and tractors or pinks and flowers... what is the point? That is why we are waiting until the "baby cookie" (our nickname) is here and then add the "personality" to the room. We'll have the crib and the changing table and everything else that one...

Read More

Featured Projects

I had mentioned the shop from Simone some time back, but am finding that every time I visit her site that I am totally impressed with all the new creations that she has whipped up. Based in Düsseldorf, Germany, the trained tailor and manufacturing director for a fashion company, finds that she needs an outlet for her creativity. Simone offers a wide range of accessories in her Dawanda shop from sweet change purses, cosmetic bags, makeup bags, to self made cards and even camera straps.For all you photographers out there that are tired of the boring black camera straps that accompany your top quality camera, why not spice it up a bit?Simone uses several fabrics from Tula Pink's Neptune collection,...

Read More

Quilt Market Sale - Week 3

It dawned on me as I was getting ready to announce this week's sale fabrics, that I have not officially done a proper introduction of one of the collections that is on sale this week. You may remember me metioning designer Tula Pink a while back with her fabulous Neptune collection. With her current collection, Hushabye, the designer presents another equally delicious eye candy. I read in an interview a while back that the designer found it difficult to find fabrics to make things for all of her friends that were having babies, feeling like the whole teddy bear theme was not what was inspiring her for such sweet, tiny projects. So she created her own collection that did. How fabulous is that?!?......

Read More

All Zipped Up

Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night with an idea that you can't wait to wake up and start working on? I guess I do... sometimes more often than I like. Sure, it's great to have have ideas constantly swirling through your head, but after some time, the not so fun part of loosing sleep can catch up. After doing several shows and getting to meet with customers first hand, many of them communicated to me how important they find it to have a zipper in their purse, for a feeling of security. I have never sewn zippers in my purses, and only recently started adding them as an inside pocket. (tutorial here) For anyone who has ever sewn before, you know that a zipper can be the undoing of...

Read More

Featured Projects

There are some fabrics that as soon as I see them, I have a vision in my head of exactly what I would like to do with them... how to combine the colors or prints with other fabrics, even sometimes what trims I would like to use. It is as if I see the finished project in my mind's eye even before I make the first cut. Which is why I find it completely inspiring to see how other people take the same exact fabric and use it in a completely different way. I love it when I get feedback from customers, especially when they share projects that they have worked on using fabrics that I sell. I decided to feature projects that use this week's sale fabric from fabric and quilt designer, Valori Wells.Anja...

Read More

Quilt Market Sale - Week 2

This week's featured Quilt Market sale fabrics include fabrics from Jane Sassaman, not only a talented fabric designer, but also fantastic quilt designer. She redefines the traditional quilt and reinvents it into breathtaking art quilts using her colorful and strong designs in the most unusual ways. For inspiration, I included a few of my previous projects using Jane Sassaman fabrics, which you may recognize... ... a baby "teething blanket", which is on my list for making again in the future, but I think we have a while before teeth come along, and a fabric covered box (tutorial here) From the more subdued and muted color way... ... a wallet and matching key chain, and "Thank You" cards that...

Read More

Not So Glamorous

Since I am essentially a "one-woman-show", with the exception of my husband helping here and there with German translations and other administrative tasks, all the work that I do with Still Water Designs is left up to me. Which means I get to do the fun part of creating, but I also have the not so glamorous tasks of taking product photos, cropping them, writing up descriptions for items, listing them on TWO sites, not to mention packing and mailing orders... sigh, too much to do and not enough time. Right now I am stuck behind the scenes preparing for next weeks sale on jewelry, but I still thought I would share what has been inspiring me these days. I've only recently started working with...

Read More

Featured Projects

One of this week's featured Quilt Market SALE FABRIC designers is Anna Maria Horner. Her unique sense of combining colors with strong design leaves it clear why she has become a top selling designer in her field. Her collections mix and match so easily and are a bold statement for any project.I wanted to share a few projects, or should I say "eye candy", made by the talented Griselda from the blog Machwerk, who uses Anna Maria's fabric so brilliantly and brings so many fun projects to life. I would imagine that they might inspire you for a few projects of your own.Shown here... a "month" quilt for the month of March, "Julie" handtasche (purse), and cosmetic bag using Garden Party fabrics...Shown...

Read More