New Fabrics

I have just uploaded the fabrics I picked up from Robert Kaufman yesterday at their Open House. Steve and I have a great day picking fabrics off the shelves, had some nice food and managed to avoid getting stuck on the M25.

I picked up some great background landscape prints like this treescape print which are available at £9.60 a metre.

Steve was allowed to pick some fabrics of his own ;-) so there is now a new section on the website called "Steve's Top Picks" where his choices will be featured. It will be an eclectic mix of fabrics and prices. His first choices include a wonderful red music fabric, a tropical bird scene and this cute gingerbread man panel.

I also ordered some great oriental prints which feature a full width print.....so you know a wall hanging kit will be available and also some fantastic batik stripes which will look great in a rail fence pattern. These should be delivered before the Festival of Quilts in August, which is coming up fast!

Willow Fabrics

The Willow fabrics by McKenna Ryan are now up on the website. These lovely gentle fabrics are so useful as they are multi-toned which means you can create different colour results by using different parts of the fabrics. They are priced at £11.50 a metre and will also be featured in the new products section of the next issue of Fabrications magazine.

I will be working on uploading the new King Tut colours next. Reluctantly, I have had to increase the price of these of £5.25 a reel. This is the first price increase since I started stocking these threads which must be almost 5 years ago? and is still one of, if not the best, prices in the country. Postage remains at a flat rate of £2.25 per order for UK customers.

Those of you following my updates on twitter will be aware that I made a quick quilt using the wavy stripe from the Opulence collection on Saturday night. Pics and a free pattern for you to download will be available shortly.

Twitter

I've just signed up to twitter so if you want to follow me and receive short news updates on whats new at The Crafty Quilter then visit

http://www.twitter.com/crafty_quilter

Ok back to photographing the Willow fabrics!

Down to Business....

Its been quite a hectic few weeks......what with getting ready for Quilts UK in Malvern, working at the show itself and then babysitting my nephews for a week......it will be nice to get down to some home-based work for a bit!

I am hoping to catch up all on the website stuff that needs to be uploaded:

• the Willow collection from McKenna Ryan has been selling well at the last couple of shows. The fabrics will be featured in the next issue of Fabrications
• the 21 new King Tut threads
• a new wall hanging kit for the Flower Mart collection which proved popular at Quilts UK

Quilts UK at Malvern was as busy as ever, despite the changeable weather. The trade show in America, Quilt Market, was held over the same weekend in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvannia so I will be ordering new fabrics that were released at the show shortly.

I'm working on the next block of the month program just now which will be ready for the Festival of Quilts at the NEC in Birmingham in August. I'm very excited about it....the pattern will make a great quilt!

New King Tuts

I am excited to let you know that I have just taken delivery of 21 new King Tut colours, in addition to the four new colours that were released about 18 months ago.

This is a picture of the colours which as you can see are quite muted but fill a lot of gaps in the existing range.

I'm not sure if I will have time to get them up on the website before Quilts UK in Malvern in 10 days time......but they will be available for sale at the show.

The Willow collection by McKenna Ryan has also arrived in stock now.

Heavenly Hollyhocks!

After a busy couple of weeks I have now managed to upload these fabrics to the website. There are two colourways; coral and mauve.

I have also made a couple of quick quilts using fabrics from the collection. The first makes use of the full fabric width design and is VERY quick and simple to make.

The second quilt is the same pattern as the Spring Hill wall hanging. The large-scale hollyhock print lends itself to being used in the large piece that this quilt demands.

I hope these project ideas inspire you.

Coming soon..............Willow designed by McKenna Ryan for Hoffman.

Heavenly Hollyhocks!

This is a really heavenly new collection from Northcott and I'm really excited about it.......and its just arrived in stock! The main fabric is a full width pattern featuring tall hollyhocks.

and there are some great co-ordinating fabrics too. I can't wait to create some quilt patterns for you to download.

I should get the fabrics up on the website in a couple of weeks after I have been to Llangollen in Wales for the traders' day at Quiltfest and the Quilt Festival in Edinburgh the weekend after.

If you are going to either show you will get to see the fabrics first hand!