Earlier this week we were privileged to have a visit by Jenny Phillips. Jenny is a top-selling LDS singer and song-write and produces beautiful inspirational music. We have been awaiting her visit all year and were so excited when she and her husband Dan arrived from Salt Lake City, Utah on Wednesday.
Jenny and Dan have four children – including an 8 month old baby boy, so their visit was very short, which made us even more grateful that they had sacrificed a lot to come and perform for us.
Their trip was certainly a whirlwind, with one of our congregations putting on a special Thanksgiving Dinner for their first night, some sightseeing and lunch at the Raspberry Farm the next day and then a special fireside and musical performance that evening.
I have always been a big fan of Jenny’s music, but after hearing her in real life I am absolutely smitten. Her voice was truly angelic and she shared some very special messages with us also.
Apart from being a talented musician, Jenny and Dan are both so easy going and down-to-earth. It was great to have the opportunity to spend a few special days with them and hopefully the next time we get together is when we get to visit the USA!!
Can’t believe it has taken me a whole week to finally post about Australian Quilt Market last weekend! The past 2 months have been super busy for me and I am (crossing my fingers and) hoping that the craziness has come to an end and I can get the house cleaned up properly and the family back into a functioning routine (and hopefully get to bed a little earlier than I have been!)
Quilt Market was great, it was only the second one I have been to and was fun to catch up with familiar faces – both customers and blogging friends. We decided it would be easier if I went to Melbourne on my own this year and I was going to stay somewhere by myself, but was so grateful when a couple of months before AQM got talking via email with Saffron Craig, Kate Conklin and Bec Johnson and we decided that we should make a girly weekend of it and stay together. MUCH more fun than staying by myself 🙂
I hadn’t met any of the girls before, but after spending a few minutes together, it really did feel as though we had known each other for years.
I was (as usual) terrible at taking photos over the weekend, but the girls happily shared a few with me! Saffron and I were on our own for the first night, so after setting up our booths we headed into the city for dinner together. There are so many amazing places to eat in Melbourne – the hardest part was deciding on which restaurant to go to! We ended up in this authentic little Italian restaurant that served the most delicious food…the gnocchi was to die for, I didn’t want it to end and am reluctant to ever try gnocchi again because I don’t think anything could top it!
Bec and Kate joined us the next day. I was so excited to meet these girls after becoming “email friends” a few months ago. They are both amazing quilters and sell their fantastic patterns through their online stores and some retail stores. (Bec’s store here….Kate’s store here).
Saffron has been working VERY hard behind the scenes and had HEAPS of new fabric ranges and pieces to order at AQM. I am a huge fan of her fabric and can’t wait until the new ranges are for sale – keep an eye on her online store here or at your local fabric store for her new fabric.
The four of us had a lovely time that evening at a cute little restaurant in St Kilda (oh, it is so lovely to eat out without the children!), then headed back to the hotel where we talked until after 2am! I haven’t done that since I was a teenager, and surprisingly didn’t feel too bad the next day! We had so much in common and heaps of questions to ask each other, I’m sure that we could have kept on talking for another week!
I actually didn’t get much of a chance to take a proper walk through the rest of the market…I was busy on the Creative Abundance booth chatting with customers about our new patterns, but I did make sure that I got to meet with some of the fabric reps to preview upcoming ranges and get a bit of inspiration for future patterns! As fun as the weekend was, it was lovely to come back to my rug rats and know that I can have a break from pattern writing for a little while!
Morning! This is a bit of a boring post, but will be very helpful if you would like me to answer questions that you leave for me in comments…
My friend Kate taught me how to do this and it certainly has made my blogging life easier 🙂
So, when you leave a comment on my (or anyone else’s) blog post, your comment will either be displayed as “anonymous” or with your profile name. All of the comments left on my blog also show up in my inbox. Unfortunately more than half of the comments that are left on my blog do not have an email address directly associated with them – which makes it really hard for me to reply to you or answer a question that you may have asked me!
To make things a lot easier, PLEASE do this:
Go to your blog and click on the “Dashboard” link at the top of the page. Even if you don’t have a blog, you can still have a blogger account which you can leave comments from.
When you click on “Dashboard”, you will see the following page:
Then click on “Edit Profile” on the left-hand side…
Which will take you to the following page. In order for me to be able to reply directly to your comments, all you have to do is tick the box that says “Show my email address”. Easy!! This doesn’t mean that everyone will be able to see your email address, but does mean that when your comment shows up in my inbox, I can reply to you directly from my email.
If you don’t have a blogger account and are always leaving comments as “Anonymous” that is fine too, but if you want me to know who you are or would like me to answer a question, PLEASE type your email address into the comment. I often have people asking me questions about pattern availability, supplies used, etc. and most of the time I can’t respond because I don’t have your email address to reply to.
Okay, boring stuff aside…
I have had tonnes of people asking about purchasing my book overseas. Currently it is not available overseas, but should be sometime in the future. Yes, postage from my store is VERY expensive for New Zealand and the rest of the world. The book weighs almost 1.5kg which means it costs a lot for me to post. I have had a hunt around some online stores selling my book though and have found a few with quite reasonable postage rates.
Yep…today is THE day my book is officially released! If you happen to be in a book store and see it, feel free to take a quick snap and email it to me…that would be cool 🙂
Thank you so much for all of your enthusiasm and support about my book, I really appreciate it and hope that you get many fun hours of sewing from it.
A couple of new book reviews have recently gone up (some of them including giveaways) if you are interested in having a read head over to… Day to Day Red Pepper Quilts Chunky Chooky
I’m back from quilt market, had a ball and met some wonderful people…will do a post (with pitiful photos because I was super slack with the camera) about it in the next couple of days once I recover and get the house cleaned up!
A couple of other good reads…
Rachel (one of my lovely pattern testers) has posted her Afterglow and Playtime Skort photos here and here.
Fiona has posted the outtakes from our photoshoot on her blog – this is why I prefer her taking the photos…she can get unhappy little contenders to look adorable no matter what!!
Oh, and if you are looking for the three new pattens, Elissa at Kelani Fabric has them up and ready for sale now. They should start popping up all over the place very quickly too 🙂
Ooh, I am really excited to share my final pattern of the three with you today! This is by far my favourite of the three new pattern releases…because it involves sewing something that I can wear myself!
Introducing, COASTAL BREEZE…
Meet the dress that feels like a t-shirt…Coastal Breeze is the ultimate holiday frock. Made from super comfy stretch fabric, and with a classic scoop-necked shape, you just need to pull it on and go! A lifesaver for those mornings when you are racing the clock to get our the door.
Featuring a flattering empire-line, tummy-friendly pleats and with no zippers, darts, buttons or other fiddly bits, you will have so much fun sewing Coastal Breeze that it will feel like you are taking a holiday!
Sized to fit “tween” girls to the larger woman, Coastal Breeze is casual enough to wear when you are kicking back at home, or you can slip on a pair of fancy heels and feel a little more special.
I am finding it more and more enjoyable to come up with designs for women’s clothing. Partly because I love a bit of selfish sewing and making clothes for myself (that I would actually wear!) and partly because I know that so many people are crying out for easy, yet stylish, women’s clothing patterns and I like to know that I’ve made it easier for someone to sew for themselves 🙂
When Emma from Ballarat Patchwork offered to supply me with some stretch (knit) fabric for my next pattern I knew that I needed to come up with a summer dress for the ladies. Stretch fabric is SO easy to wear and this dress is perfect for those hot, summer days when you want to be as cool and comfortable as possible. Ballarat Patchwork have a large selection of stretch fabric in store now!
I’m just LOVING these photos…my sister-in-law, Whitney is the stunning model (don’t you just want her hair!!) and the photos were taken by Kelsie Moore Photography in Melbourne. I sent the dress up to Whitney and Kelsie and gave them a brief outline of what I wanted and they did a fantastic job!! Thanks so much guys 🙂
Click here to see more Coastal Breeze pictures and check out the fabric requirements. If you have a store and want to stock this or any other Make It Perfect patterns, contact Creative Abundance to place an order.
If you would like to purchase a copy of Coastal Breeze for yourself, they should be popping up in retail stores very soon. Ask your favourite store to get one in for you!
To win a copy of Coastal Breeze, simply leave a comment on this post 🙂
(Giveaway will close Sunday 28th November and winner will be drawn via a random number generator.)
