Woo hoo!  The new Quilts and More Magazine is out with my All Dolled Up project in it!

It’s a folder that holds the “paper” dolls and dresses from my Dolly Dear collection of fabrics.

It makes the perfect gift for a little girl, and what a great take-along in the backseat of the car or in church.

The dolls and dresses will provide hours of entertainment.

The dolls are stiffened with Timtex and the dresses have batting fused to the back, so everything is easy to move but has plenty of cling.  No tabs to lose like when I was a girl!

I had a ball designing this project.  Just yesterday my mom said she wishes she were a girl again so she could play with them.  😉

This project joins the Let’s Play Paper Dolls quilt…

…and the Dress Up Time up quilt.

Oh, I love it when it’s time for the Bloggers Quilt Fest, sponsored by Amy over at Amy’s Creative Side.  This is a time for people all over blog land to show what they’re working on or a favorite quilt.  I’ve decided to show my Bavarian Rose quilt, since it’s the most recent thing I’ve made.

One week before I was leaving for Quilt Market, I got my sample fabrics–2 yards of each.

For some crazy reason, I decided that I’d appliqué 32 roses for the quilt!

Mind you, I’m not really much of an appliquer, except for some hand buttonhole work I’ve done in the past.  But, I persevered and got them done, using a buttonhole stitch on my Elna.

I also made three other samples for Market.  A bag…

…a Laptop Sleeve…

…and a little stitchery I call Gretel.

And to top it all off, I found a vintage tablecloth at Market that perfectly matches my new collection!

I see curtains in my future!

…Is Market ready for me?

Whew!  3:30 on Wednesday afternoon, and all the projects are finished.  I don’t leave until 4:00 AM tomorrow.  Time to spare!  Now I suppose Bob will expect me to cook dinner.

In the last six days, I’ve made a Laptop  Sleeve, a little Stitchery called Gretel, and I’ve been plugging away on the blocks for the Bavarian Rose quilt.  I don’t know what possessed me to applique 32 rose blocks, but I did.

Finally, after dinner last night, I got the quilt quilted.  Thank goodness for stippling!

Joan, my binding fairy, just returned from Salt Lake City yesterday, but I took her the quilt this morning, and she returned it the afternoon–all bound and with a sleeve on it.  Thank you, Joan!

I wanted one more project to showcase the fabrics so whipped up this bag.

I think I’ll go pack now!

I’ve been busy making samples from my new fabric line, Bavaria.  My main project for the Timeless Treasures‘ booth at Quit Market is a quilt with 32 appliqué blocks!  So, every once in a while, I take a break from appliqueing and work on a small project–like this little stitchery.  I call her Gretel!

Once the stitching was finished she still looked a bit plain so I was going to embroider a line about a half inch in from the edge, but then inspiration struck–why not rick rack!?!  It was quick and I love the look of it.  There are twelve fabrics in this collection and it was fun to cut up a few squares from each one to “frame” her.

Speaking of the twelve fabrics, here they are!  I always name all of my prints.  This is the inspiration piece for the line and, of course, it’s called Bavaria!

Many years ago I was a tole painter, and I loved the Bavarian folk art that influenced a lot of my projects.  One of the things that I loved to do was paint folksy roses with just a few brush strokes, like this chest I painted many moons ago!

So I knew this collection would need a rose print in it.  Here’s Bavarian Rose.

I like to play with different grids and geometric elements, so Tulip Chain found it’s way into the line.

Four Flowers is just that–clusters of four folk art flowers.  This is the one I used as the lining in my Laptop Sleeve.  By following the paths between the flowers, I was able to quilt this without marking!  Gotta love that!  Actually, you could follow the design in the Tulip Chain for quilting, too.

I always want different scale in the lines, so Buds in Windows helps fill the bill for something small scale.  It’s also fun to have something with a little bit of a hard, geometric element.

And speaking of geometric, how about a stripe?  I didn’t want just a plain stripe, so this one, Bavarian Stripe, is filled with garlands of flowers.

Last but not least is Gridded Buds, another small scale print, but this time, it’s monochromatic.  I always like a little something that’s rather plain to give the eye a place to rest when making scrappy quilts–which most of mine are.

So, there you have it.  I hope to get the quilt top pieced today and then it’s onto the long arm.

I’m busy making Market samples from my new line of fabric – Bavaria.   Yesterday, I took a break from appliquéing roses to make a laptop sleeve.  I need to go shopping for a big red button and some Velcro for the closure.

Since it will be displayed in the booth at Quilt Market, I didn’t want to put my real laptop in it.  Luckily, my sister recently bought a laptop sleeve, and it came with a nifty foam insert.  Perfect!

This was so simple to make.  Here’s the “formula!”  By the way, this would work for an i-Pad, Kindle or any size notebook!

Measure the width of your laptop and add 2-1/2″.

Measure the height of you laptop, double it an add 5″.

Cut two pieces of fabric and some fusible fleece this size.

Layer and quilt.

Round off the corners on the top edge.  I used a sewing basket lid as my guide!

Cut a strip of binding 2-1/4″ wide and bind the bottom edge.

Fold up the bottom, using your laptop as a guide.  Stitch the edges with a scant 1/4″ seam.

Using more 2-1/4″ binding, bind the sides and top of the sleeve, turning the binding under at the bottom edge to finish.

Voila!  It’s that easy.

Note: I used the Four Flowers print for the lining of my sleeve.  When it was time to quilt the fabrics together, I just followed the path between the clusters of flowers.  No marking!

Yesterday, this…

…brought me this….

…which contained this!

My new fabric line….

…called Bavaria!

Excuse me, now I have to go sew!

My latest fabric line, Dolly Dear, is in stores and shipping now.  It has lots of pretty prints, but my favorite is the repeating stripe with the paper dolls and their dresses.

I’ve designed a free pattern for a quit that I think any little girl would love.  The dolls are sewn into the body of the quilt, pockets are added around the outside edges, and the dresses are cut out so you can play dress up!

I thought I’d walk you through the easy steps for making this quilt.  First, cut out three strips of the dolls and “frame” them with the Patsy Posy print.

Sash them with the Pink Marigold fabric.

Add borders of the same pink print.  I know they look really wide, but there’s a reason for that.  We’re going to add pockets!  At this stage, you need to quilt the quilt.  I stippled mine.

Cut pockets and lining using the template provided with the pattern.  The front of the pockets are from the Dress Panel that goes with the line.

I LOVE rickrack, and this seemed like the perfect place to use some!  Put the pocket front and lining right sides together, insert rickrack and stitch edges and bottom.

Turn right sides out, press under 1/4″ at the top and top stitch closed.

You’ll need twelve pockets.  When they’re finished, topstitch down around the sides and bottom.

Fuse some batting scraps to the backs of the dresses and cut them out.

Now you’re ready to tuck them into the pockets….

…or dress the dolls!

I also added rickrack to the binding!  There’s no such thing as too much rickrack, is there?  The kit for this quilt includes the 12-1/2 yards needed!

Here are a few other things made with this fabric line.

This adorable sundress is made with the Tossed Dolls print and lined with the Green Jumble.

The body of this jumper is the fabric I call Bette’s Bouquet, and this pattern is perfect for showing off the doll dresses.  Both these dress samples were made by Renee.

This pattern from Yesterday’s Charm is one of my favorites.  Carol O. made this sample for me.

Nan stitched up the backpack for me.

And I made this quilt, Dress Up Time, from the Dress and Purse panel.  More rickrack–two sizes!!

If you think I’m in my second childhood, you may be right!  But, I must tell you, I didn’t play with dolls in my first childhood, so I’m making up for it now!

You know I love designing fabrics–or redesigning fabrics, as the case may be.

Since I work with 1930′s prints, I often start with vintage swatches.  Sometimes–with the help of the graphic design staff at the fabric company I design for-I’ll take a vintage print use the main flower, change the background, make something larger or smaller or closer together.

Sometimes, though, the pattern is just perfect the way it is!  That was the case about five years ago when I was designing my Wash Tub Bears line of fabric.  I always try to combine a dot or a circle in each fabric line.  Well, this piece filled the bill–it was dots inside circles!  It reminded me of speckled eggs, and I named it Speckled Dots!

The original swatch I had was blue.  We also did it in red…

…brown…

…and lavender.

When I first started designing fabric, I was lucky enough to have as a friend and mentor Darlene Zimmerman.  She had been designing Thirties prints for a long time.  She said to me, don’t be surprised someday if we both use the same fabric for a future line.  Yikes, I thought, I don’t want to do that!

But I knew what she meant, because I had seen one particularly adorable duck-in-a-top-hat print produced by three different companies–AND I had an original piece of it in some of my grandma’s scraps.  This is it.

Imagine my surprise when I was in Sisters Quilt Shop recently and spotted what I thought was a bolt of “my” fabric.

I picked it up and discovered it was part of Sandy Klopp’s Punctuation line!

And not only had she done it in red and blue, she had done it in green…

…and black…

…and ORANGE!!

You can bet I bought some of that for my stash!  Thanks, Sandy, for the orange!

I was delighted when Jodi at Pleasant Home emailed me and asked if I wanted to play along in her Scrappy Giveaway.  You bet I did.

More than scraps, I always accumulate bolt ends.  So, I’ve gathered up 3 yards of them, and some lucky winner is going to get them in the mail one of these days!

Just leave me a comment before November 17th.  I’ll add you to my email list, use a random number generator to pick a winner, box up the scraps and send them off to you.

Check out Jodi’s blog for more scrappy giveaways.

Finally, I can tell!

Back in April, I had a crew here from Quilts and More magazine, doing a photo shoot in my studio!  It was incredibly fun.

The crew included Adam and Joe….

…and Elizabeth.

Sometimes Joe was my stand-in.  Imagine having a stand-in!

Sometimes I had to do the work.

It was fun to peek over their shoulders and see how fantastic their photos are.

Now the magazine is finally out.  It’s on newsstands now, or you can order it from me.

It has the Getting to Know Karen Snyder feature written by Linzee  McCray….

…and a table runner that I’ve designed, called Center Piece.  They even asked me to provide kits for it!

There’s more to this story, but I can’t tell yet!