Tula Pink

It is a crazy rainy day here in Pinkerville (as you might be able to tell from the windows in the background) which makes living on a dirt road just that much messier. Such is life, I guess they can’t all be sunny. My cut goods, jelly rolls, layercakes etc… have all arrived on my doorstep and I hate to cut them up. I found this little pattern on Wee Wonderfuls, her stuff is ridiculously cute. So I thought hey, what an awesome way to use a Jelly Roll without hacking it to pieces. I just love it when problems solve themselves. I adore a good contradiction more than anything, you know like angry cupcakes. How snails became known as cute I will never understand. They are relatively gross and slimey in person but you put those little suckers in pink and give them starry little eyes and they completely transform. So I just made the body from the pattern and stuck a Jelly Roll on his butt and voila! I have never worked with wool felt before so it’s a bit sloppy but it is still pretty cute so I say job well done.

Oh hey wait…I bet you would like to know who the tote bag winners are. I am so enamored with the snail that I almost forgot. Due to some confusion last time I will be e-mailing the winners as well so if you see a name down there that might be yours go ahead and check your in box. Apparently many people have the same first name, go figure.

And the winners are…Michelle, Jeff, Sunny and Jen

I am so excited about Hushabye that I can’t stop making stuff out of it. I am running out of room to keep it all so I am giving it away. Yay!

Free stuff!If you want one then leave me a comment, tell me a little something about yourself,  and I will randomly pick 4 winners to be announced on June 15th. It’s just that easy. I mean, come on, they’re super cute right? You can be the first person(s) on your block to have a little bit of it. Hushabye won’t be in stores until August so it will be like an extreme sneak peak. You can make your local shop owner jealous if you so desire, unless of course your local shop is in Stewartsville. In that case it’s my mom’s shop and she already knows all about it.

**Remember** You don’t have to worry about being clever, the winners will be randomly chosen. I don’t play favorites.

GIVEAWAY CLOSED!!! Winners coming up next! 

I just got back from Quilt Market, like two mintues ago (then my BFF showed up for a visit and here I am a few days later, sorry!) and I wanted to share a few things that I think are both brilliant and hillarious. This first one may need some clarification. First, I collect foreign products that use english in odd ways. I have this little pink pencil case from Korea that has a poem about “gold plated friendship” and “hot shafts of wheat,” innapropriate translations are the funniest thing ever! So when my new friend Angela gave me these little swatches of Japanese import fabrics I just about peed my fancy little pants. If you can’t read it from the picture it says: “Mom’s Cake! Harmony of wheat and chocolate. Table with love.” It sounds like some exotic yet poetic love affair between two baking products from opposites sides of the tracks brought together by the gentle hum of an egg beater. I picture this scene unfolding much in the manner of Fried Green Tomatoes or the Secret Life of Bees minus the epic drama and heartfelt moral tradgedy. I love it. The second treasure I disovered were some very lovely yet sort of disturbing, but in a good way, vintage buttons. Now, I don’t ever buy buttons but I fell in love as sometimes happens. The pugs and the poodles just seemed like something I should have. The horse head is sort of Godfather-ish which I really liked but the real gem is the other one. Is that precious little old fashioned charmer chasing an oversized bat? Yes, indeed she is… naturally.  I also got these nursery rhyme buttons, for the sake of cuteness. Everyone around me is having babies so I am all about finding baby stuff at the moment. I guess I am just at that age where all my friends are getting knocked up. I have a baby quilt to do list a mile long which is fine by me. Baby quilts are little so they go really fast. Good thing I designed a baby-ish fabric line, right? It’s like my 7th sense is some kind of baby detector.

Tula Pink has patterns? What?!? Why that’s crazy. Oh no it’s not little puppy. I am getting ready to go to Market on Thursday and all my quilts are in a row so to speak. The bindings are on and my little babies are all packed up nice and tidy. This is the first quilt pattern I will be releasing, I will have it at Market in the blue and green above and also in pink and brown. I think it’s pretty cute and the quilting on it turned out amazing. You will be able to buy kits and patterns and all things Tula P. in my little shop. Fun!

I will be in Pittsburgh in a shopping capacity. Now that I don’t work in house for Moda anymore I get to go and relax. None of that pesky setting up and tearing down their monstrous booth. It’s way more fun to spend someone else’s money, mainly my Mom’s. We have a list of new stuff we want to find for the shop. So if you will be there say hi because I don’t have to do any work stuff so I imagine I will have a lot more free time then I usually do. I plan to spend my time stalking the booths of designers that I admire and talking to the people I only get to see twice a year. It should be a good time.

Here’s the pattern cover so you can be on the look out for it.

Mama Pink has a new bag! WooHoo! I have been dying to use this can fabric I made on Spoonflower ages ago. Making a new bag is my little pre Quilt Market tradition. It makes me feel all pretty and girlie. I actually hate making bags, I much prefer the repetitive meditation like process of quilting. It’s like painting with fabric. All these crazy half inch seams give me a headache. This one was actually wasn’t so bad to make. It’s from the Birdie Sling pattern from the Goddess of Everything, also known as Amy Butler. Envy doesn’t look that good on me so I’ll stop there.

The handle is made of a super weird fake suede/leather type material. It’s an old Moda Home fabric. It is really soft. It feels like that smooth part on a puppy’s nose. Anywhoo, that’s my new bag. Yay!

Side Note: The chair in the photo is my favorite of all time. It has been my main desk chair for years. I bought it at a government surplus warehouse for $3. I drag it back and forth from my computer desk to my drawing table to my sewing table. I have other chairs but I just love this one. I like to think that it used to sit in some public school principals office in the ’70s. I spent most of my youth in the principals office so it sort of feels like home.

So Here’s the deal. I get five to ten emails a week asking me where people can find those owls from Full Moon Forest. They are pretty much just gone. Gone. Gone. Gone. I have some left but I’m saving them for my grandkids or maybe to sell on ebay when they become antiques. Think of this collection as a Full Moon Forest II using everything I have learned in between then and now. I always hear people say ” If I knew then…” well I do so I did. I loved that first fabric line and it sort of came and went in a flash. I never felt like it had the chance it deserved. By the time people started to see it and ask for it it was all snatched up. So Hushabye is an homage to my humble beginnings. I hope y’all like it. By the way… 

Hushabye is due in stores in August!

My radio silence will soon be coming to an end. The day is coming closer when I can actually show you what I have been working on these last few months. I can’t wait! This is just a taste. Please be patient with me. I’m a fragile little bunny when I am working.

You know its time to post when you start getting complaint emails. Sorry kids. Life in Pinkerville is sporadic at best. I have been intensely working on some new stuff for the past 6 weeks and it all needs to stay in the oven a little longer before it is ready to serve, so to speak. It has nothing to do with food, I’m just hungry I guess. 

I do however have a fun little tid bit to share with y’all. I wanted to make a light spring quilt to put in my living room. You know, as a reminder that winter will eventually end and I will once again feel the warmth of the sun on my face. I have a vague memory of what that may be like. 

I was looking at my collection of Nest fabrics, made some color choices and then the whole pile of fabric fell on the floor. I discovered in my haphazard clumsiness that the back side of the fabric was exactly what I was looking for. How fun is that! I made the free download pattern for Nest from the Moda website using only the back sides.  I think it turned out super cute. It will look great in my living room if I ever have enough free time to actually finish my living room.

I’m “it” I guess? So I have been tagged? Notice all the question marks? I hated this game in grade school. I thought when I grew up that these things would go away but I guess not. I am expecting to be sent outside for talking to my neighbor at any moment. Being the graciously good sport that I am and because I happen to like Lucy(the traitor who tagged me) I am going to play along. 

Seven Randomly Honest Things About Me… 

1. I have a black belt in Tang Soo Do. I have been studying since I was 5. That’s my goofy picture up there. I used to go to karate class while my mom got her nails done next door. It seemed like way more fun than sniffing nail polish remover, a sentiment that changed by the time I got to high school. 

2. I am six feet tall and I love every inch of it. If you need me to come over and get something down off of a high shelf I would be more than happy to. 

3. I haven’t had TV in my house for almost 10 years. When I moved out of my parent’s house to go to college I couldn’t afford it. I guess I just never got around it once I finally got a job. 

4. I secretly want to be a hip hop super star, if only I could rap. I collect limited edition Nike’s and Adidas, like the ones they wore in Run DMC. I heart tennis shoes. 

5. I will watch anything with dancing in it no matter how dumb it is. I love to dance and have absolutely no rhythm. I once watched Napoleon Dynamite 7 times in a row trying to learn the entire routine he does at the assembly. I figure if he could do it then I could. I was wrong. 

6. I have 6 wisdom teeth instead of 4. I have been telling my Mom for years that I was supposed to be a twin and that’s why I have two extra teeth. She always said that was impossible… until two years ago when she had twins. 

7. And finally… I drive for fun. When I lived in Los Angeles I would get in my car and drive all the way to San Francisco and then turn around and come back, for no good reason. When gas prices went up so high I wanted to cry, it was like Daddy took my T-bird away. 

Now you know all of my dirty little secrets. Guard them well. I must pass this painful little game on to some other poor suckers. Sorry guys but it must be done. Besides I wanna know all your random quirks too, so serve it up! 

Here are my victims:Helen , Michelle , Holly , Joanna , Lizzy , Aimee , John 

Okay, so here is the dilemma, not tragic but still it’s something that deserves a little attention. I am doing this super huge color-wheel quilt from Joelle Hoverson’s Last Minute patchwork and Gifts book. I made one and it was so cute I decided to make three more and make it a Queen size quilt. It’s ginormous! Of course that wasn’t enough and I am going through this Victorian phase so I added these little cameo cutie silhouettes. For me a project is not complete unless it has some animals in it. It was all going just fine until I got to the last wheel. I have a puppy, a squirrel and a bunny. The dilemma is this, what goes in the last wheel?

I think y’all will be helpful and maybe think of something I haven’t thought of.

By the way, if you haven’t made this quilt you should. It is super easy, goes really fast and looks totally amazing. I used a bit from Full Moon Forest, Flutterby, Nest and Neptune with white and gray background pieces. I have seen a lot of people make it a ton of different ways. It always looks good, it’s just one of those great designs that can’t be messed up. I wish I had thought of it, but I didn’t so I will just have to settle with making it over and over again. That is the plight of envy I guess.