Tula Pink

I would like to take a small Parisville break to introduce y’all to my Hushabye rejected swatches. It’s a hard thing to throw out certain pieces when I am busy deciding what makes the cut and what doesn’t. There are soooo many reasons why one choice is made over another. In the end I have a nice little pile of fallen soldiers that were maybe just a tad too green or didn’t have the punch I was looking for or, more often than not, they just didn’t play well with the others. What ever the reason, I have them and I love them. Once their fate has been decided I have a couple of options. They can sit in a drawer which would be boring and useless or I could take these little one of a kind gems and make something out of them.

I channeled a fictitious Grandma to come up with this little number. My real grandma wore Chanel and fancied her middle finger above all others. She was not a quilter but an expert shopper and maker of tiny tuna sandwiches. We miss her.

Anywhoo, there are some real treasures in there.  I love the idea of having a quilt that is absolutely one of a kind. It makes me feel happy and special.

So here’s the deal, I have never been able to grow anything, not that I ever tried all that hard. I am mostly an indoor kitty, I work, I draw and I read, I tend to go out at night. I know what you must be thinking, vampire right? Sorry not that interesting.

Gardening has never been a huge priority for me, mostly because I have never had a yard, or much of one at least. Now that I live in the great vastness of the country I feel compelled to make at least something grow. It seems to be the highlight of summer out here and I am compelled to fit in, acquaint my self with local tradition and eventually be invited to every BBQ in town! I am almost there but I think making something grow of my own accord will definitely help get my foot in the door.

I have decided to start small. In a pot to be precise, I still have no idea what’s lurking in that grass out there. So without further adieu I would like to introduce you to my newly sprouted basil! It’s actually growing! I am kinda proud of myself. The trick was ignoring it. I totally forgot about it and voila! there it is! I can’t wait for it to get bigger so I can pretend I am actually going to cook with it too.

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! 

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.