Tula Pink

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.

So my bloggy friends, Pamela and Lindsey, let me know about this Hollywood Nest sighting. I don’t have TV so I missed it. I immediately downloaded the episode from Itunes and there it is! Nest on TV! Apparently in the world of Monk, egg eating champions who may also be suspected of jealousy induced vandalism hi-jinx have very chic curtains in their homes! Who would have thunk it? Hot Pink curtains go very nicely with criminal tendencies. I never did get past the curtains to find out if he did it or not. I think he did. A fictional person with that much style is definitely up to no good. The episode is called “Mr. Monk and the Lady” if you want to check it out. You can watch it for free here. It’s about 25 minutes into the episode and it glares on the screen. It’s hard to miss.

So now that my little pink Nest Eggs are famous she has a big attitude. It was bound to happen. Her 4 minutes of fame went straight to her head. Now I am expected to drive her around to all kinds of casting calls and she is on a special low carb diet.

Oh wait… I know what you really came here for. You want to know who won the Honey Bun? Well, I am so excited about Neptune’s pending release that I decided to give out a few charm packs as well. So here it goes.

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The Winners are…

Denise- Honey Bun

Can you believe I never knew the difference between a jelly roll and a honey bun until now? Thanks for educating me! lol And I am in love with “Neptune”….anchors make me smile! =0) Thanks

Stefanie- Charm Pack

Glad that you are back with us! I would love to win your Neptune honey bun! The colors are “swimmingly” beautiful!

Heather- Charm Pack

Hi there! Hey little hunnybun! I would love to win those cuties, so here is my comment! Thanks and wish me luck!

Bridget B.- Charm Pack

I love the stump and ax, of course I love the fabric, but that stump is so cute. If stumps can be cute that is.

Kristi S- Charm Pack

I would LOVE to win this…pick me..pick me!!

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Email me your address and I will get these in the mail to you pronto. Thanks for playing my game and making me feel loved!

I am off to Quilt Market, I leave tomorrow morning and I won’t be back for about a week or so. I will have so much to show you that your heads will explode! It’s going to be fantastic, I swear.

In my absence I am leaving you with this… A lovely little Etsy shop, appropriately named KatinkaPinka, is making these adorable wrap skirts out of Nest. I think they are the best! I have bought a lot of jewelry from her store, she has great style and chickens! She lives in a pink Victorian house with her chickens, 2 magic bunnies, a bunch of kitties, 3 pups, some finches and a dove. Say what? That sounds like some sort of Tula Pink fantasy park! Maybe my next fabric collection will be a KatinkaPinka tribute collection. Hmmm, I will get started on that, after Quilt Market that is.

I will see some of you this weekend and the rest of you when I get back but I will never stop thinking about you.

Hello happy contestants! You have made me very happy. I feel so popular like a cheerleader with perfect hair and tons of lip gloss. If I weren’t a chubby brunette with a secret sci-fi obsession I might actually believe this little fantasy.

Before I announce the winner I am going to ask you to sit through a review of my findings. This was something of a market research scheme for my future fabric groups. I want to know what you want. Why? because I’m a giver. The clear favorite was the noble dog. This group was also the most specific, almost every dog vote was followed by a particular breed and of the 46 votes for dog there were 22 different breed faves. So I declare this group a dedicated one. The close second coming in at 35 votes was for the cat. These were followed closely by the owl, the giraffe and the bird. I have to say that my favorite was probably the one vote for unicorn followed by a near vote for “husband” as their favorite animal. All in all I am impressed by the diversity. So thanks again for playing my game.

The moment you have been waiting for is finally here. The randomly selected winners are as follows:

Tote Bag

Stacey: Owl, Former Dolphin lover in recovery

Charm Packs

Theresa: Red & White Tabby Cat

Krista: Flamingo (the pinkest pick in the bunch)

Melissa: Cat

Rachel: Moose

You lucky kids need to send your addresses to jenny at tulapink dot com. They are packaged and ready to go, all they need is a place to land!

Thanks again for playing my game and helping me out. You are the best!

It’s a wrap. This contest is now closed. Thanks for playing!

In an effort to appear more popular I am offering to buy your love with free stuff. Okay so that’s not the only reason. I haven’t been doing this blog thing for long but so far it’s been nice. I have met some awesome people and found other amazing blogs that I would have never found otherwise. Most of all I have read some really nice things about myself from people other than my mom, it’s very validating. So in response to your overwhelming generosity I am giving things away.

I spent my whole Sunday working up some goodies for y’all and I hope you like it. The first thing I am giving away is a lovely tote bag made from Full Moon Forest tree trunk stripes. I stitched on a little squirrel at the bottom because I love you all that much. The second thing I am giving away are 4 charm packs of my new line Nest, in little bags that I made all by myself. So let me be clear on this there are 5 winners in all (don’t be fooled, you are all winners in my heart). These are some pretty good odds.

How do you win these fabulous prizes? It’s so easy it’s almost criminal. All you have to do is tell me what your favorite animal is. Leave a comment and the winners will be chosen at random. I will announce the 5 winners on August 17th. Just so you know… there will be no favoritism shown towards any animals, we are equal opportunity animal appreciators here in Pinkerville.

Another collection down the pipeline and yet another batch of wayward cast offs. Some of my favorite pieces are in here. The ones I seem to like the most are the ones that don’t play well with others. Every time I go through this I feel like I am breaking up with the ones that didn’t make the cut. I try to spend more time with them and explain that it’s really not their fault. Maybe in a different place at a different time under different circumstances, things could be more between us. I tell them that I still want to be friends and promise to make them into something really special, a one of a kind piece for a one of a kind fabric. It quiets their rumbles for a while and makes me feel like a descent person, for a while.

p.s. sorry about the drama up there. I have been in one of those moods.

I’ve got it bad! I can’t stop making these little hexagons. The are seducing me from my little project bag across the room.  They whisper my name and beg me to make just one more, then it’s “well just keep going until the thread runs out”. This can’t be natural or maybe I’ve been watching too many sci-fi movies, both are possibilities. What are they you ask? They are little paper hexagons that fit a charm pack perfectly. The only drawback is that they come in packs of 25 or 150 and charm packs come with 40 pieces. It’s sort  of like that whole hot dog /bun conspiracy but I won’t get into that here. I don’t even eat hot dogs but I reserve the right to be upset about it anyway.

Sorry for the detour. So you take these little paper hexagons and wrap a charm square around it and losely stitch down the corners. It is so satisfying! they are perfect every time with oh-so-little effort. I’m a line it up, make it match kind of girl so the precision is intoxicating. It’s going to take me forever to finish (because I am dead set on doing the whole thing by hand, we’ll see how long that lasts) but I’ll keep you updated on my progress. I am making this one out of Full Moon Forest, Flutterby and Nest. The first two collections are hard to come by at this point so I had to do a little bargaining with my mom to get her to release some of her stash. That woman drives a hard bargain.

The crazy whirlygig of fun called “Quilt Market” is over and the act of recovery has commenced. I have been out of touch for while and it’s because I have been here (see above). the cabin is something like 100 years old so it looks a little shabby but I think the umbrella on the deck gives it that added touch of tropical flair. It’s a happy umbrella. Time spent without electricity or phone service can really change a person. It gives a girl some time to reflect, to ponder the larger picture. This is what I came up with… I really truly need things like ipods, laptops, hair dryers, flat irons, a blender would be nice ooo oh and light, I really really like light, my sewing machine, heating and air conditioning, you see where I am going with this? It was a lovely break from reality and gave me ample time to unwind from all the “excitement”. I ended up doing a lot of hand sewing, I will be sharing the fruits of that labor in the near future. I read a bunch and lounged a bunch. I had long drawn out conversations with friends that would not have otherwise occurred. A majority of the time was spent observing the dogs and all of their shenanigans. The dog to human ratio was 1 to 1 so there a lot tension regarding couch space. All in all a successful trip even without the comfort of the mind numbing digital distractions I have become accustomed to. What can I say, I’m a 21st century kind of girl.

SIDE NOTE: I came home to a mountain  of emails asking me where my pictures from quilt market are. Well there aren’t any. boo. Unless I snap a few pics on my bathroom break there really isn’t any time for that. I arrived in Portland three days before it opened to help set up Moda’s monster huge booth. By the time Friday rolled around my vision had already begun to blur and my knees were a tad shaky. During Market I help sell fabric for Moda from opening to closing. Nights are generally for recovery but this time I was holed up in my hotel room working on my next fabric collection which I am a little late turning in, oops! There may have been some sort of on stage singing incident at the Moda party but I was in no shape to be recklessly snapping pics. So that’s my story. I am sorry if I let you down. Next time I will have the room service guy take pictures of me in pajamas soaking my tired feet in the bathtub. It will probably be more uncomfortable for him then it will be for me. But I will do it for you. Because I love you.

Who’s a winner? besides all of you of course… My Mom is! My spunky yet sophisticated and adorable mom is going to be one of the 10 featured shops in American Patchwork & Quilting’s Quilt Sampler magazine. She owns a quilt shop in Stewartsville, Missouri appropriately named “The Quilt Shoppe” (I like a woman who gets right to the point). I wonder what fabric she will use for the quilt that represents her store? hmm… Oh that’s right, MINE! She is a very loyal Mommy and I love her for that. Once the Magazine comes out in September she will be selling kits for the above masterpiece in her store as well as online. She bought oodles of Nest to stock along with my other collections. Psst… she still has some Full Moon Forest and Flutterby left for those of you who need a little of this or that. I have a feeling she has been hording it in the back room which I fully condone because she gave birth to me. I think that entitles her to certain things. Anwhoo, let’s all say a big hooray for my Mom! I am proud of you because you are RAD and I love you because you are AWESOME!

The quilt is called Empty Nest Syndrome, obviously made from my new collection, Nest. She fussy cut all of the little nest eggs for the star centers. See how the bottom right star is empty? Isn’t she the cutest! The quilt pays homage to all of us wild youngsters who have flown the coup and left our moms with no one to clean up after.

Well kids, I am off to Quilt Market. I leave for Portland in a few hours and I will miss you all terribly. This time I will have some serious arm candy. I bought a bag from DrakaB Design’s Etsy Shop a while back and fell. in. love. She is my new favorite person. The radical pink one in front is for me, of course, and the sassy little green one in the back is a present for my Mom. She has been instructed not to read the blog until after market but I get my lack of patience from her so we’ll see. If you are going to be in Portland and you see this awesome pink bag then say hi to me (I will be the one carrying it). If you see the green bag then say hi to my mom. She will love it and most likely tell you all sorts of embarrassing tid bits about my teenage years. She loves that.

Anywhoo… See you in a week!