My name is Tula Pink and I am a shoe addict. I may qualify for state funded medical treatment. Anywhoo I love shoes and I love me so it only seems appropriate that the two should become one. I first heard about Zazzle from Heather Ross’ blog. Check out her shoes, super cute. This site allows you to upload your own artwork and they custom make the shoes. You get to pick the binding color, grommet color etc… It’s totally brilliant.

This pair was made from my Plume line for my mom who suffers from the same shoe affliction. I have been making my mom’s presents since birth, literally (think about it, it makes sense). Now that I’m past the acceptable point of popsicle sticks and white glue I’ve had to start getting really creative. So… shoes! Now she wants a pair of shoes for every fabric line I have ever made. I swear, I try to do something nice and all I get is more work. At least I don’t have to do anything painful.These were my Mom’s mother’s day present. Love you mom!

 There is almost nothing better than working really really hard on something and then spending a weekend seeing what happens when you systematically destroy it in your washing machine. Of course, this is only satisfying when you have a couple hundred yards of it safely shelved and covered in plastic.

I have been doing a little more experimenting and thought I might share the results with you. A friend of mine, Lauren,  bleached some fabric for our Guild project and I was totally into it. I tried using bleach and I also tried using RIT color remover. I applied each method to Neptune and Plume. I used my washing machine and followed the instructions on the box.

BLEACH- I added 2 cups of bleach to a regular cycle on my washing machine in hot water.  The bleach lightened everything, duh, but also took colors out completely. Aqua seemed to be the weakest color against the bleach and faded first. Aqua turned to gray, navy turned to brown, coral to a peachy brown, green to yellow, brown to gold/mustard.

COLOR REMOVER- This was really cool. The printed navy went to black, dyed navy went rust colored, aqua turned to a beige color and everything else went gold! Except the brown which pretty much held where it was printed, but the dyed brown portions went gray-ish. Awesome.

I’m sort of afraid to wash my clothes now.

The first winner of the Jellyroll Give Away is Joan! Yay! Email your address to me and I will get this delicious little Plume Jellyroll in the mail to you pronto!

I promised I would show y’all some of the projects that resulted from my Quilt Guild’s Project Plume Challenge. There were so many amazing things if I could have taken all of them I would have. This is just a small sampling of the almost 40 projects made with the charm pack.

Above is Shea’s Project. This is probably the most adorable thing I have ever seen. She made a mini mini version of my Le Petite Salon pattern. Can you believe she made that with only a Charm Pack and a half yard of fabric?!? So cute I could cry.

Alex, front and back- I really liked the gray she used with her charm pack. I am a sucker for simple repeating geometry, it totally appeals to my neurotic side. Also, If you want to see the most amazing little boy quilt ever made then check this out.

Kelly, front and back- Oh Kelly, how I adore thee! These wonky little windows are super fun. There is even a little appliqued piece in the center. I also loved the addition of the dictionary print on the back and binding. Sigh…

Carla, left- This arrangement uses the same exact block as Alex’s project only it’s arranged in a diamond pattern. It’s amazing what can happen by simply rotating a basic half-square-triangle. It was so well made too. Carla is pretty much the most elegant lady ever.

Mary, right-  Mary used hot pink as her half yard. I think that may have been for my personal benefit. I never turn down a pink, the hotter the better.

Since I couldn’t get my hands on every project, here are a few other blogs that have posts on the Project Plume Challenge:

Marilyn Butler

Jacquie Gerring

Angela Walters

Moda Fabrics and myself donated 36 charm packs of Plume to my guild, the Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild. We decided to make it into a challenge and came up with Project Plume (you know, like Project Runway?). The rules were to use one charm pack and a half yard of fabric to create a quilt top. Backing and binding were wide open. I am so excited to see what people come up with. This one is mine. I used every last thread of my half yard. I also quilted it myself which I have never done before. I thought about giving it to my quilter, Angela, but since she was making one too I felt there was a conflict of interest there, not that it stopped anyone else from using her incredible skills, you know who you are. I was initially going to hand quilt it but after poking myself several times, and having to use my own spit for blood removal (gross), I decided that the machine was the way to go. I also pieced my binding to mimic the stripes in the triangles which was a total pain in my you know what. So now it’s done and I think it’s really nifty and I will never do several of those things again. Lessons learned.I also tossed this feed sack on the back which just happened to be exactly the right size. I would like to believe that it was my reward for all of the pain and suffering I endured. Hopefully I will be able to borrow a few of the other projects to photograph so I can show y’all the many creative uses of a charm pack. Maybe I’ll pair it with a give away. Everyone likes free stuff.

Check out my guest post on True Up!  Big Thanks to Mary Beth for inviting me to write a little somthin’ for them. It’s a great site, all about fabric. I mean really, what else is there?

Happy Easter Peeps! Let the jelly bean festival commence. Hope you like my eggs, just a little gift from me to you. I will now dive deeply into food comma coma and frivolity.

By the way… I’m on twitter now. If you have any desire to keep up with my very glamorous life on a more frequent basis, you can find me here. Say hi @tulapink.

A while back I showed y’all the process for the feather print in Plume. That was my way of leaking what I was working on. There are rules you know. You can’t sell the cow before it’s been milked… wait that’s not the metaphor. Anywhoo, it’s out now so all secrecy is behind me and I can starting crafting new secrets.

Drawing drawing drawing, la la lala. After I scan the drawing into Adobe Illustrator I start redrawing the “skeleton” of what the final product will look like. Illustrator is the only program I use. I know that there are a lot of programs that structure your repeats for you and have a lot of fancy tools. I guess I am just an elitist or possibly just stubborn or maybe I can’t move past what I know but this is how I like it. I like to draw every line, every step, do all of the math, much like a psychotic control freak (not that I am one, I have documentation on this).

Filling in the skeleton is the first real glimpse of how the fabric will look. At this point I can determine if one section is beginning to look too heavy or if the spacing is weird (in a bad way as opposed to that quirky awkwardness that is so popular these days). By the time I get to color I’m pretty much sitting on the edge of my seat, now I have to start thinking again but it’s still the home stretch. Hmmmm I’ll put green there and blue there, wait, that’s too heavy and I don’t have any lights in this area blah blah blah… That was a sample of my internal dialog.

Once the pinks are dropped in and the background color is established I can take a little break. Then I come back and realize that it all needs to be tweaked.

This is the original color way. In the end I added some golds and turned up the volume a bit on the whole thing. And this is what you get…

Plume is finally in stores! YaY! I have been making tons of stuff. My quilter is pretty much either totally loving me or cursing my name. I’m not sure which. I have a bunch of stuff in the oven and am going to be traveling a bit so if you don’t hear from me as often just know that I am busy making stuff for your benefit. I might also being painting my living room which I have just about had it with.

Once a fabric line ships to stores I feel like I have just released a breath I have been holding for months. I finally have all of my samples made and am now settling into the calm before the creative storm when it all starts up again. I have a bunch of new stuff to show y’all. If only the sun would come out long enough to take a picture. Boo. Who ever thought winter was a good idea anyway? I know I didn’t vote for it.

Miss Holly over at Lakehouse Drygoods has this crazy blog event going. She got a whole bunch of people to make stuff out of her new dolly dresses panel, including me. I’m a total sucker. Mine is going up on December 12th. Check it out, it should be pretty cool to see what all of these different people do with the same panel. Mine will have birds on it. duh.