It’s like a little slice of life! And it could be all yours. A Honey Bun is like a Jellyroll only smaller and cuter.  It has 40 1.5 in x 42 in strips of every piece in Neptune. How exciting is that! All you gotta do is leave me a comment and I will randomly pick someone to receive this little treasure. You will love it and I will love you. Don’t worry you don’t have to be clever, even though it will make me smile and that should be reward enough. So bring it on and win some free stuff. I will keep taking entries until Friday the 13th, because that sounds totally ominous and fun. I will announce the winner the following Monday, the 16th of February. Happy commenting! P.S. Some of you may have noticed that the entry changed a little. That is because I accidentally deleted it. Don’t fret, those of you who have already entered are still entered. Sorry, I am a nerd sometimes in my haste to do things and end up creating chaos. All is well now.  

So here it is! I am so proud of this collection that I could spit, if spitting didn’t totally gross me out. I have been making tons of stuff out of this and can’t wait to actually finish something so I can show it to you. I suppose you have already guessed the theme, it’s dogs! Just kidding. I grew up on the coast so this is especially special to me. It feels like home. I am landlocked here is Dallas so Neptune is a little tribute to what I miss most about California, the ocean. It was freakin’ cold so I didn’t go in it all that much but I looked at it a lot and that’s gotta count for something, right? Neptune will be hitting the shops in March. It will give you something to look forward to through the winter.

This is a picture of the quilt I made for Neptune. I am really excited about it and I think it’s my best quilt ever. I worked on it with Lissa Alexander, the marketing director for Moda, and it turned out awesome. It is hanging in our booth which had a bake shop theme and was devastatingly adorable, if you ask me.

Below is my new collection of quilting cottons, Neptune. I am super excited about this group and can’t wait for y’all to get your crafty little hands on it. I think this may be my best yet. I will be giving the full details here shortly. I just need a moment to catch my breath.

It’s like the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine meets the Titanic. I guess that makes the little scuba diver swimming away from the sunken ship Leo. Ringo is on the submarine getting checked out by a seal and the octopus is just there to passively observe the whole affair.

This is all I’ve got this week. Man, I’m tired. I actually drove away from Starbucks this morning without my coffee. The guy in his little apron chased me half way down the street. How’s that for service! I guess when you serve uppers to grumpy tired people at 6 a.m. you get used to that sort of behavior.

There were three questions from the last RVPU (see title above, I am from Southern California and therefore must abbreviate everything). I plan on answering them here. I am so glad that someone actually cares about these pencil sketches! If you have any other questions about my process or almost anything else, leave me a comment and I will answer it on the next post.

Okay, down to business…

Marlene asked: Why do you sketch on graph paper?

Tula P. says: I sketch on graph paper because I am neurotic. Every scrap of paper in my studio is most likely on a grid. The paper I use for sketching fabric is a 10×10 line per inch transparent vellum. It’s like a heavy tracing paper with itty bitty grid lines. The grid helps me keep track of size and repeats. I draw to scale most of the time. It helps me keep things even and balanced and allows me to keep track of how much surface I have covered so I can engineer the repeat.

Myth asked: Can you post bigger shots of your sketches?

Tula P. says: I don’t post them larger because of loading time. The pics are meant to be more like a snapshot rather than something you can actually print or blow up. I will work on it though, I promise.

Pam asked: Will you be at Quilt Market in October?

Tula P. says: Yes! I will be in the Moda booth sellin’ all the new fabrics. I give a good pitch I think. The best part is showing my line and watching peoples faces. Most people don’t know what I look like so they speak frankly, sometimes it’s good and sometimes it’s not. The first time I ever showed Flutterby the customer took one look at it and said, “Yuck! Pass!”. I wrote that one down in my sketch book under First Customer Interaction. I wish I had it (and the look on my face) on tape, it was priceless! Good thing my mom was there to tell me that I am awesome and other validating mom-like things.

I’m not lazy, just busy. I swear I’m thinking about you every minute.

What does a girl who gets paid to design fabric do with her free time? That’s right, she designs more fabric. I stumbled onto this Spoonflower blog a while back and my head was all a buzz with ideas. Spoonflower is a site where you can upload your own designs and they digitally print limited quantities of that fabric. It’s a blast. I can make all kinds of wacky stuff. I just had to try it out. I plan on using this site to make all of the things that Moda would never let me get away with. It’s not their fault, how are you going to sell thousands of yards of tuna cans with my name on them?

My first print… ta da! They are Tula cans, not tuna but Tula. I think it’s hilarious. So there are really big cans and little bitty cans. A girl needs options. The big ones are about 12 inches across and the little ones are around 3 inches.

So go check it out. Oh, and please don’t stop buying my fabric even though you can make your own now. Thanks.