Folk Flower Quilt!

Hello there! This year I am so happy to be participating in Creativebug's BOM series along with Heather Jones & Carolyn Friedlander.  Every month we are taking turns sharing a block design that you can learn from our video classes at their site.  (They have a few different options for joining/viewing but both REALLY reasonable).

Anyhoo, bc I am such a Creativebug fan & supporter, I worked with them through Craft South to create a monthly quilt kit program that corresponds with the block of the month.  For May I created the Folk Flower block, and I used the block design to create a big stinking quilt as you see above.  And we now have the kits ready to go in the Craft South online shop!  This is one of my favorite quilts ever, if I do say so myself, and I am excited to see other variations!  

I have written more notes about going from learning the machine applique block (way easier than you might think, I promise) to creating the quilt.  SO hop over to the Craft South blog for that info, if you please.

xoxo, Anna Maria

MY KNITS!

 






Well they are floating around out there in all their stretchy, playful glory so it is high time I share some words and thoughts on my first interlock knit collection!

THE INSPIRATION
Here's the official statement: "As the name might imply, Anna Maria Knits is an essential grouping of color and form that perfectly suits the style and function afforded by the versatile jersey cloth.  Each of the designs was derived from various collections, but all re-imagined as a group to offer a little something for everyone, ranging from sweet to sophisticated.  Some of the simplest and most stylish fashion forms are created from jersey knit, and Anna Maria Knits provides a diverse group of designs well suited for casual tees, charming dresses, inventive skirts, and more.  Each of the three colorways inspires multiple mix and match opportunities and gives the modern sewist confident choices to easily translate her favorite looks into home sewn projects. "

THE ARTWORK
Because the collection of imagery is pulled from at least three artwork sources (Dowry, True Colors & Pretty Potent) we named this group Anna Maria Knits. Keep it simple, you know.  I have seen it pop up in various locations and referred to as Pretty Potent Knits.... not really sure why, but perhaps because that is my most recent quilting cotton collection... either way, same awesome fabric!! There are 5 prints, in 3 colorways for a total of 15 pieces.  The three colorways (listed from the above photos in order) are Carnival, Campground, and Boardwalk.

THE FABRIC
When choosing the specific knit that I wanted to print my artwork on, I had several to choose from.  My goal in selecting one was that it retain color well, be soft, have ample body, be opaque, that it be easy to sew with, and that the weight make it just as suitable for tees as it is for dresses and skirts.  This meant that I picked over some others that were more sheer and more stretchy.... both of these things make knits more challenging to sew with and to wear.  I love all sorts of knits, but I felt strongly about letting my first group being something that someone who is approaching knit sewing for the first time can feel confident about.  In other words if you have sewn with nothing but woven, this is the perfect type of knit for you to make that first step.  This particular knit is 100% cotton.  It is 58/60" wide.

THE STRETCH
Just like a woven, this knit stretches more on the width of fabric (selvage to selvage) than it does on the length.  So in general you would want to pay close attention to aligning your grainline arrows on patterns with the grain of the fabric if you want it to perform correctly as it stretches around your body.  You may hear the word "percentage" thrown around when talking about how much a knit stretches.... and that means what is the percentage further you can stretch the fabric beyond flat and unstretched.  This stretch amount is tested and determined to be based on the most you would actually want the material to stretch on your body, and obviously in the case of printed knit it should not be so much stretch that you are warping the designs a great deal.  My analysis of this fabric is that it has about a 25% stretch.  In other words 10" of width can easily stretch to about 12.5" before warping or over stretching.  The retention (bouncing back into shape) is also very good with this fabric.

THE SEWING
I want you to close your eyes (well not really since you need to read) and tell yourself that you can sew with knit on your regular ole sewing machine.  Because it is true.  Especially with this knit fabric.  I recommend cutting just as you always would, with either a rotary or sheers or some combination.  I recommend using a ballpoint needle or a "stretch" needle in a size suitable for medium weight materials.  Regular ole seams can be sewn with regular ole straight stitches.   I have hemmed and top-stitched using a simple straight stitch, a zig-zag, and a straight stitch using a twin needle.  Of the three methods I like the twin needle the best, the straight stitch second, and the zigzag comes in last place.  There are loads of helpful tutorials out there on using  a twin needle on your machine.  I think you will feel smart and liberated once you try it!  Another amazing perk of sewing with knits is no need to finish any edges!  Believe me, I love a good serger (especially this one) but (stop reading Janome friends) you really do not need one to sew these knits.  For the super stretchy, slinky type knits?  I would probably say a good serger is worth the investment if you are serious about your sewing.  Like me. I am not smiling at all because I am so serious about my sewing.

THE WASHING
I think more than any other fabric that I have designed I highly recommend pre-washing these goods before cutting and sewing as well as considering shrinkage when you are determining yardage requirements.  After washing on a cold, normal cycle with normal detergent then drying on a low temperature drying cycle one yard of fabric shrinks a bit more than two inches on the length and right around two exact inches on the width.  I did the same wash test with another piece but let it drip dry instead and there was really no difference at all.  Now I feel pretty certain (though I didn't test it) that if you were to throw the knit in a high temp dry cycle that it might shrink even more.  However that shrinkage might sort of "wear out" as the garment gets through a day in the life.  All naturally based fabric, woven and knit, kinda does that anyway.  One more thought about the washing:  some of the prints that take a bit more ink to achieve the coloration might feel slightly less soft to the touch right off of the bolt.  However I found that everything feels equally soft and comfy after a pre-washing.  Knowledge people.  I am giving you soft and comfy knowledge.

Okay.  Who's excited?  A run down of your inspiration images up there:  The first 3 photos are showing off me and two of my sweeties in the 3 size options of the Lemon Drop Dress & Tunic pattern that I design specifically for these very knits (or any others that you fancy).  This pattern has loads of options and includes dress or tunic sizes for 18mos-4toddler, 5/6-11/12girls, and ladies XS-XL.  So far I have made myself precisely 3 shirts and two dresses, 3 dress for Mary Anna, a dress for Eleni, and a dress and top for Bela.  It is a simple fun sew, and I will be back next to tell you all about that + a very fun knitty/sewy giveaway that we are doing once we get the patterns listed in the shop.

The very last photo is a super simple version of the sleeveless Lemon Drop Tunic where I skipped the neckband but free-motion appliqued favorite raw edge fabric elements.  It was worth quickly throwing together in my smoldering attic yesterday to then put on my sweaty self before heading to lunch and has given me about a zillion more ideas of how to play with all this pretty, pretty stuff.

Enjoy! xoxoAM

July

I seem to have inadvertently assigned only monthly check-ins to myself here on the blog this toasty warm season.  One moment I wonder how that happened, and then the next moment a month has passed and I have my answer.  It has been a very, very full summer already.  We are not major vacationers around here, typically opting instead to take short trips of the spontaneous variety.  But these past weeks we have managed to find ourselves in various pockets of the country and surprised every time we stop to realize how smoothly it went.  Thank you Summer, that was really nice of you.  We went to the Catskills to stay with my friend Heather & family for a dew days, and I cannot explain just exactly how much I loved physically being in that place.  Just that part of the country, seeing the different forestation and rock colorations, feeling different breezes, getting bit by different bugs, let alone the splendid company of my sweet and entertaining friend, her adorable and clever husband and their storybook-cute kiddo, Miss Bea.  Her and Roman had a bit of a thing.  It was all too adorable for words.  Heather and I did glamourous things like move and organize food into her new pantry that was delivered the first day we were there.  I reminded her throughout the rest of the trip that she will forever thank me for establishing a dried fruit and nut shelf. The womenfolk among us took off to Vermont for Heather's Mother/daughter Weekend sewing event at the Blueberry Hill Inn, leaving the boys to themselves, sliced cheese, organic bacon, the lake, some canoes, life jackets for the toddlers, beer for the daddys and guitars for all.  As it turns out, that was all way more than that group needed for fun.  As for us, we packed the car full of craft supplies which was just exactly what was required for our fun + loads of lovely women and their daughters, cool nights, s'mores, beer and ponds and lakes.  Too, too much fun, and I hope to do it again next summer.  Vermont is absolutely beautiful.  Driving all the way to upstate NY, then to Vermont, back to NY and finally home to Nashville was quite the trek. I personally spent 42 hours driving a car over 7 days time. However I really didn't know until I was in the midst of the long hours on the sunny road followed by several hours in severe storms driven with white knuckles and extra open eyeballs followed by numerous full double rainbows that I was so in need of this blank space.  A resting spot out there.  One after another.  Nothingness, really, if we are speaking relative to my normal days.  It was equally unanticipated and necessary.  Since then we have also found ourselves to East Tennessee for time with my Dad, my brother, sister and all the cousins.  We took ten of those cousins up the side of one of the Smokey Mountains for a 5 mile hike.  We relied only on my brother's memory of Rainbows Falls having hiked it 20 years ago with Juliana on his back.  He muttered something about kinda rocky then leveling out.  We looked for the leveling out the WHOLE entire way up, and the smarter among us didn't bother looking on the way back.   On the way to post-hike milkshakes, burgers and fries, Jeff and I talked about how you must name mountain peaks things like Rainbow Falls because no one would climb it if you named it Not Really Worth It Especially If You Have Ten Children With You Falls.  I also learned from Roman that the word shortcut describes something that you should never do because you could get cut.  Short. Cut.  In the case of traveling across rockier, branchier bits of path he was absolutely right so I chose not to argue. I only pointed out that it was all too easy for him to say from his lofty position of piggy-on-my-back all the way down the mountain.  Phew.

And before all of this amazingly fun continental traipsing about over the past two weeks, we held our first Craft-South series.  We, the studio bunch of us, are all still on floaty happiness mode around here as it was everything that I hoped it would be and so much more.  My One Day Patchwork Primer ladies were eager and stellar.  My Kids Patchwork girls were out of this world interested and talented.  And the weekend lot of ladies along with the incomparable Amy Butler joining and sharing was so incredibly enjoyable I forgot that I was working.  Really, really so great, and here we are just about set to start the July Craft-South block next week.  Please come by our temporary studio in Berry Hill if you'll be in the area next week!  We have a pop-up shop of crafty-sew-y love open to all from Wed-Sat 10-4pm.  Meanwhile the classes will be teaching all kinds of tips and tricks to garment sewing with Liesl Gibson & myself.  (And we are making really good progress on the permanent nashville location!)

Oh, why did you let me go on like that!?   So much more I would love to chat on about, but there are loads of rummage-sale orders to get out, and we are getting all of my new rayons, voiles, flannels & knits loaded into the shop for next week.

More soon pals.  Hope you've had your feet up a bit.  Smooch. Anna Maria

Pretty Close

By Land

By Sea

By Air

I am so pleased to share a close look at my new collection of quilting Cotton, Pretty Potent. Here is the write-up that I've offered to describe my inspiration for the collection in short:  

I've always considered sitting in front of a plant with a pencil and paper the best drawing class one can take. Looking to nature for inspiration and instruction on beauty is an old and welcome practice in all forms of making art. Using the natural world for healing is perhaps even an older practice. In my Pretty Potent collection, I drew inspiration specifically from plants and flowers that are often used for healing. While they possess properties to heal our physical bodies, the very beauty of the plants themselves seems intended to be a balm for the soul. Potent and pretty. The duality enchanted me

That is most of the story. There is always a bit more to it. Sometimes I feel compelled to share that extra bit, and this is one of those times.  As misplaced as the back story might actually seem in the realm of cotton fabric (for heaven's sake), I have always felt that there aren't any real rules to any of this so no imminent breaking of them I suppose either. Roughly a year ago I had a newborn baby who needed milk and precious undivided attention around the clock. I had the sting of shock with every move that I made having just lost my mother only weeks earlier, and in many ways was suffering from post-traumatic stress as the recurring images of the very intimate details of losing her slowly over several days by her side, as blessed as I was to be there, appeared in my eyes in my sleep and with every possible trigger of memory in my days.  I had contracted MRSA from the hospital where I delivered Mary Anna that was unbelievably painful and required a great amount of care to prevent giving it to the baby as the main infection site was right in my underarm very near where her sweet head rested as she nursed.  I had torn a ligament in my left knee by slipping down my father's stairs the night before the 40-day memorial for my mother, rendering me limp and unable to go on long walks that I desperately needed for my recovery of body and soul, without intense amounts of pain.  I had a vascular anamoly that would not stop bleeding for more than a month that finally required plastic surgery to remove from my sternum. And I was behind on work. Which was a pittance in comparison to all of the above, however it was work for which I so wanted to be joyful and healthy and glad.  It was designing my fabric collection. I was in need of healing.  In so many ways.  Specifically never in my life had I been in more need of physical healing, let alone the rest. I was bankrupt of the typically deep well of inspiration that I have for making art. I settled then, very mechanically at first, on allowing my work, my drawing, my coloring, and my inspiration to derive itself from subject matter that was very specifically about healing. But also beauty. Desperate for both.  My colorway names are derived from a prayer for travelers, as the tiniest additional plea from me.  And yes it is attached to something that certainly does not require such an outpouring of emotion or even thought, only being fabric.  But you see, there was no other possible way for me to do it if I could not create all of it at once, just like this and convince myself (a lie perhaps) that doing so in this exact way would certainly help.  I was so in need of help.  I prayed continually for it.  I asked my dear mother in prayer for it in a quiet room where I got no response other than a sweet baby making little slurpy nursing noises, and I would then have to force a response in my head, holding so closely to the imagined sound of my mother's voice, fearing if I didn't I would lose it forever.  I needed even this work for hire to be a process, a story, a prayer, and even a recovery.  And so it was.  A little.  And a joy now to feel how much I have indeed in every physical sense healed since then, across the months since the first drawing to now finally the sewing.  I will continue a little now, as though I have not indulged enough, and share each of the prints closely.


Echinacea is commonly used to heal a common cold and boost the immune system.


Chammomile is commonly used to heal inflammations of the skin and bacteria on the skin.


Eucalyptus is commonly used to heal wounds, ulcers and burns.


Mary Thistle was used in the first century to protect the liver and treat cancer.


Primrose is thought to have benefits for many different ailments including autoimmune diseases.


Aloe Vera is most commonly used to heal burns, but has uses for numerous ailments.


Banner Days is a design inspired by the Mexican folk art, papel picado which is used to decorate family celebrations like baptisms, weddings and even funerals.


Family Unit is inspired by the group of us that are commonly used to heal ME.

thank you, xoxoAM

In Care of

I am appreciating the pace of things right now. (Ask me again in a few minutes.) There is as much going on as ever I suppose, but no piece of it is causing me anxiety or impatience.  I am just moving along, feeling as though I have at least a grasp on everything.  You should know this feeling is not typical for me.  I can barely spend a minute basking in the relief of one thing finished before the fear of being behind on 14 others.  Self-employment?  Motherhood?  Both? You know that feeling.
I have found time to put real flowers on cupcakes.  I potted herbs for my new patio shelves.  I went for a good long run with my ipod for the first time in I can't remember.  I rocked Mary Anna entirely to sleep several times over the past few days instead of just close enough to sleep.  That was my favorite.  I laid down last night well before bedtime with only the intent to listen to rain hitting the window. 
In the studio this week, Pierrette and I have photographed, inventoried, cataloged, organized, packed, edited, listed, and launched all of my new cross stitch patterns and kits.  This is a thrill for me!  Really, really.  These little guys took a serious amount of perfecting that was deceivingly simple when I began the design and printing process.  But I am entirely happy with how they turned out, and the project was worth the extra bit of care that it required.  They live in a very freshened up Needleworks section of my shop that now has scissors, hoops, aida cloth, needles and brand new palettes of floss too.
Tomorrow Jeff & I head out very early with Mary Anna to NYC for the big fashion show.  I am learning what it means to be proud.  I thought I knew.  And I haven't even gotten there.  Oh. I feel the butterflies in Juliana's stomach from here.  And I think tomorrow they will all get their flying lessons.
Come along with me on IG.
smooch! Anna
(AND! thank you so much for all of the print orders!  Jeff told me that I found a sneaky way to being an artist, which is both funny and true.  Your support of my art is gilded.  Thank you!)

Sewing with Sunshine

And by Sunshine I of course mean the little Miss. The sun beaming through the windows on us and this project was no additional trouble however. I lurve the April stack. It is kind of as pale and neutral as this studio is capable of, which feels nice and fresh.   (And because there are 6 solids included, the stack has 14 total fabrics still keeping it in the 30-40$ range. Yay!)  It was high time I actually sat down at the sewing machine and enjoyed one of these Monthly Gatherings myself. Which is good timing for the new couch cover I have on one of the family room sofas. Everything in that room was in need of a good refreshing. Pillows and paint are my very favorite refreshers, probs yours too.  I am not sure if this pillow will stay on this sofa, or go on the cream one, but I do know that I will make another pillow from all the scraps left from this one.

For the flying geese I used the no-waste method of making four flying geese at once, which I describe in this Mother Goose free quilt pattern, but googling that italic phrase up there will take you to several spots where a formula is described for getting the specific size that you want for your geese.  This pillow is 24x24 and I wanted each goose to be 3x6, so I needed a total of 32 geese arranged 4x8.  Whoa, too many numbers.  My process of choosing the color arrangement was a little random and a little planned. By that I mean that I only started with one parameter of sorts, and that was- all of the paler, less bold toned fabrics in the April stack would be the geese (center larger triangle) and the rest would be the background (smaller side triangles).  Then once they were all made, I deliberately arranged them only for balance of color and interest, but no real pattern or reason to it.  The single parameter that I started with sorta helps to provide a unifying element that you aren't consciously aware of, but it's there.  So I am essentially playing mind games with you, snort.

Do you think maybe with all that lingo that I am getting ready for my patchwork class at Sew Down next week?!  Me too.  I also am undertaking the light and enjoyable privilege of hosting about 90 Sew Downers (Uppers?) here at the house.  No biggie.  I also have a surprise for them, I think.  I hope.  It rhymes with Sew Down.

Smooches. AM & Sunshine