Tag: crimson tate

Staff Fat Quarter Bundle Challenge

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This winter, mother nature came in like a wrecking ball — or whatever.  And truth is, while we’ve enjoyed the cold quilty months, we’re ready to put our sandals on and hang our quilts outside to dry or picnic on top of them instead of burrowing underneath these dudes in search of heat.

Being inspired by spring, the staff of Crimson Tate created their own bundles to beckon spring through the doors.  It’s time to dust off the gray and welcome color back into our world.  Here are the selections we came up with.  Let us know what you think and certainly let us know whose spring-time mix is most appealing to you.

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First up: David http://circlecityquilter.weebly.com/

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This is what he has to say about his bundle.

Check out these bad boys!! This stack of eye-catching fat quarters is the ideal mix for your next quilting project. From the more masculine blacks and grays, to the black and steel colored essex linens, this bundle has a little bit of everything. The Echino Decoro bees and funky woodland animal print are just the icing on the cake. Edgy, springy, and cool, you’ll be all the rage at your next quilt bee meeting (and David will throw in a big bonus hug if you choose his bundle!!!)

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Second Up: Melissa http://www.melissaneeshauger.com/

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This is what she has to say about her bundle.

Welcome spring with this fresh, bright bouquet of colors! This lovely bundle features beautiful fabrics from Echino Decoro, Amy Butler’s Hapi, Lizzy House’s Pearl Bracelets & Catnap, Lotta Jansdotter’s Mormor, and Ellen Luckett Baker’s Garden. These colors will surely brighten your next sewing project!

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Third Up: Heather https://www.crimsontate.com/

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This is what I have to say about my bundle.

Eclectic, vintage, Japanese. Many of these fat quarters are cotton linen blends and of Japanese design with a vintage kick. Currently, I’m obsessed with teals that turn into blues. What you’ll find in this mix is a range of values from deep saturation of color to incredible low volume as evidenced in Lizzy House’s Catnap fabrics. I gave this a pop of hot pink to welcome in the spring and the return of color in our landscape. C’mon in warm weather, we’re waiting for you.

Which bundle do you like the best?  We’d love to know whether you’re down with blues and grays with a masculine slant.  Or if you prefer a saturated rainbow of color explosion.  Or if you’d like to ride on the tranquil seas of blueish greens.  We’re curious your opinion.

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That brings us to, we are looking for some extra staff.  Wanna join our team?!  Drop by Crimson Tate at 845 Mass Ave and perhaps the next post will be a photo of YOUR staff pick bundle.  Get in here enthusiastic, positive, smarty quilters.  We need your help in our store!!

Scrappy Heart Block Tutorial – INLove

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SCRAPPY HEART BLOCKS

A tutorial from Crimson Tate :: Modern Quilter

Finished block size: 14″ square

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Supplies

½ yard of lightweight interfacing per block

oodles of scraps of whites and reds (or if you need yardage, 1/8 yards of a goodly amount will suffice)

This quilt is perfectly suited to digging through your scrap bin and using up those oddly shaped pieces. The blocks can be as scrappy as you’d like, using as many different fabrics as you’d like. We encourage you to find at least eight different reds and five different whites, just for funsies and to create superior contrast.

If using eighth yard cuts, cut (2) 3 1/8” x 3 1/8” squares and (13) 2 ½” x 2 ½” squares  from each fabric.

Cutting

To create each finished block, you will need:

(24) 2 ½”  x 2 ½”  white squares

(4) 3 1/8” x 3 1/8” white squares

— plus —

(17) 2 ½” x 2 ½” red squares

(4) 3 1/8” x 3 1/8” red squares

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Half Square Triangles

Start by sewing the half square triangles. Draw a diagonal line across all of your 3 1/8” white squares using the 45° guide on your ruler.

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It’s time to chain sew! Start with those 3 1/8″ squares using one white square and one red square (right sides together), sew a ¼” away from each side of the diagonal line

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Cut along center line.

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Press seams open. (We typically press our seams open around Crimson Tate, but you don’t have to be as persnickety if you absolutely hate it)

Trim half square triangles down to 2 ½” x 2 ½”.

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Tip: Make your first two cuts a little bit larger than 2 ½”, then make your last two exactly 2 ½” in order to trim all four sides and remove the dog ears. See video below.

Designing Your Block

Shortcut alert! The following steps will save you oodles of time. Thanks to our friend Ellesquare who taught us this method in her Friday Night Brights quilt pattern.

On the ironing board, lay out your piece of interfacing glue side up. As you place your squares right sides up, be as careful as possible to leave the same amount of space between your squares (about 1/8”). Make sure your squares are not overlapping or touching. It will resemble a nicely tiled kitchen floor when finished.

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Using the pick-and-pluck method, fuse the squares in place, taking care to not run over large areas of exposed interfacing. You may want to dig out your handy dandy pressing cloth.

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Sewing

Fold first row of squares over the second row (right sides together) and sew with a ¼” seam. Continue in this manner for each horizontal row, being sure to flip the previous rows out as to not catch them in your next seam.

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On the wrong side of the block, trim a scant 1/8” from your seam allowance as to remove the folded interfacing from all six seams. Image

Iron your seams open. In this instance, pressing your seam open is strongly advised – the interfacing adds a lot of bulk to the seam.

Tip: Finger press your seams open before you go for the iron. Easy-peasy!

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Rinse and repeat! This time, sew the vertical columns together. Again, use a ¼” seam allowance, sew slowly, and try to keep the seams you just pressed open, well… open!

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Trim seams you just sewed.  Iron open seams. Image

Voila! We’re done! That’s a wrap! You did it! Make Valentines for all the precious lil’ lovers in your life!  Big thanks to the Quilt Guild of Indianapolis who chose the heart block as their block for February which is where we drew our inspiration.

Ohhh Ellen Luckett Baker, You WON Quilt Market Fall 2013

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Do you know The Long Thread?  It’s Ellen Luckett Baker’s sewing pseudonym.  I mean, sewing aliases are the best.  We obviously support them.  But if we look out over the sea of Quilt Market Fall 2013, that girl Ellen Luckett Baker wins the prize.  With her dusty tones of off beat color made only more sophisticated by the linen substrate that her Japanese manufactured designs are printed on, The Garden collection for Kokka won Best Prize at Market, according to me.

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Take a look at her space in Kokka’s booth.

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My goal is to become friends with Ellen.  Her books are FANTASTIC!  And we’ve been threatening to make the clamshell pillow found in her 1-2-3 Quilt book, which is boss.  Put that on the list of things to create!  Here’s a photo taken from Ellen’s website thelongthread.com of the clam shell pillow.  Now imagine it in these fabrics from her collection The Garden.  OH MY GOD.  So good.52

Congrats on the award, Ellen.  Let’s get to sewing!!!IMG_2634

Is Lotta Jansdotter the New Solid? And other thoughts about Houston Quilt Market 2013

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Seriously.  She’s kinda brilliant.  That Lotta Jansdotter is Freshy McFresherson.  I am so happy that Windham Fabrics wooed the queen of Swedish design to their line-up of stellar cast members.  Of course, Lotta Jansdotter is not new to the world of sewing and textile printing.  She has been making handprinted textiles for years.  As a fellow printmaker, I’ve admired how simple her techniques and results are.  In her third line for Windham, she gives us a soft palette perfect for late winter early spring wearings.  Take a visual tour around her booth —–>

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Lotta Jansdotter gives you something to think about.  The roughness and sometimes crude nature of the printed surface is very pretty.  I like that her designs retain that hand printed quality, even though they aren’t hand-pulled prints. (Although all of my favorite printmaking teacher Kathy Reeves would tell you that spotty surfaces is shotty printing, but I like it in this instance.  Sorry Kathy.)  Here’s a closer view of one of those spotty fabrics, this photo taken from Windham’s website.

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The happy news is that this collection is set to be shipped from Windham in early February and obs will be living at Crimson Tate.  If you can’t wait to see it in its entirety, check out both collections on Windham’s website.  One is named Mormor and the other Sylvia.  (Sylvia is Lotta’s granny–her mormor).

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Sylvia is a fantastic range of black and whites which we’ve ALL been waiting for.  Thank goodness.  You’re gonna like it.

xoxo

Heather

If you’d like to use any of the photography seen here, please email me at photouse@crimsontate.com I’m sure we can work it out!

Shop Small @ Crimson Tate

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This Saturday, November 30, is American Express’s SMALL BUSINESS SATURDAY!  We welcome you to come shop locally on Mass Ave!  How much fun to keep it local? Or loco, if you’re silly like us.  If you are an American Express Card holder, you can register your card and get $10 back for spending $10 at Crimson Tate.  To register your card to shop with us, go here.

 

Even if you’re not an American Express member, you can take advantage of the holiday hoopla that will be happening on Mass! Crimson Tate will have SWAG bags being given to the first 10 shoppers through the door that will be filled with sewing goodness and offers from local businesses on the street! Participating in the SWAG BAG giveaway are Silver in the City, The Best Chocolate in Town, Nurture, City Dogs, Global Gifts, Handmade Promenade, Stout’s Shoes, Chatham Home, Indy Reads Books, and more! 

Get down here on Saturday!  We’ll be happy to receive you!

How To Make A WISH LIST @ CrimsonTate.com

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Here’s a photo tutorial on how to create your wishlist at crimsontate.com!!  Please don’t hesitate to email us if you have questions on how to accomplish this!

First things first.  You’ll need to register for an account at crimsontate.comImage

Once you’ve registered, you’ll see that you can create a wishlist.  If you’ve already registered, login and head over to MY ACCOUNT.

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Click on MY WISH LISTS:  (note, it doesn’t change color so it doesn’t necessarily look like a link)  This is what you’ll see.  Click the black bar that says NEW WISH LIST.

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Only you and whomever you choose to share your Wish List with will be able to see what you’ve been dreaming of at crimsontate.com.  You’ll create a name and password for the Wish List.  If you’d like different people to buy or see what projects you’re working on, create multiple Wish Lists based on projects.  For example: Mail Sack Wish List would have all of the components that I want to create a new mail sack bag.  Another Wish List might be an array of Harriet Headbands I’ve been dreaming of, so I’ll create a separate Wish List for that.  You decide.  Should all of your dreams live together in one list?  Or do you want to create separate lists based on projects, and quantities? 

 

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We find that giving a description to your gift-givers will help them understand your obsessions er I mean, desires.

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This is what it will look like once you’ve saved your Wish List. 

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Now it’s time to browse around crimsontate.com and gather all of the items you’re dreaming of.  Here we headed to Melody Miller fabric.  Select a specific quantity and ADD TO WISH LIST.

 

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Don’t forget about all the other players that go into projects such as thread, patterns, seam rippers.  Notions make great gifts.

 

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You can select specific quantities that you’ll need.

 

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Once you’ve filled up your Wish List basket, head to MY ACCOUNT and click on MY WISH LISTS and select the specific list you want to send out into the world.

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Here you can edit quantities or take away items you’ve decided are for later.

 

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Click ADD INVITEE and start adding names and email addresses of the loves you’d like to share your Wish List with.

 

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Here’s the gang I’m adding to my list.  At this point, you can send it to everyone by clicking SEND MAIL TO ALL or you can re-send the email individually by clicking on the teeny tiny envelope.

 

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So.  What happens next?  I’m curious about what the INVITEE will receive.  They will get an email that looks like this.

 

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And when they click on the link, they’ll be taken to a screen at crimsontate.com that asks them for your super special Wish List Password.

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When they enter the PASSWORD they’ll then be able to see your list. With your super nice note.  They can make their purchases from this screen, clicking BUY NOW button to right of product.  They can also decide what quantity they will purchase the item.  If you need continuous yardage, you might caution your INVITEES that it would be most helpful for you if they buy fabric to buy all quantity requested.

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Once they click on their cart, they can proceed with the checkout and purchase your items there.

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Questions? Comments? Concerns?! Email us modernquilter@crimsontate.com and we’ll answer your techy questions or help you decide what projects might be best for your sewing ability.  Happy Holidays, friends!!

 

 

Tula Pink’s Acacia is LIVING Downtown Indianapolis

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I’ll tell ya.  Remember when I drank the Kool-Aid at the Portland Quilt Market Spring 2013 and I said “I finally get why so many people are obsessed with Tula Pink!”  If you don’t remember, you can read about it here. (I was able to capture some good photos while there, I think it’s worth taking a look at). Well.  Two days ago the child of that Kool-Aid-induced-decision-making-funtime showed up.  Twenty-five bolts of Tula Pink’s newest line called Acacia is here.  Yesterday we (David, Melissa, and I) spent a goodly amount of the day cutting, folding, bundling, kitting, petting these newest fabrics.  I took WAY too many photos of the collection and have been thinking WHAT AM I GOING TO DO WITH ALL OF THESE PHOTOS?! But I couldn’t stop.  So, here is a lil’ photographic journey of the bundles and kits we’ve put together.  I’ll meet you at the bottom momentarily.

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ImageImageImageImageImageImageImageWe call this one above the Amelia colorway.  Pretty pinks turning coral.   ImageWe  call the one above the Pauline colorway with its unexpected color combinations that work together seamlessly.ImageWe call this dominantly purple bundle the Bernice colorway.  All good Bernices claim purple as their favorite color.

We have kits of the Peaks & Valleys Quilt which I thought was the best quilt at the show.  We put them in cute lil’ plastic zipper bags that our friend Ashley at Nurture gave us.  She’s trying to purge.  It seems we are always trying to hoard.Image

Here’s what the quilt looks like:

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And of course we have the English paper piecing kit she created called Diamonds in the Sky.

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It seems we are now officially armed with enough beautiful fabric to make some pretty spectacular things.  I’ve got to get to work on my Peaks and Valleys quilt!

If receiving Tula’s fabric wasn’t enough, on Tuesday we’ll receive Birch Organic’s Fort Firefly and Alexander Henry’s Ghastlie Christmas fabric.  YOU GUYS! It’s go time.

See you downtown, soon!

xoxo

Heather

Lotta Jansdotter’s Newest Fabrics Were Announced

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Windham Fabrics just announced Sylvia and mormor, Lotta’s newest collections scheduled to be in stores in February.  We’re kinda like a Lotta Jansdotter mecca here in Indiana.  Image

 

Read more about her new collection here on Windham’s blog: 

http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a01156fbc60f3970c019aff8238f1970d

We may or may not be working on our own Sylvia quilt RIGHT NOW.  Did we get a lil’ advanced yardage?! Shhhh.  We can’t say until October 1st.  We gave a blood oath to our buddies at Windham.  Hold on.  

 

xoxo

Heather