Ohhh Voile. You’re Such a Pretty Girl.

September 12, 20132 Comments

VOILE-La! Another Substrate To Add To Your Repertoire.

OMG! Have you seen the lil’ Boston Terriers in voile? Can you get any cuter than this? It’s ridiculously amazing what Japanese manufacturer Kokka has come up with in this sweet new design. I’m so curious about who is going to make a dress from these teeny pups! Or who is going to sew a set of infinity scarves to give as presents to their friends? Who is going to start a Boston Terrier gang?! Who wants pajama pants in grapefruit colored terriers? All I know is that it’s begging to be made into something great.

100% cotton and 100% cute, this voile fabric is soft, sturdy, and waiting for its forever home.

You’ve seen Rashida Coleman-Hale’s Koi voile, right?

The Way of the Flowers in Jewel. Organic cotton voile. Beauty.

What is this voile, you say? Voile a lightweight fabric that has sheer qualities to it. Because of its lightweight nature, voile is best used in situations where it can shine, move, and drape like dresses, curtains, or scarves. Having said this, a voile quilt is not out of the question. I’ve witnessed the beauty of a voile quilt with wool batting. Luxurious. Let us not be afraid to mix substrates when constructing new projects. Add another tool to toolbox, kids. These lightweight cottons will inspire. (Don’t forget about the hand drawn kitties in voile, too.)

De-Stash Bash :: Sewing for a Cause!!

September 6, 20134 Comments

It’s time to DE-STASH! And let’s give to our community while we’re at it. Crimson Tate is partnering with our dear friend and fabric rep Laurie Voggenthaler to present DE-STASH BASH. The gang of Crimson Tate and Laurie have cut through our years of stash building and assembled kits to create pillowcases for members of our own community at the Wheeler Mission Center for Women and Children.

How can you get involved? Here are the deets:

WHO: You and all your sewy pals are encouraged to participate.
WHAT: Sewing pillowcases to be donated to the Wheeler Mission Center for Women and Children.
HOW: Come to Crimson Tate and make a $12 donation to Wheeler Mission CWC to receive a pillowcase kit. Each kit includes three coordinating fabrics and a pillowcase pattern. OR Use fabrics from your own stash and make a suggested donation of $12 when dropping off the pillowcase.
WHEN: Return your completed pillowcase donation to Crimson Tate by Tuesday, October 1st.
NOW WHAT: Then, join us Friday evening October 4 to celebrate your generosity.

First Friday in October, Crimson Tate will feature

Your cutie-tootie pillowcases lining the cultural trail (weather permitting).
A very VERY important chili cook-off competition between me (Heather) and my sister Tana. We need the public to decide once and for all WHO MAKES THE BETTER CHILI?!
Beer. Beer. Beer. YESSSS!!!
Celebrate on Mass Ave with Harvest of the Arts and other retailers and restaurants featuring local artists.

WHY: Our dear friend Laurie Voggenthaler came to us with an idea of how she could clear out leftovers in her stash AND make a difference. 100% of your donation goes to the Wheeler Mission Center for Women and Children. What a lovely way to touch lives as we head toward the holiday season. And how wonderful that we can hand them not only a generous stack of pillowcases but also cash to support existing programs. This is gonna be good.

Get down here and gather-up some stash (or get to digging through your own)! And get to sewing. We’re excited to see what you will create.

Is that Liberty of London Lifestyle cotton in that kit?! Why yes it is. We’re not holding back the good stuff in the kits we’ve created!!

Hello Friend. Hello Double Gauze.

August 28, 2013Leave a comment

Have you met double gauze fabric yet? Let me introduce you.

Japanese artist Naomi Ito has designed a luscious line of fabrics using the name Nani Iro. What you see here is a sub straight of 100% cotton called double gauze. Double gauze is just that, two layers of gauze that are intermittently woven together on the loom creating a light, lofty essence to the drape of the fabric.

Gauze is more loosely woven therefore breathes easily. One layer of gauze, however, is not enough for most of us to construct a dress unless we’re interested in creating a scene. The Nani Iro double gauze is the perfect solution for a lightweight garment that has a little bit of hang and movement. It’s super soft and buttery when sewn. You’ll want your world to made from this magic fabric.

In the store we have a great example of a Washi Dress made from double gauze. Many of you have witnessed it when you’ve visited. Of course, I can’t find a photo of it right now but will amend my post once I have one to show you. It’s fabulous. And it’s time to start making some simple clothes. I know what you’re thinking “I’m a quilter. I’m not a garment sewer.”

The truth is, with simple patterns like the Washi Dress or the Staple Dress, you don’t need a lot of experience in garment construction to give it a go and have success. It’s time, yo. It’s time.

BIG BIRTHDAY SALE @ CRIMSONTATE!

July 24, 2013Leave a comment

We’re TWO Years Old!

Holy holy! We’re two years old. Can you imagine? It’s such an exciting time. Do you remember the first month we were open? We started with 20 bolts of fabric, two book cases, and a song and dance saying “it’s only gonna get better!!” And here we are two years later, nearly 1000 bolts of fabric and an AMAZING webstore. Still today, we say “it’s only gonna get better!!”

Here’s a photo of our space three months after we opened.

But this time, it isn’t just me that’s saying it.

The past two years wouldn’t have been possible with out my faithful sidekicks David and Melissa. Nor without the help in transporting of all the diet cokes random strangers will bring or the kindness of my parents, Jack and Cathy, our AMAZING IT GUY who overwhelms and surprises me often, my deary-lou Jamie who makes dinner most nights and has adjusted to eating that dinner at 9:30 PM, our KFC & DJ for their consistency in working toward our vision, our dear friends at Silver in the City, plus the countless others who play with us on Mass Ave. Obviously, the list can go on and on.

Get down to 845 Massachusetts Avenue and celebrate!! We’re open SEVEN DAYS A WEEK!! If you can’t make it down, you can now shop 24 hours a day at crimsontate.com. Wooowee!!

Thank you as always for the comraderie and friendship.

Tell your friends! Tell your neighbors! It’s time to CELEBRATE!

Lots of XXXOOO,

Heather + the gang

What’s on sale?! Liberty of London, Echino, Erin McMorris, Parson Gray, Birch Organic, Monaluna Organic, Lotta Jansdotter, Denyse Schmidt, Anna Maria Horner, RJR Solids, Melody Miller, Amy Butler, Carrie Bloomston, Heather Ross ———-> oh wait! The ENTIRE STORE is on sale!!!!

USING THE CODES:

At the crimsontate.com checkout, you’ll be asked to enter a discount code. Only one of the codes (happybirthdayct or newsies) will work. You’ll need to decide which code is appropriate for your cart. Everything in the store is 25% off with the code happybirthdayct except for the newest collections from Heather Ross, Amy Butler, and Carrie Bloomston (Such Designs).

If you want to use both codes, you’ll need to have two separate transactions in order to benefit from both codes, just make sure you separate the items. Shop often. We don’t mind. But unfortunately, we can’t apply both codes to one cart. We won’t be able to go back and manually change that code for you. Sorry! So filler up TWICE! Or three times, for good measure.

IN STORE PICK-UP:

We super love that you’ve chosen in-store pick-up! Please give us 24 hours to pull your fabrics, notions, and goodies. We look forward to seeing you in 24 hours Downtown Indianapolis. By then, we’ll have your goods ready to go. If you won’t be able to make it downtown for over a week, let us know so we can keep your goods organized and not front and center. We’d rather not shuffle ’em around too much. Give us an estimate of when you’ll be in and we’ll bring your purchases out from their secret hiding place. I mean, they’re precious, right?!

Quilt CAMP!! Quilt Camp!! A boom-chicka-boom!!

July 18, 20132 Comments

Holy CATS! I cannot tell you how much I LOVE LOVE LOVE camp in all of its varieties. Everyone should be a camper and then when you’re too old to be a camper, you need to be a camp counselor and when you’re too old to be a camp counselor, you need to send your kids to camp. And when you have the opportunity, you need to go to QUILT CAMP! Sewing and camping combined?! YESSSSSSSS!!!!! Camp Tecumseh YMCA in Brookston, Indiana hosts an adult quilt camp six or seven times a year and in fact is the very place that I learned to quilt along side of my mother a few moons ago. In my twenties, I was a camp counselor, adventure trip leader, and outdoor educator at Camp T. Actually, some campers and staffers don’t know my real name, they know me by my camp name — Heli. Heliotrope was my camping pseudonym.

Crimson Tate :: Modern Quilter was honored to be the 24-hour camp store at this July’s UFO — UnFinished Object camp. Historically the July camp is without distraction of organized projects, classes, or even camp store but the Quilt Queen Emeritus Beth Wright was recently in the store Downtown Indianapolis and decided it was time to have Crimson Tate man the camp store and teach a class on Modern Quilting.

Here’s a look in at the pop-up shop we constructed for the five day quilt camp. You can shop the camp quilt store 24 hours a day. It’s what we all dream of! We took the new Amy Butler Stash Belle collection with us knowing this gang would love to have first dibs on Amy’s newest line.

We spent time sewing, chatting, eating, hiking around camp, and making new friends. A hayride resulted in a lil’ jaunt across the suspension bridge over Richard G. Marsh lake.

It was such a great few days helping my friend Andrea make her FIRST QUILT EVER!!!

Right? She’s a rockstar. I love that she jumped into the Hexy Sexy Love quilt by Amy Butler using Denyse Schmidt’s Shelburne Falls fabrics! SO GOOD!!!! Here she is with her prize from the week.

And of course, our David was a charmer and a champion sewer. He sewed together the back of a GINORMOUS quilt and matched the pattern perfectly, like he does.

Hanging out at camp reminded me of so many great memories from pulling pranks on other cabins, sneaking out at night to go on a pizza run, finding life-long friends, and being thoroughly exhausted and totally understood. I secretly wish I could live there forever. Being an instructor and getting to chill at camp did my soul extra good. Thank you Beth, Sarah, Christine, and the gang for making it such a great experience.

Mark your calendars!! We’ll back in action for next year’s June Quilt Camp @ Camp Tecumseh. We want OOOOODLES of our friends to join us where the Wabash River meets the Tippecanoe. Noonway, lovelies. Noonway.

Birch Organic, I’m in love with you!! More Quilt Market Review.

May 30, 2013May 30, 20137 Comments

International Quilt Market in Portland is still swimming in my head.

Seriously. Birch Organic is doing things right. Not only are their designs contemporary, innocent, and sometimes woodsy, but they speak to the modern family that wants imagination and beauty in their world. I love Cynthia and Jaysen, owners of Birch Organic. I secretly want to be best friends with them. It’s true that I like to imagine their house filled with sand from the beach, tropical flowers, and everyday magic. I imagine that they make their own sushi, decorate with luminaries when they host dinner parties, and would gladly welcome a neighbor to their kitchen counter for coffee any morning.

Daydreaming aside, one of the main reasons I like Birch Organic and the designs they’ve curated for their collections is because they create an imaginative space for kids to be kids. I find that the simple drawings on their fabrics lend themselves to a story that isn’t obvious. It inspires. And I want to make just about everything from their world.

Here are some selections from their booth at the International Quilt Market in Portland.

Organic knits!? With Elk?! Done.

Charlie Harper designs. Above a simple dress and below a Lunden Designs quilt. Girl! We need that pattern!

Star Gazers quilt. Pattern found at Crimson Tate.

Another quilt pattern by Lunden Designs called Happy Trails. We have it Downtown Indianapolis.

Below is a line called Fort Firefly. I couldn’t resist this line. It’s beautiful in its sage greens and burnt oranges. You’re gonna love it.

Organic CANVAS!!!!! Oh man. Those birds.

Quilt Market Review will continue until I run out of photos. I’m thinking by the Houston Quilt Market, I’ll be done. 😉 Rumor on the street is that bolts of ModBasics from Birch are coming in a few days to live Downtown Indianapolis. It’s always a celebration when new fabric arrives.

xoxo

Heather

“Excuse me! Are you Tula Pink?!” — Quilt Market Review Continues Including Best Quilt At Market, IMO.

May 25, 2013May 25, 201310 Comments

Day two of Quilt Market, I was standing in the aura of Tula Pink, Freespirit Fabrics designer, trying to take it all in when a woman interrupts my Tula Pink coma saying “Excuse me! I’m so sorry. Are you Tula Pink?” And so it begins. I’m later to find out that this character that confuses me with Tula is Mary Fons of Quilty Magazine. We giggle about the incident when a series of events finds me chatting with her after I’ve inadvertently crashed a quilting magazine industry party on the eighth floor of a hotel that is a few miles away from my hotel. This whole story is way better told in person.

Tula Pink can’t be stopped. I am at times speechless just trying to take in the abundance of pattern, color, design, absurdity, beauty, and cohesion that is Tula Pink. Take a closer look at her quilt market booth.

Fabric flowers in vases.

A really great series of pillows.

As quilts. As garments. As home decor. It all works.

Holy. This butterfly quilt was designed by Tula Pink as a block of the month. You can bet your sweet bippy that we’re gonna do this at Crimson Tate. It’s absolutely stunning.

Here’s an up-close look at the quilting. So good.

But let’s chat about THE BEST QUILT found at quilt market. It’s this one —>

I’m angry that I don’t have a better photo of the entire quilt. I can still hear Tula’s voice as I’m franticaly trying to get a photo of it at her School House chat “Don’t worry. It’ll be in the booth. You can get a good photo of it later.” But in fact, I never saw the quilt outstretched again after that moment. I couldn’t get a full view of it. Ugh! But I did get a few close-ups so you can see why it’s so incredible.

That Angela Waters. Whoa. And closer still.

As my friend Lindsay of Ellesquare says “You drank the Kool-Aid.” And in fact I did. Coming to live at Crimson Tate in the next few months is not only Tula Pink’s entire line of quilting weight cottons from her collection, Acacia, but also her hand piecing kit that makes this quilt.

Seen again here along with needlework pillows, also coming to Crimson Tate.

Boxes of Tula Pink Aurifil thread, both the large and small sizes along with her newest collection of ribbons for Renaissance Ribbons.

I have a serious Kool-Aid mustache. I might have gone a little crazy. I leave you with a few other random bits that are interesting and all Tula Pink. Holy mother.

xoxo

Heather

Minneapolis Airport Didn’t Want Me To Blog. You Did Me Dirty, Minneapolis.

May 21, 2013May 21, 20132 Comments

So all along I thought that as I was leaving Portland, I’d have time on my layover in Minneapolis to put together more photos from Quilt Market to share but the concourse hike I took in Minneapolis didn’t see it that way. You did me dirty, Minneapolis. In the end I was overjoyed at being able to enjoy a cup of Caribou Coffee after a 20 minute hoofing from one side of the airport to the other. When I lived in Northern Minnesota (Duluth to be exact) just a few years ago, we’d spend the morning in Canal Park drinking Caribou. Ohhhh it’s so good. The waters of Lake Superior make THE WORLD’S BEST COFFEE. Le sigh.

Back to Quilt Market.

Are you familiar with Blend? It’s the licensing division of Anna Griffin Designs. What it boils down to is that Anna Griffin wanted to showcase her arty friends’ talents under a different label. Blend was born. What I thought was INCREDIBLY noteworthy was the holiday selections Blend has for Halloween and Christmas.

Photo above taken from BLEND website. How did I not get a close-up of these dudes?

Here’s a closer look at just how cute the holiday fabrics are.

Look at those cars with Christmas trees attached! We totally play that game around my house at the holidays. We keep statistics on how many xmas trees we see strapped to the the top of cars. It’s exciting when the daily count reaches the teens or when the game begins well before Thanksgiving. Yesssss!!!

Violet Craft‘s newest line for Michael Miller is totally worthy. She’s so warm. When I had the fortune of attending QuiltCon, the Modern Quilt Guild’s conference, Violet was taking the same class I was which was Patchwork Skirt with Jay McCarroll. We giggled the entire way through. (Jay McCarroll smells really good. More about that some other time.) Here’s Violet’s booth with the Portland inspired collection.

The domino print is pretty sweet and reminiscent to the rivets found along the surface of the Portland bridges. This was no accident, I’m sure. Violet?!

Also found in the Michael Miller suite was Patty Young‘s typography inspired fabric. Here’s the lovely Patty sitting inside the swan paddle boat trying to act like she wasn’t being caught on film. Who me? I’m fabulous. Rumor was that the swan boat was totes for sale. Violet Craft threatened to put it in her yard to grow tomatoes out of it. How great would that be?

Finally for this post, I leave you with T.J. Lane, artist and giggler. She designs and crafts sterling silver thimbles that are AMAZING. We have had a selection at Crimson Tate for a year now and we loaded back up this time with a few with gems, a few with bees, and a few delicate hearts. Here’s our girl T.J. as she realized she charged my credit card SIX TIMES for one transaction. Get it together, T.J.!! 😉 I love her dearly. Look at these amazing pincushion rings. I wore one the entire time I sat in her booth with her. Sooooo good.

Here she is after she charged my card six times. HAHAHAHAHA. Jokes on me! 😉

And then when I told her to be serious, this is what she gave me:

Yea right!

It might take me a month to get through all of these photos. Stay with me. I’ve got a lot to share.

xoxo

Heather

And Day Two of Quilt Market, Melody Miller Dominates!

May 19, 2013May 19, 20131 Comment

Oh Melody Miller, how did you get to be so amazing?! Her sense of color. Her unconventional design. It’s a breath of fresh air. This kid is UBER talented. Melody’s newest line coordinates with the other raising star collections. She glitters in the same way her fabric shines. Enjoy this photo essay of Melody’s newest fabric that will be living Downtown Indianapolis at Crimson Tate. We love Japanese fabrics. This collection was manufactured by Kokka and is a cotton linen blend.

Want to see what else is going to live at Crimson Tate and is from Japan? Here’s a sliver of other designers such as Echino, Nani Iro, and Ellen Luckett Baker who will be residing on our shelves very soon.

OH MY! Look at those scooters and cameras! YESSSSSS!!!! Man. There’s so much more. I’m headed home this afternoon. I’ll try to sneak in one more round of photos before I make it back to Indiana.

xoxo

Heather

Quilt Market in Portland Spring 2013 – First Impressions – SUCH DESIGNS for the Win.

May 18, 2013May 18, 20135 Comments

In Portland, anything goes. Laid back. Hipster. Grunge. I’m thoroughly enjoying the culture found here. Portlandia isn’t far off. From funky funk doughnut shop VooDoo Doughnuts to the permanent food cart village found right next to my hotel, it’s pretty swell.

But enough of that for now (although I have more to share and say on the topic). What I really want to share is my very first impressions of Quilt Market Spring 2013 opening day. I packed in a lot of appointments Friday touching base with many of the lines of fabrics I don’t get to see unless I’m at quilt market. By far, my favorite is EVERY SINGLE PIECE of fabric found in SUCH DESIGN‘s premier line called Collage. Carrie Bloomston is love and light. She’s generous in spirit and inspired by painter Mark Rothko and environmental artist Andy Goldsworthy, to name a few. She’s a girl after my own heart. I love these dudes, too, and their use of color and design. Check out a few of the products made with her new collection for Windham Fabrics (who I also love desperately). Note all of those vibrant turquoise and electric purples. I’m seeing this electric color palette everywhere in more modern manufacturers. Ohhhh man. It’s good.

And then I stumbled into the booth of Cloud 9 Fabrics and the home of Rashida Coleman Hale. Ohhh man. Her color choices will coordinate beautifully with COLLAGE. Again, the color found in these guys is sophisticated electricity. And what’s not to love of Rashida’s aesthetic? Small patterns in rich color. Keepers. And when paired with linen, whoa.

There is SO MUCH MORE to share. Truly, this is just a teeny tiny drop in the bucket of all of the photos and thoughts I have about what’s happening here at quilt market. I’m so happy to have found a few moments to relay my love of Windham and SUCH Designs, Rashida Coleman Hale and Cloud 9 fabrics. I can’t wait until tomorrow!! I can’t wait to share what I’ve seen.