Not Going to Market, Prep

Not Going to Market, Prep

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Yes, you read that right. I've a new fabric collection for Art Gallery Fabrics (available this month) and is part of the AGF Spring Quilt Market lineup but I won't be attending the spring show in Portland for many reasons. 

Signature is my sixth fabric collection for Art Gallery Fabrics. I'm very excited about this collection, especially since my last collection, Bountiful was over a year ago. It's really fun to be sewing with a new collection and this year spring came early with the arrival of my strike offs--it was like receiving a bouquet of flowers!

Visit my Fabrics page to see a list of online shops stocking this collection. I will be adding to this list as more shops get it in later this month. 

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This joyful collection has put the natural world into patterns of budding florals, butterflies, and forest animals--all in my signature hand-drawn style. Blooming prints emerge in a riot of springtime colors of robin’s egg blue, cool teal, sunny yellow, radiant fuchsia, and dappled-shade green.

Free quilt pattern for Signature fabrics designed by Sharon Holland. Visit Art Gallery Fabrics for more details and download.

Free quilt pattern for Signature fabrics designed by Sharon Holland. Visit Art Gallery Fabrics for more details and download.

With each new fabric collection for Art Gallery Fabrics comes a new free quilt pattern. I've designed Sunflower for my new Signature fabrics and it will be available for download once the fabrics are available later this month. 

AGF has many Pure Elements solids, denims, and blenders that coordinate beautifully with this collection. 

Product mock-ups with Signature fabrics from Art Gallery Fabrics 

Product mock-ups with Signature fabrics from Art Gallery Fabrics 

I love how Art Gallery Fabrics shows you how the prints look in virtual products from clothing to home decor. Once the collection is available they will also publish the most amazing Look Book for this collection!

Signature fabrics by Sharon Holland for Art Gallery Fabrics

Signature fabrics by Sharon Holland for Art Gallery Fabrics

Instead of going to Quilt Market and promoting my collection for a weekend, I will be showing you even more exciting ways to use these prints right here from home. I've recently remodeled my sewing room/guest room to be a functioning sewing room/photography studio. If you've been following along on Instagram you will have seen the trials and triumphs of my remodel. 

Over the next several weeks I intend to create "booths" in my new space that will surpass what could be accomplished at Market with limited wall space, furniture rentals, and time and logistic handicaps. From here I can resource my great props, set up larger and more detailed vignettes and show you more. 

Here's a peek at some of the things I've been working on....

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With Mother's Day next weekend, I remade my Art Roll-Up pattern in my Signature fabric. Using A Rose is a Rose Forever and Lacey Star Dust prints together with AGF Smooth Denim in Frosted Sage. This sewing project is a quick and thoughtful item for not only moms but grads, and hostess gifts as well. 

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The Art Roll-Up is a free pattern found on my Free Pattern page. This quick project can be used to hold makeup brushes, art brushes, knitting or crotchet needles, cutlery, etc. 

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To be able to create booths here at home I need to make stuff! I've had an extremely busy spring with a new grand baby in April, the room remodel going longer than originally planned, yard work that happens every spring, and of course the Community Sampler running in the background. 

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It's always nice to get that first project under your belt when you have a mile long list of things to make. I decided to start small and this lampshade recover was my first finished project!

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Ta da! Recovered using the Flora and Fauna Hidden print in cotton, I love this modern toile print for my antique floor lamp! 

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Those of you sewing along with Maureen Cracknell and I for the Community Sampler will recognize this block as the Cactus block. I loved this block so much that I've designed a new quilt around it. Once I've gotten it quilted, photographed, and posted, I will also have instructions on how to make one like mine. 

There's lots more to share with you (and make) but I wanted to take a moment and share this sneak peek post with you before I got any further along. My plan is to each week theme a booth and really give you a Look Book-style feel about this wonderful collection. 

Be sure to tell your local shops you'd like them to stock Signature from Art Gallery Fabrics and be watching in just a couple of weeks for it to be on the shelves and ready for your next project. 

Happy sewing,

Sharon

Fall 2015 Quilt Market Recap

Just eight days ago I was flying to Houston and getting my booth set up. Months of planning, sewing, and anticipation are now over. I am so happy with how everything turned out as well as the chance to meet many of my social media friends in person. 

Coastline is my third fabric collection for Art Gallery Fabrics. This nautical-inspired textile line will be available in quilt shops and online in January 2016--just in time for spring sewing!

As part of the Art Gallery Fabrics large booth, I had a 12 foot long wall so I could display quilts and projects made with my fabrics. 

The quilt above the table is called "Cross Sea" and is designed, made, and quilted by me. The 72" square quilt and is very easy to make. Once this fabric line is available in January, Art Gallery Fabrics will have the instructions posted for this quilt on their free pattern page

Here I am on Friday (set up day) before the show. We just finished putting the booth together and I am standing in front of my painted seascape mural and my handmade sign.

I did a painterly loose brushstroke mural onto a painter's drop cloth. Not having the mural rigid or on traditional stretched canvas allowed me to roll it like a rug and ship it to Houston.

The sign I made is a hollow foam core board base covered with homemade paper mache clay. Once the paper mache clay was dry I painted it to look like driftwood. The lettering for Coastline is made from mod podged and painted clothesline. The logo rectangles are foam core board covered with Art Gallery Fabrics Pure Element solid fabrics then glued in place. My name is cut out using a Silhouette Cameo cutter. I used their thin chipboard and glued 10 layers of cutout letters together to get that amount of relief. 

The most exciting part of going to Market is getting to spend time with other designers, shop owners, and bloggers. Art Gallery Fabrics designers pictured from left to right: Maureen Cracknell, Bari J., Pat Bravo, Amy Sinibaldi, and Sharon Holland.

My decorator Shorebird will appear in an upcoming Quilt Mania magazine. I had some fun with mixed media crafts and sewing this time!

Home decor weight canvas is now available in selected prints from each AGF fabric collection. Sandbar Lagoon is the canvas print for Coastline. I made a rug from the canvas as well as the thongs on the sandals. When the Coastline LookBook comes out sometime in January I will have instructions for how to make a canvas rug and post it here on the blog.

Art Gallery Fabrics knits are so soft and luxurious to wear. Pictured below are items made with prints from my Coastline collection. 

If you want to see more of what goes on at Market and see the displays in the other Art Gallery Fabrics boothes, follow the AGF blog to see videos and more Market recaps. 

Coastline Fabrics

Things get pretty exciting this time of year. Art Gallery Fabrics reveals the new fabric lines and strike-offs (test swatches) of my newest collection start to arrive. I go into serious auto pilot and sew like crazy from now until Quilt Market (October 24th -26th) in Houston. Click the LookBook image to see all the beautiful collections the talented AGF designers have created.

Coastline is my third fabric collection with Art Gallery Fabrics. I am very excited about all my collections but this in particular. I have wanted to do a nautical themed fabric line for some time now. My new collection will be available January of 2016 so you can start planning your spring sewing now. There's nothing like bright coral, turquoise, navy, violet, pistachio green, and moss to bring you out of the winter blahs! I am sewing samples right now with the advance materials and I am so energized by this collection! 

As I said, I wanted to do a nautical themed collection for some time now but didn't want to have the typical nautical imagery you've seen time after time. Just enough to know it's nautical but with a fresh approach. As a land girl (living in landlocked Ohio) I love everything about beaches, and nautical except the water! So, this collection is about living or being on the Coastline and what you would see from the land. 

As well as the famously soft and high quality quilting cotton that you know and love about Art Gallery Fabrics, each new collection has 4 prints from the collection in knit, 1 print in voile, and 1 print in the new substrate-canvas! The AGF introduced canvas this spring and is a home decor weight that is buttery soft and drapey. Absolutely amazing to sew with in garments, bags, and home decor. You have to try it! But wait, there's more! New this fall, AGF is now offering Cotton Wide. A print from each new fall collection will be offered in 58" - 60" wide cotton. The prints are amazing! Find out more about these materials in the AGF 2015 Fall Reveal LookBook. 

I have already begun sewing with the new fabrics and today will be quilting one of several quilts for my booth at Quilt Market in Houston. My sewing room is an organized mess of workstations. The guest bed (since this is also a bedroom) holds Art Gallery Fabrics Pure Elements and blenders, knit solids and my basic game plan for what I will be creating the next few weeks. I have a desk that is a small cutting table and doubles for my serger station. My sewing machine and ironing board set up gives me space to lay out blocks and press as I sew quilt tops. Another bedroom is home to my mid-arm quilting machine. 

Keep watching instagram and other social media for more Quilt Market preparation updates. Art Gallery Fabrics will also be rolling out more exciting news over the next week--I don't even know what to expect! What next??? It's already amazing!!!