There is something really wonderful about arriving in a new place with the feeling and sensation that you have been there before, that you feel at home. That is the feeling I got when I walked out of the metro stop on St. Michel and walked the few blocks to what would be my home for the following 3 days. Granted, I have been in Paris before, but it feels like more than that. One of the most enticing charcteristics of this city is that it is so “out there” for you to experience. It is truly a walking city and every part of life happens right before you on the “rues” and the “boulevards” of the city. One of my favorite aspects of Parisienne city life is the marketplace. Markets come in many different forms in Paris and believe me when I tell…

Greetings friends…. or should I say Bonjour or BonSoir- Well Bon Soir it is as the photos I am going to share first where all taken at night in what I have decide to call my favorite little street in Paris. Now, there are a thousand different choices and maybe next time I have a chance to wander the nooks and crannies of Paris, I will find and fall in love with a new favorite. But for this visit, this is the one. For a little geography lesson Paris is divided more or less down the middle by the river Seine, crisscrossed by a number of beautiful little and not so little bridges. More or less in the middle of the city are 2 little islands. The bigger of the two, Ile de la Cite, is home to the Notre Dame, my favorite church and tourist attraction in Paris…

I am back from my travels & living like some kind of a nocturnal creature for the last two days. Somehow transitioning to a new time zone was no problem when I had to get up and work & teach all day every day but has been MUCH harder when back in the luxury of my own home, napping when I want [& the munchkins let me] and waking up in the middle of the night, ready for a tasty dinner snack :-)! To finish off my travels, my bags decided to do another little tour of Paris while I landed in San Francisco and when they finally did arrive 48 hrs later, it looked like they had walked around in the rain for a few days… rain on the inside of the bags! I don’t know how & what but its been quite an adventure, more for…

I have to tell you that reading all of your wonderfully generous and kind comments was the highlight of my week before I left. I love to teach and to help spread a love of fabric, design and quilting, BUT I do not love to travel by myself without my husband or munchkins. So the week before I leave on a business trip, I always feel a bit anxious and not so excited. Once I get to my location, everything looks much better, but the process of going is certainly not my favorite. Mind you I am not complaining about this wonderful little adventure, but your gracious comments certainly lifted me during that week…. and reading them all again here from my sweet little room on the outskirts of Madrid city centre… well that was just icing on the cake of my week here! Thank you. And for…

Hello there Ladies & Gentlemen I am in Madrid! It feels so funny to be posting from here but I just wanted to let you know that things got a bit crazy right before I left and I did not get a chance to post the winners. I am so sorry for the delay. I have had a hard time finding a good connection for my laptop and am now posting from the office where I am teaching my classes. As soon as I am able to find a wireless connection in the next few days, I will post the winners. For now I am enjoying the beautiful Madrid weather & the absolutely gorgeous Christmas lights that just went up everywhere around the city centre. Enchanting! The Christmas Markets are starting to open up their little stalls and we had the most exquisite little pastries in a beautiful little¨panaderia…

I think one of my friends said it best recently when she described my life as “going from one frying pan into another”! Usually the few weeks after Market are all about recooperation and shipping out orders. Well, somehow this year that just hasn’t happened so much. In addition to the thousands of patterns we have shipped out in the last few weeks, I have finished up the designs & colors for the next fabric line [to show at Spring Market in Portland] and sent them on to my Design Director, organized the sewing of 2 quilts for American Patchwork & Quiting [more to come on that topic soon], finished several other online projects and have now finally started preparing for my upcoming trip to Madrid, Spain and Paris, France. As it draws closer, I’m actually starting to get a little bit excited about…

Good morning from a chilly Norther Cailfornia morning! I am posting this in the body of the blog becuase I have gotten so many requests for it since Market and for the life of me I haven’t yet figured out how to post a pdf on my sidebar… Can anyone familiar with typepad talk me through it? I know I could just read some instructions or something sensible like that, but what’s the fun in that when its so much better to ask someone who has already done it?? 🙂 🙂 Below is the giveaway pattern, Cabana Squares, we had at Fall Market this year. It was a big hit & I have promised to get it up as a pdf on the sidebar of the blog and on the website… I used a group of Dandelion Girl wovens, but this would work with pretty much…

Okay, so you’ve probaby gotten enough of the butter booth, so here are the Dandelion Girl pages of the MODA playbook. For those of you who have never heard that term before, the MODA playbook is an amazing piece of literature that MODA produces at every Quillt Market to introduce and debut all of their latest lines. This time around that meant 21 new lines from 21 fabulous designers or design groups. It meant 88 full glossy pages of amazing fabric pictures. It meant a whole section of new MODA Home products. It meant a whole lot of yummies… These here below are my pages. Hope you enjoy them. To see these kinds of pages for all of my past lines, go here…