It started over on twitter… just one mention of loving Gene Kelly and there was instantly a chorus of people agreeing and a suggestion of a Gene Kelly Craft Along!  Who am I to say no to a combination of two things I love?? Gene Kelly and crafting?? I’m IN!

Gene Kelly is my all time favorite movie star ever. There’s just something about his natural charisma and his amazing dancing (and ok  – I admit it, his dreamy good looks don’t hurt!) that just works for me. I have also always been a lover of classic films and many of the musicals that Gene Kelly was a part of are simply amazing film making. (Let’s ignore Xanadu, ok??) Singing in the Rain, An American in Paris, On the Town… I just love them all!

Now HOW to make a quilt that’s inspired by him?!? This is admittedly daunting but I’m gonna give it a shot! My love for GK runs too deep to not join in the craft along! The others joining in (so far!) are Sister Diane, Marlo, Rachel, Stacie, and Tara.

Why don’t YOU join us too?? No rules, no deadlines, no difficult obligations! It’s just all about expressing the GK love through your craft!  Here’s the flickr group so that we can all enjoy the crafty goodness that is certain to result from a Gene Kelly Craft Along!!

Hey everyone. Lots of you know that my day job is in casting reality shows… The show I’m always the most proud of is Project Runway and season 9 starts airing tonight at 9pm on Lifetime, but tune in earlier at 8pm for a casting special! I hope that those of you who can will be watching!

Kathy from Pink Chalk was nice enough to feature my sewing space as part of her “Where I Sew” series.

I’ve loved following along along and getting a glimpse into everyone’s workspace! You can add a photo of your own space here!

Wow. For a couple of years now I’ve seen the blog posts about other people going to Quilt Market and it always looked like so much fun. I wasn’t wrong. It’s an amazing time! It flies by and it’s tiring and your feet hurt at the end of every day but it sure is a hell of a lot of fun! It is almost surreal (but oh so wonderful!) to suddenly have everyone you know online all in one place together!

I’m going to blog about a couple of events that happened soon, but meanwhile, my three favorite things that I saw at Market (aside from people or things I was involved in):

The Michael Miller inspiration wall.

This booth!

And Yoshiko Jinzenji’s amazingly beautiful fabric:

Back soon with more!

I’m headed there on Wednesday and I hope to see you there!

Please join us:

The Modern Quilt Guild Meet Up
Friday, May 13th at 8:00 PM
at the Marriott’s Destinations Lounge

Looking forward to meeting so many of my online friends in person!

Hey all!

I’d mentioned it before, but just one more time, would you mind please clicking on over to Apartment Therapy and voting for my sister’s super cute house in their Small Cool Contest?? She is close to winning her division but she has recently slipped to second place. Think you could help move her to the top?

There’s so many of you reading, and it would REALLY make a difference if just 50 or 60 of you please please vote! Voting ends Sunday at noon (EST) and you didn’t hear it from me but her competition has a wagon wheel coffee table. So let’s just do the right thing and vote for Cate, pleeeeeeeease!

Thank you so much!!

When Susan Beal asked me to be a part of the blog tour for her new book, Modern Log Cabin Quilting I jumped at the chance.

If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time you’re certain to know that I have had quite the love affair with the log cabin block.

There was a time when I would sew pretty much nothing but!  There’s so much room for creativity with them and as a beginning quilter I was comfortable there.  I loved that I had so much room to explore design while also using just this one simple construction method.  Modern Log Cabin Quilting shows just how much this is the case. Check out these two amazing and completely different quilts, both with log cabin blocks.

Pretty great, right?  The book is filled with ten wonderful quilt patterns and loads of cute home dec.projects…

…and bags too!

The beautiful photography really shows off the fun and fresh atmosphere of all of the projects.

The generous people at Potter Craft have been kind enough to offer up a copy of the book for you! Just leave a comment on this post and you’ll be entered to win. (US residents only please.)  Good luck!

I’ll leave the giveaway open through the weekend and announce a winner on Monday!

Hey all! I’m super excited that the lovely Bethany from Apartment Therapy came and shot my sewing space recently.

Check out the full post here!

We are all so terribly sad about what’s happened in Japan… Did you all see that Jacquie is giving a quilt away if you donate to the Red Cross? So generous of her!

Check out her post here and please give what you can!