Spring House in Southwold

The Cygnet Room, Swan Hotel, Southwold

There have been 2 new fabric deliveries in the last week or so -

Boho by Urban Chiks for Moda – a collection of funky retro fabrics with bold designs in a variety of sizes.  We’ve chosen the blue/brown palette with a pop of red.

And Spring House by Stephanie Ryan also for Moda.  This is Stephanie’s debut line for Moda and is so clean and fresh and yes – Spring-like!  There are some great ideas of how to put this fabric to good use on Stephanie’s website.

We’ll have both these collections at our next pop up shop at The Swan Hotel in Southwold, Suffolk this weekend – Friday 24th to Sunday 26th May from 10.00am.  Valerie and John from Daisy May Quilting will be there with a quilt display to show off their fabulous long-arm quilting skills and of course our room will be one big Aladdin’s cave of fabric!

Also featuring at the pop up will be some new items that we’ve made since our last time at The Swan -

a cushion cover made with Zen Chic’s Juggling Summer and a quilt made with Casablanca from Benartex.

So if you need to match some fabric, have something you’ve made that you’d like to show us or just want a bit of a chat – come along and say hello!

Janet & Louise

Bundles of joy

We spent last weekend putting together a few new fat quarter bundles for the website starting with the most recent collections.

Casablanca, Comma & Juggling Summer

Then we started to have some fun by mixing it up a bit…

with this Juggling Summer and Comma bundle – a great Zen Chic combo.

Then we added a few others …

Casablanca with some turquoise and gold

Lily Ashbury’s Gypsy Girl with the green spotty Comma and a Bella Solid in leaf.

And because once we started we couldn’t stop – some Cuzco with Nights in Barcelona and a gold Willow and some lovely Kasuri teamed with a Moda Bella solid in plum – yum!

You can see all our bundles here and if you come and see us at our next pop up shop at The Swan Hotel, Southwold on May 25th to 27th, you can make your own!

Janet & Louise

It must be Spring…

…because this time next week we’ll be in the middle of our third (and final) day at the Duxford Spring Quilt Festival!  Here’s a sneak peek at some of the fabrics and items we’ve made (and are making!) that we’ll have on display.

Fabrics are clockwise from top left – Kate Spain’s Cuzco, Lily Ashbury’s Gypsy Girl, Dianna LaFerry’s Feathers and Fancy and Simply Colour by V and Co.

Janet’s made an amazing table runner from these little babies…

otherwise known as a Moda mini charm pack or candy pack – 42 2.5 inch (approx 6.5 cm) squares of Chateau Rouge goodness and no, it’s nothing to do with wine, although it sounds as though it could be!

PLUS we have another shipment of Moda scrap bags in!!  These are very popular and rightly so as they are excellent value and contain at least 1/2 lb (approx 227 g) of fabric strips, usually from the same collection but sometimes a mixture.  We don’t put these on the website so you’ll just have to come along to Duxford to check them out for yourself.  See you there!

Janet & Louise

Popping back to The Swan

Yes, its’s December again which means we’re back at the Swan Hotel in Southwold for another pop up shop.  After the excitement of the Autumn Quilt Festival in Duxford where we could only show off a small selection of our fabric, it’s time to go mad and put it all on display!  There’s been a few new fabric ranges arrive since we were last at the Swan…

Urbanicity by Michele D’Amore, Gypsy Girl by Lily Ashbury, Feathers and Fancy by Dianna LaFerry, Oh Deer by Momo and the Japanese-inspired Kasuri.

And for those of you who came to see us at Duxford – here’s a little peek of what’s arrived since…

Chateau Rouge mini charm packs

Simply Colour by V and Co.

We’re also extending our range of Bella solids and now have some great colours in plums and greys so if you get a chance to drop by we’d love to see you.  Friday night (7th December) is also the turning on of the Christmas lights in Southwold so you can really get into the Christmas spirit if you haven’t already!

Janet & Louise

Southwold here we come

Yes, we’re off to Southwold in Suffolk again for one of our legendary pop up shops.  Read about a previous one here.  We’ll have all our fabric plus some new items that we’ve whipped up over the last few weeks.  We’ll be in the Cygnet Room of the Swan Hotel in Southwold from 1.00pm on Friday 24th August and then from 10.00am on Saturday 25th and Sunday 26th August.  Drop in and see us!

Janet & Louise

Here comes summer!

Well waddaya know – summer has finally arrived in the UK – well parts of it anyway – so there’s only one thing for it and that’s to get some al fresco sewing done!

It’s only a month to go to our next pop up shop at The Swan Hotel in Southwold so we’ve been busy making a few smaller items to showcase some of our (quite summery!) fabric ranges.  We think it’s the best way to get a ‘feel’ for the fabrics.  Here’s a sneak peek…

Salt Air by Cosmo Cricket, Tradewinds by Lily Ashbury & Hello Luscious by Basicgrey

These are all Moda fabrics and if you need a bit of inspiration have a look at this website -  Moda Bake Shop.  It features lots of ‘recipes’ using Moda pre-cut fabric such as the Salt Air Diamonds Quilt  and these Tradewinds potholders so it’s a great way to see how the fabrics look made up, even if you don’t use the patterns.  An even better way would be to come along to the Swan Hotel on the August Bank Holiday weekend and see for yourselves!  We’ll keep you posted and, in the meantime, have you been doing any al fresco sewing?

Janet & Louise

New fabric! – Trade Winds

Ooh, look what we’ve got!

One of the best parts of having an online fabric shop is opening the boxes when they arrive!  Especially when the fabric is as glorious as this Trade Winds by Lily Ashbury for Moda.  You can see our range here – including jelly rolls – and the great thing is it coordinates beautifully with Lily Ashbury’s previous collection, Summer House.  Vibrant is the name of the game when it comes to both these collections and they would make fabulous summer clothing now that the weather has finally got its act together!

Janet & Louise

Show & tell

One thing we really love about our little online shop is guessing what people do with the fabric they buy.   It’s really fascinating to think of all that fabric being sent off around the world to new homes and new beginnings and even if if ends up in someone’s stash then that’s ok with us!  Sometimes we get a little glimpse into the new life of a fabric when a customer teases us with a hint as to what they have in mind or, joy of joys, they send us an image of their creation!  There’s no better inspiration than to see a fabric made up into a bag, a quilt or something more unexpected such as a pair of curtains – it really brings the fabric to life and makes us realise the endless possibilities… and so we’re going to set up a show and tell section where all you creative types can send in images of your lovely items and we can all share the inspiration.

We’d like to set the ball rolling and show you a bag that we’ve made with a couple of Deco Metric fabrics by Ro Gregg for Northcott.  This collection is quite subtle with a mixture of light, mid and dark browns and a lovely pop of green to lift it. As ever, it’s the fabric design that attracted us and we’ve used the green and dark brown frond fabric for the body of the bag with the dark brown circles to coordinate.  The pattern is Amy Butler’s Frenchy Bag in the smaller size.  We love Amy’s patterns as they’re so easy to follow (even the more elaborate ones) and you always end up with a great looking bag!  So please let us know what you’ve been up to with your fabric.  It does’t have to be from our website – we’re not fussy.  Just contact us through our website if you’d like to share.

In the meantime we’ve turned into cutting fiends in readiness for the Spring Quilt Festival at Chilford.  Last November was our first time as stallholders at Chilford and, despite a few nerves, it was pretty exciting.  You know those experiences you really look forward to but don’t quite know what to expect?  Well it was one of those but in a good way!  So hopefully we’ll be a little more prepared (ha!) and we’re looking forward to meeting loads of lovely people.  We’ll have a range of fabric from our website in fat quarters, bundles and larger pieces – let us know if you’re going to Chilford and there’s something on our website that you’d like to see in the flesh and we’ll bring it along.  We’ll have some pieces made up including the bag above and Janet is working on some Isabella and 30s Playtime while Louise is hand sewing some Blueberry Crumb Cake so we’ll have lots to show you.  And now it’s back to the cutting board…

Janet & Louise

Swanning around

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live out your dream for a few days?  Well, that’s what we did in the last weekend of January!   We spent three whole days surrounded by fabric – looking at it, talking about it and, of course, selling it – and loving every minute of it.  It was our third pop up shop at The Swan Hotel in Southwold and once we’d lugged all those bolts up the stairs (added bonus – workout!) we settled in and arranged the fabric on long tables under the south facing windows to be seen at their best and waited…

calm before the storm

…and what a great bunch of people we met!  Everybody from beginners to the most experienced quilters were there to see what fabric was on offer and soon there was great chat going on and a lot of pulling out of bolts to see what went with what.  Children were choosing their favourite fabrics, quilters were swapping tips, the sofa and newspapers were being put to good use, dogs were snoozing and Janet was in full swing with her pillowcase tutorial!  More images here.

We’ll be back in the Swan in August but in the meantime we’ve got an appearance at the Spring Quilt Festival at Chilford from 9th to 12th March (so soon!) so it’s going to be a sewing & cutting frenzy here at the GD Studio over the next few weeks plus a bit of blogging as well to let you know how it’s all going.  We’ve got a beginner’s quilt on the go featuring the Sweet Nectar collection for those of you who are just starting out and also some hand sewing to showcase our Blueberry Crumb Cake jelly rolls.  We’re also very keen to start our Show and Tell section where you can send us images of your work, either in progress or finished, as we’re always curious about what happens to all that lovely fabric we send off.  You can get in touch with us via the website.

For those in the Northern Hemisphere – keep warm – great weather for staying in and doing a bit of sewing, and for those of you in warmer climes – keep out of that sun – stay in and do a bit of sewing!

Janet & Louise