Picnic Pals fabric collection

Hi all. Here's a quick glimpse of my new fabric line Picnic Pals. I'm really excited about the super bright summery colors. The fabric will be shipping to stores in July so make sure to tell your favorite local quilt shop that you'd like them to get some for you! The free pattern to make the rainbow quilt will be available in July as well. I couldn't wait to share it even though I know it's a couple months out yet. I can't wait to make one for myself, it'd be perfect for a picnic blanket. Remember, Picnic Pals iphone cases and ipad skins are available now over at society6, yay!

Fall Quilt Market 2011

Hi all! I'm back from Fall 2011 International Quilt Market. Quilt Market is a trade show for quilt shops and the rest of the industry to come on down and see what's new. There is one held in Spring and one in Fall. This was my fourth one, I can't believe it! I'm exhausted and could sleep for a week! It was an excellent show and I got to meet a ton of great peeps. Wasn't able to leave the booth very often, so I don't have many pics from the show, but I thought I'd share a couple from my booth. We hung Safari Sweet all over the walls. I think my favorite thing is all the little Safari Sweet plushies we made. I love the little alligator that's chilling with the big hedgehog. Silly. That's me in the booth in the first pic. That's only the first day and I looked tired already. On the wall with all the embroidery kits, you may spy some new little fellas. We now have the Giraffe, Jellyfish, Zebra and Alligator as kits! They're not up in the shop yet, but they will be soon. And all the patterns and kits now have iron-on transfers included, Yay!

Let's MEET and play with Safari SWEET!

Hi all. I have exciting news. My first fabric collection, Safari Sweet, IS NOW IN STORES! Yay! To celebrate, the lovely Nikol from Sewtropolis in Minneapolis, and I are having an embroidery get together on Saturday. We'll be stitching up little embroidered animal brooches like the one above. It's a super fun project and is especially good for kids or if you've never embroidered or sewn before. At Sewtropolis you'll also get to see a whole bunch of fun projects that you can make with Safari Sweet, like the giraffe quilt. I'll also be signing my children's book, No Monster Here. So come by on Saturday, it'll be SUPER FUN!

Saturday, October 1
1:00 - 3:00pm
Sewtropolis
5 West Diamond Lake Road
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55419

Jean quilt progress

Thought I'd share how I spent my Saturday. I worked on my jean quilt! I started it a couple of months ago and spent the entire day on it today. It's a "log cabin" style quilt with gold woven wool squares surrounded by one inch strips made out of old jeans. The dark colors are the outside of the jeans and the the light colors are from the insides. To make it bigger you just keep adding strips around the outsides of all the squares. I'm hoping to make this into a queen sized quilt and I'm about half way there right now. Unfortunately I ran out of old jeans. Boo. I'll have to try and steal a few more pairs from the hubs, but until then this project is on hold.

Pile'o'gators

Finished making some alligators out of Safari Sweet!

Safari Sweet is released!!!

The lovely Brandi over at Clothworks Textiles let me know yesterday that my first fabric collection, Safari Sweet, is out. Yippee! So tell your favorite quilt shop that you want some. :-) One of the neat things about it is that it's all organic. And not just organic, but GOTS certified organic. GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) is a third party organization that makes sure every part of the process – including harvesting the raw materials, processing, manufacturing, packaging, labeling, trading and distribution – maintains the organic status of the fabric. Here's a link for more info on GOTS certification. Another super fun thing is that there are new organic solids that coordinate perfectly with Safari Sweet, and there are also a couple of flannels in the collection. Check out Clothworks Textiles blog and website for more. Over here at Penguin & Fish, we have all of the animals in Safari Sweet available as embroidery patterns and a few of them as embroidery kits. I can't wait to stitch up some animals and make little pillows with the sample yardage when I receive it. All you friends who are having babies know what you'll be getting as gifts. heh heh. I'd love if you could help me get the word out about Safari Sweet. I'll definitely share some more pics once I receive samples. Fun!

Giveaway!!!!! My new patterns

Hi peeps! Man, this has been my busiest holiday season ever, which is awesome, but exhausting. Don't worry I'll be posting more regularly soon. The No Coast Craft-o-Rama went great this weekend. It was super fun hanging out with my crafty friends. I still have to clean up everything still (and from Quilt Market too) but I'll get there.

Thanks to everyone who's stuck with the bloggy blog during my lack of posting. I'm going to do a little giveaway for all y'all! I'll be giving away my 4 new printed patterns to one lucky reader. All of you who guessed alligator here were right, my first sewing pattern is the little alligator in the first two pics. He comes with a fold out template and a booklet of easy to follow instructions. The other 3 patterns are my new puppy embroidery patterns, Boston, Golden and Maltese. Each puppy is sitting in a pretty border. The best part is that the patterns include an iron on transfer, woo hoo!

To enter the giveaway just leave a comment below. I'll pick a name randomly on Monday. Then you'll still get the patterns before Christmas! All the patterns are available as printed patterns and as pdf downloads in my etsy shop. Thanks all! -alyssa

I'm in the Storque!

Check it out peeps. I was in an Etsy Storque article a couple of days ago! The lovely Linzee McCray wrote the piece about Textile Trends at the International Quilt Market. And one of those trends was embroidery, woo hoo! I got to chat with her about my embroidery kits and she took a pic of me with my big hedgehog pillow. You can read the entire article here.

The Creative Connection Event - Jennifer Murphy class

Yesterday I had the most amazing day. I attended The Creative Connection Event that is currently taking place right now here in Minneapolis. I met the most amazing people who were all incredible and inspiring. But more on that in a bit...right now I have to jump ahead to the class I took with Jennifer Murphy during the event. Jennifer creates the most amazing quirky, vintage inspired stuffed animals and she was gracious enough to share one of her patterns and teach a class how to make her little bunny. You can see my in process and finished bunny above (mine is the one with the big blue bow), some other bunnies people made in the class, and a few of Jennifer's original bears. The last pic is my little bunny getting ready to eat the apple kuchen at the gala dinner. Check out the table cloth made from Amy Butler fabric. She spoke during the dinner btw, eeeeee!

Artist: jenny mccabe of Yarn Soup

Check out these amazing bird brooches by jenny mccabe of Yarn Soup. They are made from layers of dyed fabric that are freehand machine embroidered. So darling. I'll take the owl in the first or second pic please! See more wonderful work in the Yarn Soup etsy store or on jenny's blog.

Artist: Vive Handmade

I'm absolutely loving these pillows by Vive Handmade. Each one is hand printed and hand-drawn using silkscreens and monoprints. They would definitely brighten up a drab room. See more in the Vive Handmade etsy store.

Progress

Here are some progress pics of the little foxes. The middle pic is my 3rd (and final) prototype. The last image shows my first 6 ready to be stuffed. I have more cut out and I'm ready to get sewing. Woo hoo!

One more progress pic

Just another quick progress pic of my alphabet quilt made from all my embroidery patterns and new fabric. I sent all my finished patterns to my mom and she's been busy turning them into a quilt. I'll get to see it finished this weekend and I'll be sure to take some nice photos soon. I can't wait!

busy busy busy

So lately I've been frantically getting ready for the International Quilt Market (booth 2151). I'll be selling/showing my embroidery patterns and kits there. For the show I wanted to make bunch of things that would illustrate some of the ideas of what you can do with the patterns. Above are some progress pics of some of the things. I'm so happy how everything is turning out! My mom has been helping with the quilting which is super awesome. In the first pic with the turtle you can see a few of the fabrics that I got printed. I'll take better pics of everything once I get a little further, but I couldn't resist sharing.