Sleepy Kitty Dreams now available

My little kitty is now available as art and canvas prints, iphone cases, ipad and laptop skins, t-shirts, and greeting cards all over at society6. The prints would be so cute in a little kid's room, and who doesn't need an iphone case with a kitty on it? Check'm out here.

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!

Kitty doodle

Another attempt at Photoshop doodling.

iphone case in Mollie Makes magazine

Mollie Makes magazine recently did a little article about the Society6 website and featured my "Owl in Ferns" iphone case! Yay! I recently uploaded some more iphone cases, ipad skins, and art prints to Society6 and thought I'd share them with you. Check'm out here. By the way...Society6 is offering free shipping through Sunday!

Random doodle

Here's a random doodle fer ya. I downloaded the pencil Photoshop brushes from the Stumpy Pencil blog. I had so much fun playing around with them. The brushes do feel like you're drawing with a pencil! Check out the Stumpy Pencil blog here.

We Love French Knots

Hi all. Now that International Quilt Market is over, I'm attempting to get back on track with blogging again. One of the things that I missed telling you about was that in September Penguin & Fish was interviewed on the We Love French Knots blog run by the lovely Bari J! I designed a free pattern download of a little squirrel for the blog as well. The squirrels are going CRAZY outside right now prepping for the winter so I thought it was an appropriate time to share this little pattern again. Here is a link to We Love French Knots, please check it out! And here is a link to download the free squirrel embroidery pattern.

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!

Society6

Hi all. Have you checked out Society6 yet? It's a super fun community website where you can post artwork. Then people can purchase art prints, laptop skins, iphone cases and more all with the art on it. There is so much fun art posted there, I'm tempted to fill my studio wall with different art prints. I signed up for a Society6 account a long time ago but just uploaded my first piece today. It's my Owl in Ferns embroidery that I made a while back. I ordered myself an iphone case with it on. Can't wait for it to arrive! If you want one too, here's a link to my Society6 page.

Pile'o'gators

Finished making some alligators out of Safari Sweet!

Instagram love

So I decided to get on the Instagram bandwagon. Instagram is a fun app where you can make your photos transform into vintagey yummies. You can also share them with the Instagram and other social network communities. These are my first six pics. That dang squirrel keeps trying to get to the birdfeeder. He's made a few leaps but hasn't quite made it yet.

Stuffed

My Kitties and Unicorns were in Stuffed magazine. Yay! I'm so happy to be among so many great plush artists. Stuffed is available at bookstores and check out more pages here.

Quilt Market prep

Hi folks. I've been in Quilt Market preparations for a while now. I'll be off to Salt Lake City on Wednesday to start setting up my trade show booth. Eeek! I'm really excited. Right now I'm putting the finishing touches on everything. Above is a little iphone pic of my studio from about a week and a half ago. I was stitching a new big lion pillow. It's so much fun to stitch these animals at the larger size.

My bunny is in Small Magazine!

I'm a couple of days late with this post, but I'm still super excited. My bunny muff was photographed for small magazine! Small has the BEST photography of kid's fashion and it's worth a look if you haven't checked it out. I'm so happy my little plush friend could be a part of it.

Artist: Myko Bocek Studios

I've been staring at this little puffball owl for weeks now. Isn't he the cutest! All of these wooly pom pom characters are by Myko of Myko Bocek Studios. Check out more of her creations in her etsy store, facebook and blog. She has tons of Easter/Spring cuties in the store right now. How fun!

Crows are back

The sun is out, the sky is blue and the last bits of snow are melting. It's spring! The neighborhood crows are out and starting to bring their meals to the bird bath. They perch on the edge and dip their stray crackers and hamburger buns into the water before they eat them. I got to see one do this for the first time today since last fall, and I'm taking that as a sign that winter is finally over. Yay! Here's my little sketch of the happy bird.

Hoop Up 2 swap

Hi all. I thought I'd share a project that I worked on during my hiatus from blog land over the holidays.

While scanning my Twitter last summer I found out that John (Quilt Dad) was going to have a "Hoop Up 2" embroidery swap. I thought the swap would be a fun way to make some new embroideries and meet some new peeps so I signed up. The way the swap worked was everyone would be placed into a group of about 5 people. Each person in the group comes up with their own theme for an embroidery. After everyone shares their theme, each person has to stitch an embroidery for every other swap partner in their group based on that partner's theme.

The theme that I chose was "Pretty Pets in Pretty Borders". I made a sample of my theme to share with the others in my group. You can see my process of the sample piece for my theme here and here. Above are pics of the embroideries I did based on my partner's themes. The "Owl in Laurel" is for John's (Quilt Dad) "whimsical woodland" theme. Lim's Cafe is for Amy's (badskirt) "retro or silly sign" theme. The Etch-a-Sketch is for Jill's (spinster sister) "Text + ?" theme, where Jill wanted us to have text plus something else in our embroideries. And the final piece is for Cara's (quiltnookgal) "Bluebirds with Tea" theme. I had such a good time stitching everyone's piece and it was a fun challenge to work within someone else's theme. Once I receive all my "Pretty Pets in Pretty Borders" from my group partners, I'll be sure to take some pics and share them. I'm so excited to see how they all turned out!

Another exciting thing about the swap was that it allowed me to develop my iron-on transfer Puppy embroidery patterns. I love when work and play collide!