Vanilla House Designs has recently released six new patterns.  These patterns add to their funky and modern collection.  Included are three new aprons, a pillow sleeve, a funky new oven mitt, and a new way to do laundry! 

The Kids’ Four Corners Apron pattern allows your child to be just like Mom!  This apron mirrors the popular Four Corners Pattern in three pint sizes.  Small fits 18 Months to 3 years, Medium for 4-6 Years, and Large for 7-8 Years.  These Aprons are a must have for Mom’s little helper in the kitchen!  I can’t wait to see how my two year old daughter looks in it!  Maybe it will be one less outfit we ruin!

The Friday Night Apron is totally modern with a halter top and a figure fitting style.  It cuts down in the middle and veers up to wrap around your neck.  Incredibly cute!!  It’s in a style that looks great with the newer, brighter fabrics out these days as well as the more traditionally darker colors.   It is just that versatile! The apron fits sizes 4-14 comfortably, but for the larger girls, there are directions on the Vanilla House website for increasing the size of the pattern.

The Sunday Dinner Apron gives you the modern feel of a figure fitting style with a little more traditional cut.  This apron has more of a wrap around look to the top.  It still curves in to fit the waist, but the top is more covered than the Friday Night version.  This apron also looks great with varied fabric options! 

The French Laundry set gives you a new option to the way you launder your fine apparel.  The set comes with a cute pattern for a convenient bag on a hanger to hold your items and a funky padded hanger.  I’m always excited about anything that makes me a little more organized.  I can’t wait to try this out! The padded hanger has two available sizes: adult and child.

It’s A Wrap allows you to cover new pillow forms and also gives you a way to refresh those tired pillows that are too comfortable to get rid of.  (You know, the ones we hide behind the couch when we know company is coming!)  This pattern looks great with any fabric combination and comes off easily to throw it in the wash!  A must have with children around!   The pillow wrap comes with two different variations of the pattern.  Give those old decorations new life!  It’s also a great way to easily change up your color schemes at home!

 The Fish in the Oven mitt is just adorable.  You’ll instantly have a great conversation piece for those dinner or, in my case, barbeque parties or just a fun tool in the kitchen!  It comes in little fish sizes for women and big fish sizes for men.  It’s recommended that you use use Insulbrite thermal fleece and custom bias trim binding.  It’s just too cute to miss out on!

Joan Hawley of Lazy Girl Designs has issued new covers and updated instructions for two of their most-loved patterns.

Both of these items are in stock now at Quilter’s Warehouse here.

The Wonder Wallet pattern (#LGD211) continues to be a quilt industry best seller, consistently residing on Checker Distributors’ ‘Top 50’ list for the last four years.

Purchase Now

The Runaround Bag pattern (#LGD111) hosts our easiest zipper installation and is featured in an episode of the Kaye’s Quilting Friends 40th Anniversary season, currently airing on PBS around the country.

Purchase Now

Both the Runaround Bag and Wonder Wallet designs are great starter projects and fat quarter friendly.

The covers are not the only things we have updated. While the original patterns are wonderful, we are taking this opportunity to add tips and extra resources that many of our enthusiastic customers have sent to us over the years.

Most notable in these product updates is the inclusion of pattern pieces for these designs. This is in response to the growing number of sewing enthusiasts who may not be familiar with rotary cutting.

Fabrics for both covers are courtesy of Northcott Fabrics. The Wonder Wallet cover samples are made with ‘Tulip Nouveau’ by Ro Gregg. The Runaround Bag cover sample is made with the Coral Chartreuse colorway of ‘A La Mode’ by Yolonda Fundora for Lyndhurst Studios.

These fresh versions of two popular Lazy Girl favorites are in stock now.

See the entire Lazy Girl Designs product line here: http://www.lazygirldesigns.com

Enjoy!
Joan Hawley
Lazy Girl Designs

Hyperlinks for this story:

Lazy Girl Designs – http://www.lazygirldesigns.com

More about the Wonder Wallet here – http://www.lazygirldesigns.com/blog/?p=694

More about the Runaround Bag here – http://www.lazygirldesigns.com/blog/?p=700

Checker Distributors – http://www.checkerdist.com

More about Kaye’s Quilting Friends here – http://www.lazygirldesigns.com/blog/?p=255

Northcott and Lyndhurst fabrics – http://www.northcott.net

View ‘A La Mode’ fabric here – http://www.northcott.net/index.cfm?action=fabric&fabCatID=1&collectionID=182&colorwayID=298

View ‘Tulip Nouveau’ fabric here – http://www.northcott.net/index.cfm?action=fabric&fabCatID=8&collectionID=180&colorwayID=294

The Lazy Angle Ruler is a specialty ruler designed by Joan Hawley of Lazy Girl Designs. All the information provided on Lazy Angle Rulers can be found at Lazy Girl Designs website as well as QuiltersWarehouse.com. Here you will see pictures and other tutorials to introduce you to this unique tool.

Here’s Joan of Lazy Girl Designs to tell us more:

What is a Lazy Angle?
The block at the far left is a Lazy Angle. This block uses an ‘A’ and ‘B’ piece, as cut with the Lazy Angle ruler. When pieced, a Lazy Angle block has a seam that runs from a corner to the center of a side when finished or sewn in place in a quilt. That means the cut pieces and the angle are awkward. This is definitely not a 30 degree angle. It’s actually just a smidgen under 30 degrees. Look at the tutorial for more on this.

Why does this angle looks familiar?
It’s the same angle in half triangle rectangles (two ‘B’ pieces) and Doreen Speckman’s beloved ‘Peaky and Spike’ block, and the Storm At Sea quilt design. However, I couldn’t find a common name for the angle itself, so I called it ‘Lazy’. Besides, I think of it as not being ambitious enough to reach the opposite corner, but rather a lazy little angle that landed out in no man’s land.

What does the Lazy Angle ruler look like?
Shown above, it’s a one-piece acrylic tool with markings to cut ‘A’ and ‘B’ pieces in six sizes. Visit the Lazy Angle Tutorial page to see how to use the ruler.

Why invent a tool just for this block?
When I work on a quilt piecing project, I want the promise of ease and accuracy. I want the only variables to be my skills at the moment and the mystery of how the final quilt will look once all the fabrics are cut and sewn together. Other than that, you can keep the guess work and variables – I’m looking for the best chance at success.

So, back in the late 1990’s I designed a quilt, based on a block I thought was intriguing. There wasn’t a tool or notion available that would accurately cut the two pieces I needed. I wasn’t asking too much, I just wanted help in doing this one thing well. The Lazy Angle ruler sprang from that simple need. I imagine a lot of tools and notions come from the same place. Well, I didn’t realize it at the time, but while the Lazy Angle ruler helped me do that one thing well, it turns out that it does so much more. So, I filed for (and later received) a patent, looked for a manufacturer and thus the Lazy Angle ruler became a reality.

What does the Lazy Angle ruler do?
The Lazy Angle ruler allows you to cut two shapes ‘A’ and ‘B’, in six sizes, from strips of fabric with no waste or scary math. That’s it. Now remember that part about the angled seam ending at the ‘center’ of a side? Well, click on the image of the table runner to the left so see a close-up of the piecing. The burgundy point from the Lazy Angle block perfectly matches up with the seam of the four half-square triangles that compose the center block of this nine-patch. That’s good stuff! That endpoint for the angled seam matches everything else with a seam at the center: square-in-a-square, four-patch, corner cutie (that’s one folded triangle on a corner) and more.

You decide how to use the ‘A’ and ‘B’ pieces to make the simplest of Lazy Angle blocks, like I did for the Lazy Sunshine quilt. Or make more intricate blocks like ‘Parody’, ‘Pinnacle’ ‘Reigning Star’ and more. Starting to identify the ‘A’ and ‘B’ pieces in these images? The B’s in Lazy Sunshine are the green and yellow pieces. The burgundy and some of the background fabrics are the A’s.
The book ‘Lazy & Lovin’ It’ offers more than 250 different block designs made using the Lazy Angle ruler. Lazy Girl Designs also offers a number of quilt patterns that use the Lazy Angle ruler. You can see these quilt patterns here.

Hop on over to Kaye Wood TV.com, watch the demonstration, then visit the Lazy Angle Tutorial page and print the first chapter of my book ‘Lazy & Lovin’ It’.
- Joan Hawley

Lazy Girl Designs makes a donation to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation for each of their books and rulers they sell.

Kat from StudioKat Designs emailed to tell us that they are putting on a contest for any and all who want to join. There are a couple still going on, all you have to do is go to this link:

www.sewing.patternreview.com/cgi-bin/contestreport.pl?Contest=47

Once there click on the contest you want to submit to. There are contest discussions, contest rules, and pictures to send as well. I think I will check that out.

Good Luck to all who enter and may the best person win, but I’m sure everyone’s entries are just wonderful!

Happy Sewing

Kari

Howdy everyone.  It’s one of the best times of the year…at least I think so.  It’s SPRING TIME again.  The time where your flowers start to bloom, your grass gets greener, and the trees start to get leaves.  The weather starts to get warmer, but with that warmer weather comes storms.  Now I don’t know if you like them, but I do love a good spring time thunder storm.

What I don’t like is when those storms get really bad, or when they cut you off from your power.  I know alot of quilters love rainy days because they get to do what they love to do most.  QUILT!  But when those bad storms come and cut out their power it makes it hard to use your sewing machines.  Well, I have a solution, why not learn to do some needlework at home. 

Needlework patterns, like cross stitch, knitting, crocheting, and even punch needle kits are making a huge comeback in the quilting industry.  You don’t need electricity to do these fun projects.  There is no cutting or measuring of fabric, just you a needle, and a beautiful pattern that you can hang up, or once the power comes back on, sew into a fun decorative pillow.

You should take a look at the patterns that are available through Quilters Warehouse.  With many fine designers and wonderful patterns to choose from.  Just find the link at the top called Needle Arts.

Well, enjoy the spring and don’t let that rainy weather get you down.

Until next time,

Kari

Project Linus is a non-profit organization that provides children living in shelters, hospitals, cancer treatment facilities, etc, with homemade blankets and afgans, made 100% from volunteers.   Their national headquarters are located in Bloomington, IL and is headed up with President Carol Babbitt and Vice-President Mary Balagna.  Their main purpose is to provide children with some sort of comfort through some of the hardest times in their young lives. 

QuiltersWarehouse is a huge supporter of Project Linus.  They make their patterns available for sale with 100% of the proceeds going straight back to Project Linus.  It would be wonderful for anyone to help out with this very worthy cause. 

In addition to purchasing Project Linus patterns from QuiltersWarehouse, here is another way that is going to be available to everyone.  This email came in to us from Judy Howard from Heavenly Patchwork.

I’ve designated  March 29  as Charity Quilt Day in which all Amazon sales of my 3 books and DVDs go to Project Linus & other non-profit charity quilt groups. (You may tell all your customers and contacts to designate Project Linus or your favorite local or national non-profit as the beneficiary).  We’re offering bonus gifts of needlework & quilt patterns, quilting
tips and excerpts from books by celebrity quilters to those purchasing books. You may include all your advertising on bonus gifts. Please respond immediately by sending patterns or tips in PDF form if you’d like to benefit from the advertising.Attached is the letter about the free advertising opportunity for you through the bonus gifts.  Attached also is the Charity Quilt Day Info to post on your website, yahoo groups, blogs, chatrooms, etc.