Yesterday I went to Christensen Wholesale’s new beautiful warehouse. First, it’s closer to me (which is always a plus), but the space is so lovely that I would have loved to wander among the racks for hours. I picked up all my cottons a few flannels and laminates for Dainty Blossoms™ to boot. My kids are hoping for pajamas. I think they are going to get their wish. Now to carve out time to sew.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend! Carina

This line is currently on presale to quilt shops and will be available to everybody in April 2012. I’m pretty excited about this line since it is so different than any other fabric line I’ve designed so far.

Click on the image to see all three colorways of this line! It comes in 100% cottons and laminates. Yummy!

Hope you enjoy and I’m hoping to be back soon with some amazing projects by my creative team and a whole lot of photos from CHA. I’m flying in on Saturday and just staying the weekend. I’m sure I’ll have plenty to share.

Cheers! Carina

If you haven’t had a chance to check out the Cutting Corner, you are really missing out. It’s a blog sponsored by Riley Blake Designs with all sorts of free tutorials and patterns. I just found this darling pillow tutorial using my Dainty Blossoms™ fabric line and had to share.

I myself have yet to make it down to the warehouse to pick up my bolts of this new line. I know that it is currently being shipped to stores. Have you seen it yet?

I know I’ve been a bit MIA this January, but ’tis the season for sickness. My family can’t seem to get healthy. So much has gone to the wayside as Flissa has been fighting a week-long fever that also involves strep. We’ve never seen anything this bad and ended up in the ER one night with her. Turns out she is just a kid that can run high fevers (107 degrees!—ya, we were freaked out.). Hoping that everyone starts feeling better before I head out to CHA this weekend…and here’s to hoping I don’t catch anything either!

I spent a little time in Alpine last week with my art directors working on some new concepts for fabric lines. I walked into the office and saw this GORGEOUS quilt Jina Barney had made with the Dainty Blossoms™ line. It totally took me by surprise! And even though I knew the fabric was going to beautiful in a quilt, actually SEEING it in a quilt made me want to make one ASAP.

Seriously, this photo doesn’t do this quilt justice. At. All.

And if you are quilter, you KNOW how difficult it is to photograph a quilt decently (Definitely, not on my list of things that are easy to take pictures of).

I made sure to grab some scraps so that I could put one together over Christmas break with the kids.

I also found out that two more of my lines are on presale so I will be introducing them to you pretty soon here.

Oh ya, and I promise to introduce the final sewing pattern this week (But while you wait you can check out how darling the mermaid doll pattern is with the Dainty Blossoms™ fabric for the tail…Yipp-eek!).

Happy sewing!

Carina

On the giveaway table today is a full fat quarter set of Pinfeathers Peacock Blue fabrics (9 fabrics in all) and Sweet Water Frame’s 3×3 Rasley Ornament in Green apple (shown below). All you have to do is leave a comment on this thread to be entered to win BOTH of these.

I believe I have talked about Sweetwater Frames here before. Last week I finally ordered our family pictures for the custom 24″ x 36″ frame I purchased from them. It looks amazing over my antique piano (See my frame below). I purchased the Powell in antique white, but I’m so in love with the black frames, I can see myself coming back for more!

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That green apple is ADORABLE isn’t it? And my frame isn’t bad either:). Btw, because I know you are going to ask, the family portrait was taken by my lovely assistant Susan.

So leave a comment to get the green frame and some Pinfeathers!

XOXO-Carina

PS. This giveaway ends on Sunday, December 18th!

And I don’t think you’ll be disappointed with all the other options: 4 different hair styles, 4 different bang styles, an optional mermaid tail, a ruffle dress, skirt, and plenty of accessories!

The face is an easy embroidery project (as is the tail). The dress and skirt are fun accessories that your little sewer could make too. Make multiple clothing items for this little lovey up! Or simply sew a fun fabric into the body as the outfit.

The finished doll is  about 22 inches long and the finished mermaid is about 15 inches long.

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I can see myself making a lot more of these in the coming month. I love using scraps of fabric, felt, and fleece for this doll (measurements come in yardage AND scrap fabric sizes).

I’ll be introducing the third sewing pattern in a couple of days…

Thank you to everyone who entered the Baby Safari Giveaway! Reading what everyone was doing this holiday season was so inspiring and touched my heart! I had a horrible time deciding, and I implore you to continue to enter the giveaways during this month since I wanted so badly to give every one of you a fat quarter set!

Here are the winners from the blog:

Rosemary says:

This is THE BEST pumpkin pie I’ve ever tasted. It’s the one my family requests to have for Thanksgiving from now on. Happy Baking {Pumpkin Praline Pie Recipe in the comments! I might have to give this one a try! Thanks for sharing Rosemary!}

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April says:

This holiday we are trying to have a homemade Christmas. One of my daughters is helping me make quilts for almost everyone . . . a big project. It is hard to find things to make for men so we are really thinking hard on that one. We have a new baby in the family so I thought your fabrics would be fun to do something with. Have a great holiday and thank you for sharing your creativity with us and all your fun ideas and art work.

That’s a big project April! Men’s fabrics are so DIFFICULT (Believe me as I have been trying to work on a fabric line for “big boys.”) Hopefully, these fabrics help a bit with the “little boys” in your life!

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Vanessa B says:

A few years ago we started a new family tradition in the spirit of giving and the holidays that each one of us would do at least 1 good deed and then speak about it during Christmas Dinner…so Im looking forward to the holiday meal and hearing what each has done out of the kindness of their hearts for someone they know or a complete stranger. Turns out my family is very kind, even to strangers I would luv to win these fabrics, Thanks for the chance!

Vanessa, your family tradition melts my heart! Oh, if we all could just be a little kinder during the hoildays (and throughout the year!). What a sweet tradition!

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Martine says:

Hopefully ithis year it will be a fertile Christmas…Just before Christmas our IVF program will end, maybe next year there will be a small family under the tree!

Martine, I’m wishing you the best of luck in this!!!

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Here are the winners from the Facebook Page:

Jasa Clos  says:

We will just be enjoying having Jake home this year, he was in Iraq for Christmas last year and opened gifts over skype. I have a new little neighbor that sure would enjoy a new quilt and the fabrics are just great.

Bless your heart! So happy for you will have Jake back and I hope you enjoy the fabrics!

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Gemma Robillard says

Beautiful – what a nice giveaway!! I would love to give these to my mom since she’s a new quilter and making gorgeous quilts. Hey, that’s a nice Christmas gift! .

How sweet are you? I hope you both get to enjoy them!

Winners: Please email me at carina@carinagardner.com with your address and we will have these sent out ASAP!

Thank you again for all of your comments—for sharing how you plan to slow down, your recipes (Meg, I WILL be trying to make that apple crisp!), how you are going to cuddle with the ones you love, travel, and play in the snow! (We are also enjoying the recent downfall here in SLC.)

It was so hard to decide on who to choose for this last giveaway, that the rest of the upcoming freebies will be chosen by the random number generator:). lol. Less pressure on me! Just keep those wonderful, inspiring comments rolling!

This week I’m giving away two FULL sets of Dress Up—yep, that is 11 juicy fat quarter fabrics in each set! This giveaway will end on Friday. (That would be Nov. 25, Black Friday, Sale Day, National Standing-in-Line Day, Left-Over Turkey Day, and any other name you can give it..)

Tell me your favorite Thanksgiving Food in the comments below to be entered!

Ready to pull out your sewing machines? Because you will want to when you see all the pretties I’ll be showing you the next few weeks!

What’s new in these patterns? The best new feature is that the patterns now span 2T to 10. They also feature the European sizing equivalent. As always they have a metric conversion chart and glossary of terms.

Susan’s daughter Paige and my daughter Siri got dolled up to help me photograph My Garden Party Outfit! The front cover is one of my personal favorites since I have a soft spot for these two girls.

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All my new patterns feature my new line for Riley Blake Dainty Blossoms™ (also due out this January!).

The Garden Party Outfit sewing pattern features 2 dresses, a blouse, and skirt. The V-shaped neckline makes this outfit delicate and unique all at once.

Paige is rocking the blouse and skirt while Siri is wearing Dress B—a simple V-necked dress with a sewn-in sash. The third outfit is a V-necked straight dress with a seperate sash you tie on (Dress A).

You can check out the back of this sewing pattern here.

If you are a retailer, you can check out our list of distributors here. This list may be changing in the near future so check back often.

Want the fabric or sewing patterns at your local retailer? Make sure you call them and ask for the lines!

Last thing—make sure you have entered for the fabric giveaway below and watch for the next one!

Happy sewing! Carina

It’s November, and I’ve told myself that this year the holidays are going to be a little different. Instead of the rush, rush, rush, I’m hoping to really live in the present this holiday season and remember to be grateful for what I have. I’ve cleared out my schedule of any “hard” deadlines and while I certainly will be working, I hope to work at a more relaxed pace.

So maybe it’s a change in attitude about the holidays?

Either way, I have been thinking alot about being grateful and generously giving. And as always, my thoughts have turned to this blog and how I can share with you—make your life a little more pleasant or a little more beautiful.

…and that’s when I decided that I wanted to spend the next couple of months sharing with you more craft ideas and more “stuff” on this blog.

So there you have it—it’s officially the season of “giving” here on my blog. And to kick it off, I have 6 fat quarter packs of Baby Safari that I am giving away! Four packs (there are 6 fabrics in a pack) will be given away to comments on this blog post and two packs will be given away on the Facebook thread that links this post. Tell me what you are doing this holiday season. Maybe it’s a tradition or something new. Maybe it’s a scrumptious holiday recipe or the time you plan on cuddling with grandbabies. Whatever it is, share it! Winners will be announced on Sunday evening on both the blog and facebook page.

More fat quarter packs to come, announcements of new sewing patterns, more holiday craft tutorials, and lots of eye candy!

Hoping you also find a lot of joy this holiday season! -Carina

I’m a sucker for fabric all lined up, ironed, and folded pretty (who isn’t?). So I took this picture of some freshly cut fabric my lovely new intern cut up for me to send to my mother. My mom, who is an amazing seamstress and quilter, is (thankfully) testing my next quilt design for our January newsletter. Doesn’t it look pretty all ready to be sent off and happily quilted? Lucky fabric.

And now I’m going to drop a hint. Next week begins a really wonderful, really giving kind of thing on this blog. You are going to want to watch for that post…