Dainty Blossoms Fabric at Riley Blake Studios
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 [...]
Chic Mademoiselle Outfit Sewing Pattern
Sorry I’ve been away so long. Last week got away from me and I had so much to post (and will now have to play catch up all week). Among other things, our little family came down with some nasty viruses, which put me in bed all day Saturday and put Josh on sick-kiddie-duty all [...]
Rini Doll and Mermaid Sewing Pattern
Introducing our second new pattern due out this January—The Rini Doll and Mermaid. Yep, that’s right. At the request my own little mermaid-fanatics, I incorporated a mermaid tail option into this pattern. 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 [...]
Winners of Baby Safari and Giveaway for Dress Up Fabric
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 [...]
Introduction to the New Sewing Pattern—Garden Party Outfit
I’ve been keeping secrets for months and now it’s time to spill the beans! Here’s the first of my next four sewing patterns! Get ready to check these out at your local quilt shop January 2012. Ready to pull out your sewing machines? Because you will want to when you see all the pretties I’ll [...]
Giving
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 [...]
Delicious Fabric
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 [...]
A New Flickr Group
I’m finally getting around to some things that have been sitting on my backburner for some time now. One of those things is a new flickr group for all you fabric and sewing pattern fashionistas! Yes, yes, I know it’s taken me a year to get around to creating such a group, but I’m doing [...]
Studio Update
I’ve been slowly adding things to my studio, moving things around, and generally dealing with the space. I contemplated moving Josh and me into the studio space and moving the studio into the master bedroom (Josh nixed this idea. I can’t imagine why.). We’ve considered finishing the basement and making the family room my work [...]
Quilting, Er, Napping Cat
Rosy and I agree about many things. Sleeping is good. Eating is good. Snuggling is good. Back scratches are really, really good. Where we disagree is our take on quilting (and oh! the contention!). Rosy believes half-finished blocks are perfect for napping on. I, personally, like to see the quilt get finished before it is [...]
Quick In and Out
Stopping in rather quickly so you get my take on the display I had at Mormon Handicraft Quilting Shop on Saturday night. -I literally ran around my house 20 minutes before grabbing everything in sight (including the wreath on the door) for the display. – It took three trips from car to store to haul [...]
Mormon Handicraft
The last couple of days I’ve been running around getting ready for Spraguefest and the launch of my new line of sewing patterns. My friends Susan and Ashley spent a couple of nights helping me package up these fat quarters and coupons for the Spraguefest grab bags. Stacks of eye candy! Speaking of eye candy, [...]
Pinfeathers Rosetta Wreath- Free Download
My sister-in-law walked in as I was making this wreath and said, “Weren’t you just complaining about the number of wreaths you have?” Ummm, yep. I might have too many wreaths. But this one is just SOOO cute! (justification, justification). So this is definately a time-consuming project but with only a couple of steps. I [...]
Baby Bib and More Tutorial from Pink Chalk Fabrics
I spotted this darling tutorial over at the fabulous Pink Chalk Studios using my Baby Safari line. It includes a bib, baby booties, baggie, and taggie. For the full set of instructions and pattern check it out here: http://pinkchalkstudio.com/blog/2011/09/09/one-yard-wonders-sew-along-%E2%80%93-week-36-finished-projects/ As for me, I’m finishing up Art of Digital Design 2′s critiques today. I might be [...]
Bike Basket Tutorial
Check out my bike basket tutorial on Celebrations blog! I made these for our bikes for the Gardner family reunion/triathlon. A triathlon, you say? Yes, I feel like I should explain that it is not a REAL triathlon. It kind of goes something like this: Run, Eat, Bike, Eat, Swim (it seems like we should [...]
The Jolly Jabber
The fatquartershop is now sporting the Baby Safari, Dress Up, and Pinfeather’s lines. Check out their feature on the Baby Safari line on their blog, the Jolly Jabber.
Favorites
Here are some of my favorites taken from the photoshoot with Susan that didn’t make it into the newsletter. I hope you enjoy too! Getting ready—I was pleased when Susan walked into my house and said it wasn’t as bad as she expected it to be! (We fixed that only moments later). Years of girls’ [...]
Dainty Blossoms for Riley Blake Designs
If you missed it, the fourth issue of the newsletter announced my move to Riley Blake Designs for all my new fabric lines starting with the release of Dainty Blossoms™ in January 2012. I am so excited for you to see the work I have been doing with them! All of it is so beautiful [...]
Carina Gardner Quarterly Newsletter (Issue No. 4)
FINALLY! We’ve finished our fourth issue of our newsletter! Better late than never, right? I think this is our best issue so far. First of all, there are a LOT of photos. And tutorials. And photos. And an announcement (which links to ANOTHER digital magazine). And did I mention photos? It’s seriously delicious! Susan has [...]
Hair Accessories
These darling flowers were made out my Baby Safari, Dress Up, and Pinfeathers lines by Poppies Pretties. I was completely smitten with them (as I am sure you are too)! You can check out her etsy shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop/poppiespretties. I’m sure she’ll have accessories using the fabrics shown here for sale in the near future. [...]
Pinfeathers Birdie Lace Up Tutorial
Get ready for a whole lot of fabric fabulous-ness! It’s been a lot of midnight sew-a-thons around here to show off this fabulous fabric. Susan and I have been hard at work! Here’s the first tutorial from the studio! This is a really cute skill-building toy for preschoolers as little fingers will work on gaining [...]
Deadlines
I’ve managed to put myself under a number of deadlines in the next couple of weeks, so what do I decide to do? Oh ya, write a blog post. It’s an attempt at procrastination that will only end in a night filled with editing class videos. Part of my problem is that when I plop [...]
Playhouse to Clubhouse
We got a Costco playset in April, which has kept my kids outside most of the summer. I had this idea that I was going to make it more of a “clubhouse” by making curtains for it. Fast forward to yesterday (aka 4 months later). I picked up Amanda’s red polka dot laminate at Riley [...]