Best of Treadle

Hi All,
This installment of the Best of Treadle is in miniature today.
The ever lovely and talented Rebecca has been spending her free time making a wardrobe for Gene.
The year is 1940, the place is Hollywood, California.
Whether out for a shopping excursion on Rodeo Drive, or relaxing on her hobby farm, Gene is always ready for the camera.

Please keep sending us your photos!
We love to share your wonderful pieces with our faithful readers.
Yours in Stitches,
The Treadlettes.

Little Birds

Hi All!
It's Book Review Corner time again.
Little Birds from the Design Collective at C + T Publishing is a new collection of patterns for charming, fanciful, droll
projects with birds as their theme.

This one came in and was gone in the blink of an eye, but we just got in some new copies and I think I need one.
The little bluebird is so appealing to me, as well as the bird applique quilt.

If you have any books or pattern companies that you would like to see highlighted here on the Treadle Blog, please let us know, and keep sending in your photos of the great work you are all doing out there!

Yours in stitches,
The Treadlettes.

emmyback2.JPG

emmyback2.JPG
Originally uploaded by chrisrknits

Here's another wonderful upload from a customer:

Modeling my sister's (a bit too big for me) wedding dress of my own design for her preview. She wears a strapless bra under this dress of Duchess silk satin, taffeta silk, silk organza, bemberg rayon lining all from Treadle Yard Goods. Her fiance and soon to be brother-in-law provided the guitar picks. I painted these a pearlized white and drilled holes in them so that they could be used for embellishment. The swarovski crystals and silver lined seed beads were in my stash.

New Fabrics

Faithful readers will remember that Minneapolis hosted International Quilt Market about a month ago, and Mary found some wonderful new goodies for us there.
We received two new product lines this week.
Mod Kids by Patty Young from Michael Miller has just released a line of knit fabrics to coordinate with their already popular and whimsical printed cottons.
These knits are a nice sturdy weight, perfect for active children.

The UPS truck also brought us these wonderful prints from Birch Fabrics.
This fabric is 100% organic cotton and printed with low-impact dyes.
This line is called Circa 50, and sports prints of Eames-esque chairs, rockets, campers and rambler houses.

Happy Sewing,
The Treadlettes

Book Review Corner

Hi all,
It's time again for Book Review Corner!
Today my subject is Sew Liberated by Meg McElwee.
In this time of books by bloggers there can be a gap between the excitement of the projects and the quality of the instructions.

This, however, is not the case with Ms. McElwee's new book.

First of all, the projects in this book are delightful.
The book is divided into 3 chapters -

Domestic Art :Projects for Making a House a Home Pampered Artist: Projects for Spoiling Yourself and Small Stitches: Projects for Babies and Children.
Ms. McElwee is a genius with applique of all kinds.
There are projects here for hand-applique, machine applique and reverse applique.
Each project has style and whimsy, it's difficult to decide which project is the first one to make and enjoy.

Now here is the best part of this book.
The directions are wonderful.
Beyond being a sewist, Ms. McElwee is an educator.
She spent years as a Montessori teacher before she turned to writing patterns and eventually this book.
Ms. McElwee's skills as a teacher shine through here in her directions. Every technique is clearly described and there are step-by-step photos to guide you through the process.
I, for one, am quite excited to try her technique for reverse applique on knit fabric.

Lastly, as we love the quilts from silk around here, I wanted to highlight one more project.The Silken Circles Lap Quilt would be a perfect project to try Ms. McElwee's directions for applique circles, along with some basic quilting and embroidery skills.
Come by and check out our selection of silk douppioni and add this to your list of gifts to make for others, or yourself.

As always, please keep adding your photos to our flickr group and if you would like to see a book reviewed here on our blog please leave a comment.

Yours in Stitches,
The Treadlettes.

Inspiring Projects

This lovely jacket was posted to our flickr group by lettergirl (aka Gina)
The full quote is this -

The question is not how to survive, but how to thrive with passion, compassion, humor & style. Maya Angelou

The Treadlettes have been busy as well,
The lovely Jennifer made this cute dress from McCall's pattern 5851.

And our oh-so-talented Rebecca covered this antique umbrella frame with a vinyl-coated cotton using a pattern from a past issue of Threads magazine (available here).
So cute!

Keep those projects coming!

Quilt Market Weekend

Hi All,
We're just breathing a deep sigh after a big weekend at Treadle Yard Goods.
This past weekend Minneapolis hosted the International Spring Quilt Market, and as a result we had a bevy of activity in the shop.
Friday we had a visit from Linda Lee from Sewing Workshop, and Saturday we had a book signing by Anna Maria Horner.(Shown here with some of her lovely family, little Roman was getting sleepy, but still the life of the party!)
We also had visitors from all over the globe.
There were women from Moscow and Australia, Colorado and Texas.
We also had visits from a few fabric designers.
This is Mary, our fearless leader, with Katie Hennigar, the designer of the Chirp line from Robert Kaufman.
We couldn't have hosted this particular event without the wonderful culinary talents of Meg and Mike.
Their tapenade was delicious!
Thanks to all of the customers who came and shared in the fun this weekend, and big thanks to our visitors.