Stitch Magazine is out!

Quilting Arts Stitch Magazine is out and my hints and tips for sewing with Japanese pattern books is in it! I hope sewing enthusiasts find it helpful and lose some fear over using foreign patterns. The world is full of great designers and with the internet they are available for all of us to enjoy.
It was really great working with the people at Stitch. Elaine Lipson wrote the feature I {heart} Japan and I got to know her by e-mails back and forth and a few phone calls. Elaine has a great blog, Red Thread Studio. Which brings me to my next subject as I found out about it by following her blog now.

Have you seen Spoonflower.com? I hadn't, but I have been reading Elaine's blog and checking out the great links she keeps posting. I am quite the fiber junkie, and I think Spoonflower may be addictive! I sat and made design after design the other night. Check out one of my faves based on an old brain diagram here. You can play with different tile/repeat options, scale your design to different sizes, change around the colors and more. It really is fun. I have ordered a test swatch (only $5 plus another $1 for shipping) to see how the colors turn out and find out the feel of the printed fabric. I am going to go back and just explore the other great work on there and find some faves to follow. I even took a sample of my shibori and uploaded it to play around with here.