Hello there! We’re pleased to be back in the studio again after our quick jaunt to Quilt Market. I’m sure you’ll be seeing lots of blog posts from the show and may even grow tired of hearing about it over the next week. But many of you are eager to see some photos, so I thought I would do a little show and tell before we dig into all the follow-up work that awaits us.

To those shops and buyers who attended the show, thank you for dropping by! We are so inspired by all your excitement about the our new fabric collection, about the response you’re getting from our sewing patterns, and by the feedback you’ve given us. We’re feeling energized by you and hope that we’ve inspired you in return.

Let me start by showing you a photo from after the show, when we were all packing up the booths and getting ready to leave. This is one of the vintage doll houses that inspired Moda’s booth.

I’ve really enjoyed working with Moda and can’t say enough good things about the company and the people. They are an extremely talented and professional group. And before I show you their booth, I want to highlight a few details from it that feature the doll house theme:

Cute, yes? See all that attention to detail? You know how much I love all that. Not only was the booth designed to look like a giant doll house, but the tables and chairs all looked like grass with a picket fence surrounding it! And the little red wagons filled with ginger snap cookies. Well, it’s all just too cute.

So now I’m sure you’d like to see how it all looks together, right? From where we stood, it’s quite an impressive display. (Click to enlarge the photo for full effect, taken during a quiet moment near the end of the show.)

I enjoyed getting to know many of the salespeople, learned a great deal from them, and enjoyed being part of the entire process. It was also wonderful to meet and get to know many of the other Moda designers.

And now that you’ve seen the terrific people with whom I am so proud to be working, here is our little corner of the show:

There will be lots more to show and tell about, but I’ll leave you with that for the time being and will be back soon with additional photos and information. I hope you’ll be inspired, too!

Each season we put together a trunk show of new and recent styles made up in current fabrics and tour the show to select shops that carry Oliver + S patterns.

This season’s trunk show features items from our Spring 2010 and Fall 2009 collections sewn from prints in Denyse Schmidt’s new Hope Valley collection, with the addition of a School Days raincoat made from a recent Amy Butler laminate.

We’ve finalized the first several stops on this season’s tour. Here’s where you can catch the show in coming months.

• April 6-19: Quilt Essential Fabrics, Abbotsford, BC
• April 22-May 3: Plum Project Studio, North Vancouver, BC
• May 11-25: Cloth and Bobbin, Narberth, PA
• May 28-June 13: Textile Fabric Store, Nashville, TN
• June 17-27: Spool, Philadelphia, PA

If you are a retailer and would like to host the show in July or August, please contact the studio to arrange details.

The newest Oliver + S trunk show has been booked for the remainder of the summer. If you’re in the area, stop by one of our retailers to participate in the activities they will be hosting in conjunction with the show.

You can see the trunk show at the following locations:

• Waechter’s Silk Shop Asheville NC, June 2-June 15
• Seams Like Home Quilt Shoppe, Anchorage AK, June 19-July 3
• Colonial Quilts, Savannah GA, July 10-July 24
• Bay Window Quilt Shop, Perham MN, July 30-August 13
• The Stitchin’ Post, Sisters OR, August 18-September 7

The new Oliver + S spring trunk shows have started making their way across North America. Here are a few photos of the garments traveling in one of our shows.

The first four stops scheduled are:

• Cloth & Bobbin, Narberth PA, March 28-April 7
• Bobbin’s Nest Studio, Santa Clara CA, April 15-April 23
• Olive Juice Quilt Shop (formerly A Stitch in Time), Onalaska WI, April 27-May 7
• Hip Stitch, Albuquerque NM, May 12-25

We’ll be adding to this list over time, so stay tuned for more locations and dates.

If you are a retailer and would like to book a trunk show for your shop, please email us for details.

If you’re in New York, be sure to stop by Purl Patchwork on Sullivan Street to see their Oliver + S window display.

Purl is well-known for its outstanding selection of fabrics. The staff stocks beautiful Japanese prints, a wide selection of Liberty tana lawn, and a number of other exquisite offerings inside this jewel box of a shop.

For these samples Purl selected a sweet floral Liberty print for the Birthday Party Dress and paired it with a coordinating Kona cotton solid for the tab. Because Liberty prints are very light-weight and ever-so-slightly sheer, we used a white cotton lawn for the facings to be sure they didn’t show through. (The Liberty print sold out within two days of setting up the window display, so I’m sorry I can’t give you a link to it.)

The Sailboat Top and Pants are made from a fresh architecture-inspired Anna Griffin print and a Kona cotton.

We raided the fantastic button selection at Purl’s yarn shop just down the street for the finishing touch. Those buttons on the pants are wool felt!

And here are some views of the window from inside the store. How about those giant paper dolls?

Located in historic downtown McMinnville, Oregon, Boersma’s Sewing Center offers a tremendous range of products and services, from sewing and knitting supplies to long-arm quilting machines for rent and sewing classes of all sorts.

Because the store is located in a former department store, Boersma’s also has enormous glass windows at the outside of the shop. We’re thrilled to be featured as their fall window display; the large-scale paper dolls from our banner at Quilt Market look terrific displayed among the clothing samples made from our patterns, with giant scissors in the act of cutting out the dolls and their outfits.

You can see more photos from the shop windows on the Boersma’s Flickr set.

I’m so excited to have been asked by our top distributor, Brewer, to give a talk at the School House Series at Quilt Market this year. My presentation, “Oliver + S: more than just paper dolls,” will be held at 11:00 this Friday in room 372B. We’ve got slides, samples, some materials to hand out, a drawing for some gifts, and a few surprises as well.

If you’re planning to attend the show, I hope you’ll join us for the presentation.

The fall trunk show has left the building. First stop: Quilt Essential Fabrics in Abbotsford, British Columbia.

We showed you the fabrics we selected for the show. Would you like to see how the samples turned out?

I think the fabrics in the 2 + 2 blouse and skirt are so fun together, with all those polka dots in different scales. We used a light-weight quilting cotton for the blouse, since the heavier home dec quality would have been too stiff. But the pleats look terrific in the heavier fabric. I want to wear this one myself!

The playdate dress has the same print as the 2 + 2 skirt, but in a different colorway. And I like how the weight of the fabric helps to maintain a crisp inverted pleat at the front. The patterned piping gives the dress a fun little shot of color and texture, too.

The Sandbox pants look great in corduroy, and the use of a printed fabric at the waistband adds a little interest without overwhelming it.

Flannel Bedtime Story pajamas are cozy for fall, and we used the home dec fabric for the neckband, waistband, and leg trim. Again, I like how just a bit of the busy print doesn’t overwhelm the outfit but gives it a little pop.

And the Sunday Brunch turned out beautifully. I really need to take a photo of the inside of the jacket because our sample maker did such an amazing job with the binding at the seams. It’s as beautiful inside as it is outside, which is really saying something for an un-lined jacket. That little kick pleat at the back skirt looks really nice and crisp in the heavier fabric, too.

I neglected to ask our sample makers whether I can identify them here. Is it ok, everyone? I’m thrilled at what beautiful work they did, and I’m sure they’re pround of it as well.

We’re eagerly awaiting the arrival of the fall patterns in just a couple of weeks, and in the meantime we’ve been pulling together our fall trunk show, which will be making its way around the country to show off the patterns.

This season we fell in love with Denyse Schmidt’s County Fair collection by Free Spirit. The patterns and colors are fresh and exciting, with a bit of vintage flavor and a contemporary autumnal color palette.

County Fair has a lovely weight that is very appropriate to fall dressing. It’s slightly heavier than a quilting cotton, with a wonderful drape. Although the line is billed as a “home dec” weight, it’s not heavy or stiff like you might imagine. Instead, it’s perfect for little jackets, skirts, and pants. I’m having trouble keeping my hands off the fabrics and wish I could sew all the samples myself, it’s so wonderful.

If you’re a wholesale customer who is interested in hosting the trunk show, please drop us a line. The collection will be ready to go by the end of August, and we’d love to send it your direction!

We were rather excited to learn that our new friends at J. Leutenegger, our exclusive distributor in Australia and New Zealand, decided to reproduce our booth at their quilt market, held last weekend near Sydney. And they did a bang-up job, too, especially considering the short time frame in which they assembled it all. Look, they found the same cabinets, table, and chairs. And even the same flowers!