SNEEK A PEEK

This is our new Spring line "Enchanted Pond". It will be in the shops February- March 2013.
To give you an idea of the timeline of completion of a group, Lynn and I started work on this in March. It took us two months to develop.We sent this line to Moda last May for the upcoming Spring season. Although you won't be able to purchase this for another 5 months, it left our hands ages ago.      http://www.unitednotions.com/fcc_enchanted_pond.pdf  
On the link above, you will also see beautiful quilts done by This & That Pattern Company, Antler Quilt Design and Coach HouseDesigns. We can't thank these designers enough for choosing to do their work in our fabrics.
We loved this quilt done by Hingeley Road Quilts. It is so simply yet so beautiful. I wish you could see it in person. It was such a nice use of the panel. It was created from one of the patterns in the book, "Naturally Simple."

                                  Until then,  Eileen & Lynn

READY FOR FALL

Everything was ready for Houston Quilt Market. All the fabric got to the pattern designers. Their quilts are traveling to the show as I write this. Now I can get the house ready for fall. The pots were full of red geriniums last week. Time to bring out all of the silk flowers. (Not even mums last long in Minnesota this time of year). I made a new wreath and found this fun new grapevine lighted pumpkin. It is so cute at night. I made a  trip to the pumpkin patch with my two great grand babies, Isabella, and Dayvin. We picked out a few new pumpkins and finished the fall decor.
      Watch next week for a sneak peek of our new Spring line "Enchanted Pond." We will be featuring quilts from some very talented pattern designers using the line.

Until then, Eileen & Lynn

WINNERS ANNOUNCED

To all who entered our contest,  
   We want to thank each and everyone of you for taking the time to read our blog and for entering the contest. We wish all of you could have won. Your comments and messages to us truly touched our hearts. One of our favorites was from Linzee in Iowa who told us about her uncle John who was in a nursing home suffering from Alzheimer's, the most response they had seen from him in quite awhile was when she presented him with a Holly Taylor quilt. It gives us pleasure to know how much you like the things we design, and the encouragement to keep trying to give you something new and different.
    Moda has many designers and we all try to stay in our realm so there are not duplicates. Lynn and I always say we are in the "Northwoods Box" and we have to stay within that box. It also makes it difficult sometimes to stay fresh and new. But we try.
    Stay tuned, we have several fun contests and give aways planned for the future when our new lines are being released.


Winners Of the fat quarter bundles and This & That Christmas Spirit Book:   
  Congratulations  Debbie I and Sher

We also sent sample packs of our new spring line being introduced at Houston Quilt Market called "Enchanted Pond" due in shops Feb. 2013 to the following:
Martha, Bonnie N., Candace, Johanna, Liz, and Beach Quilter, Thank you all   Eileen & Lynn

Trails End Batiks

We will have a new line of batiks that will be in the stores this month. This quilt was made by Doug Leko  of Antler Quilt Design. It is called Woodland Stream AQDO222. I wish you could see it in person, it is so beautiful. Sorry for my pictures, I am probably the most amateur photographer I know.

CHRISTMAS SPIRIT CONTEST

This is our Christmas line that is currently in your favorite quilt shop or fabric store. You have a chance to win a fat quarter bundle of the collection valued at over $110.00. The picture only shows a few of the prints. You  will also receive the wonderful book by This & That Pattern Co. valued at $16.00 The book contains 11 projects, many of which can be made from the bundle.  We will be randomly selecting two lucky winners just by answering this simple question.

"Name 3 past Christmas lines by Holly Taylor Designs "
 
 We will then have someone select from those entries.  It is that simple. Good Luck everyone. We will select the lucky two winners on Monday September 24th and you will be contacted for a shipping address. You will receive the bundle in plenty of time to finish some holiday projects.
Here are just a couple you can make from the book.

                                                Happy Quilting,     Lynn & Eileen

WHERE HAS SUMMER GONE

  We have an elementary school two blocks away. I watched as the kids headed down the street yesterday and couldn't help but wonder how the summer could go so fast and the winters be so long here in Minnesota. It doesn't seem right.
We have been away from our blog this summer. I had a family crisis with a sick Granddaughter and then a little grandson visiting for a month, so to say the least it has been busy. My Granddaughter is now doing better and things are somewhat back to normal. We have still been working like little beavers getting a spring line ready to preview at market called "Enchanted Pond", a flannel line for next winter called " Boundary Waters" and a Christmas line ready for 2013 titled " "Holiday in the Pines".
    I will try to stay busy keeping you updated on what we are doing and all the new lines we have coming out.
To celebrate our new Christmas line "Christmas Spirit" that is out in the stores now, We are starting a contest next Monday Sept. 10th. We will be giving away 2 fat quarter bundles accompanied with the new book from This & That Pattern Co. You will be ready to start your projects.

CONTEST WINNER

Before our design series we ran a contest and we gave away charm packs and layer cakes. This was sent in by the winner of one of the layer cakes. Thank you Sue for sending us the pictures of projects you completed. Sue is a new quilter, we welcome her to a fun group of friendly talented people who produce all the wonderful quilts and other projects with the fabric we designers create. We appreciate all of you.

 

                    WATCH FOR THE NEW CONTEST !!!

We will be working with Sherri Falls from This & That pattern company and doing a give away with Sherri's new book " Christmas Spirit" which is also the name of our new line that comes out in June

                                                           Until then, Eileen & Lynn

DESIGNING PART IV

 Greetings,      This will be our final post for the design series. We appreciate all of you who have been interested in this and who have taken the time to e mail us. We sincerely hope you have enjoyed the series.
      It is time for us to finish our line and we have been busy painting all of the designs. We paint a large repeat of each design, then a smaller chip usually only a two inch square of the other colors we want that print to be in.   

Next we assemble all the pages with the artwork and label them carefully. We also have to come up with names for each print and each color which is sometimes a challenge in itself.

It's time to wrap up this package and get it to UPS for overnight delivery.  We try to present it in a story and make it as attractive as possible. It now goes to the hands of Cheryl Freydberg, she is Vice President of Design for Moda Fabrics. There isn't a yard of Moda fabrics you see that does not meet with her approval. She will critique the entire package we have sent. Sometimes it is all perfect and she can notify the mills and send it off for production, other times she will find an error we have made in a panel layout or a color she thinks might work better from a past line. She travels to the mills twice a year to assure that Moda's quality standards are continuing to be upheld.  Below we have attached a video link which shows you what happens at the mills once it leaves Cheryl's hands. We hope you enjoy watching it.

                                                                    Until next time,  Eileen & Lynn

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xovcyiwYRyY

DESIGNING PART III

Thank you for all of your comments on this series. We are so glad you are enjoying hearing about the process we use to design. There are many different ways to design. For instance you have designers who research the history of quilting and they sometimes find antique fabrics and actually send a scrap to the printing plants for that fabric to be reproduced. There have been antique quilts that are sent to the plants to have entire collections reproduced.  Some of the contemporary new designs are very graphic and can be created on computers. Our designs are drawn as you saw in Part II.

After we have decided on the specific designs, the scale sizes and the color for each design, the painting phase begins. As we told you in Part II we do all our prints first in black and white as you see in the first image. Each one is transfered onto a heavier crescent board using believe it or not good old fashion carbon paper (image 2). Once the design is copied onto the board, the background is painted. The elements in our designs are left white so that the background color will not bleed through and distort the color of the elements. Then those elements are painted last, as you can see in the last image, that process is repeated for each color variation of that design. This print is from a previous line. Next and the last part of this series will take you on the final process and where it goes upon completion of our part.  Tune in 

                                      Until then  Eileen & Lynn                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

DESIGNING PART II

Good Morning,
    We have been busy working on the next phase of the new collection. This will be a Spring line for 2013, that is how far we must work ahead so that there is time for the printing process.  Now that we have our ideas formulated and the color pallet finalized it's time to put the ideas on paper. 
     Our cameras are our constant companion. We are always on the look out for anything that catches our eye. Pictures we find or take ourselves are great references to help make our designs come to life.

We first start our designs in black and white. We are constantly adjusting them, changing their scale size and configurations over and over until we feel it is exactly right. With our hi-tech copy machine we can change a print in percentage from original 100% all the way down to 25% to see what looks best. The other picture below, we have tried lots of different versions of the same print. We will select the one that we like the best.

Because of the nature of this line we actually went out to the pond to use some of the elements we found to get the look and feel we wanted.

These may be used within a larger print or just as a separate print itself. We will sketch them and see what works with what we already have started. Watch for part III

Until next time, Eileen & Lynn

DESIGNING NEW COLLECTIONS PART I

 We are always on the lookout for new subject matter, it could be on a road trip spotting something in nature or just sitting in my dining room and discovering we like the look of a center piece on my table. It reminded us of the sun shining on the different grasses and reeds on the pond behind my house. We loved the look and feel of it. It was like we were both on the same page in that minute and the creativity started to flow from there. We try to include something live from nature in every line we do,  and that is where all of your comments came into play. We listened to what some of the things were that you liked best in our previous lines. From those comments we came up with what we wanted the line to look like and what we wanted to use for subject matter. ( But we can't divulge to much. Moda likes to keep secrets until the lines are shown by the reps. at Market.)

  Next we start working on a color pallet. We have files of every line we have ever done, so we check back threw a lot of those to see what colors we have used in the past, looking for the most successful ones you have chosen to use in your quilts. For this line we are selecting some colors that are a little different. It could be just a little more blue tone to a purple or a slightly more yellow tone to green.We have also found color pallets we love in the fashion magazines and just changed them to fit our North woods designs. Over the years we have collected hundreds paint chips from designer paint studios. They are really helpful when we are putting the pallet together but it actually comes down to mixing our paints to exactly what we want. 

These are the colors we will start with. There is also a beautiful soft brown .

Time to start mixing and testing it on paper in a few designs.

Watch for part II in the coming weeks. Let us know your comments on whether or not you enjoy hearing about designing.

Until next time,  Eileen & Lynn