Welcome!

Hi everyone!

Happy Thursday!! With the weekend just around the corner, we hope you all have had a terrific and productive week thus far! Today we bring to you our weekly Thankful Thursday post and this week we are taking the time to thank the Glimpse Reviews blog.

The Glimpse Reviews blog is run by two lovely ladies, Andrea and Julie, from the Canadian Prairies. Their blog focuses on local, Canadian-based stores and businesses – something we definitely support and appreciate being Canadian-born! Both being mommies, their blog posts focus on kid-friendly, DIY, and natural products (and everything in-between!) that are all Canadian-based. As well, they host a multitude of different giveaways to their readers (and who doesn’t love giveaways, right?). We definitely think you will love all their informative postings and recommend you take a little glimpse at their blog (see what we did there? ;))!

The Glimpse ladies chose their favorite fabric designs from us, and created some very special projects that they shared on their blog! Julie chose our Stitched Garden Collection and she sewed a darling, ruffled skirt for her little daughter. The Stitched Garden designs are girly and innocent, and made the perfect little twirl skirt.

Oh how adorable!!

Andrea decided to go in the opposite direction of the gender spectrum, and chose our beloved Star Trek Collection to make something for her little boy. She sewed a backseat car organizer for him, so now he can easily store away all his toys from his three sisters. Such a functional and useful project, and it looks fantastic with our Star Trek fabric! Be sure to read the Glimpse review blog post on Camelot Fabrics here.

Thank you so much to the Glimpse girls for the wonderful blog post and projects with our fabric! We are so thrilled that you love our designs. We hope you have enjoyed this week’s Thankful Thursday post!

PS: Have you seen yesterday’s Winsday? You could win our Birds of a Feather FQ Bundle by telling us what you would create with the fabric. Comment and enter on the blog post here. Good luck! We will be announcing the winner on next week’s Winsday post.

Happy Sewing!

Hello everyone!!

Happy Tuesday! We’ve officially been getting a trinkle of snow here, which only means one thing. The holiday season is officially here! Well, Christmas is 42 days away (but who’s counting, right? ;)) but there is still lots to do and prepare for before the big day. But likewise, it’s those days leading up that makes the holiday magical and special. Putting up the glistening decorations, singing carols with your friends and family, building snowmen and drinking hot cocoa, baking lots of scrumptious holiday treats, reading Christmas stories by the fire, and of course going out in the hustle & bustle to shop for all your loved ones. Seeing a person’s face light up when they open up their present from you, there truly is no better feeling.

And speaking of gifts to give, we’ve got some fantastic DIY projects you can use for this upcoming holiday season that are beautiful and thoughtful. There truly is something very special about receiving something that someone took the time to make especially for you. Today we share with you another great DIY project that would make the perfect gift or stocking stuffer: our Coin Purse/Card Wallet, using our Allison Cole What A Gem and Portland collections.

In this week’s tutorial we featured a couple of patterns by our licensed designer, Allison Cole. For our Portland card wallet we used 8140504 #1, Bikes & Vespas in Grey. For the What a Gem coin purse we used 8140603 #1, Navy Gems.

Click to see the full tutorial after the jump!

Hi everyone!

Happy Monday! We hope you are all having a great start to the week. As well, Happy Remembrance Day! We want to thank all the brave men and women who serve and have served our country. Lest We Forget.

Another amazing group of people we want to commemorate are all those partaking in Movember! In summary, thousands of people (both men and women – hey mo sistas!)  around the world collaborate together in bringing awareness to men’s health in an entertaining and engaging way. On November 1st, the razors come out and men begin clean shaven as they endure the month of November growing out their ‘staches. The movement to grow out their mustaches began as a way to prompt conversation, which in turn would lead to the education on men’s health. It now touches thousands of people worldwide who join in spreading the awareness and raising funds. To find out more on Movember and how , click here! Be sure to support all those involved with Movember this year.

Our Portland by Allison Cole collection that came out for Fall 2013 includes some pretty dashing ‘staches. Portland is an eclectic and hip collection of donuts, bicycles, scooters, and polaroid cameras – everything to satisfy the needs of all hipsters (and hipster-ettes!). We mustache you a question though…what is your favorite print from Portland? Shave your answer, and tell us below in the comments!

Our moodboard encapsulates the essence of a true hipster perfectly – over-sized glasses and all! Our Portland collection would make the sweetest dress or bow-tie for any future hipster in your life. Be sure to find out more on Allison Cole’s whereabouts by following her on twitter, facebook, and instagram. We really hope you enjoy this week’s moodboard post, but alas until next time…we mustache! ;)

Happy Sewing!

Hi everyone!

With the launch of our Fall 2013 fabric collections, we also proudly introduced our newest designer, Jane Farnham. Jane is such a wonderful talent, and we are so incredibly thrilled to have Jane on board with us! She designed two collections for us for Fall 2013, Beyond the Backyard and Fruit Stand, that we are sure you will just adore.

We thought a Q&A with Jane Farnham would be a great way to better introduce her to you all. We hope you find our little questionnaire interesting, fun, and inspirational. On to the questions!

1. How did you get into/start designing? When did you know you wanted to design?

I’ve always wanted to design even before I knew it was a possible job!  But I took a long and hard route into the designing world that I wouldn’t recommend.  I’ve done so many other jobs after art college including a wedding dress maker, visual merchandiser, interior designer and mock up artist. Then one day I thought, I need to seriously give this a go, trust my own instincts and see where it takes me and I’m so lucky and grateful to find myself here today.  Happy days :-)

2. What was the first thing you remember designing?

I think the first thing I ever remember designing was a birthday card for my Mum when I was about 6 or 7, I used a piece of graph paper and coloured in all the squares in a different colour, very carefully, making sure not going over the lines!

3. What were your inspirations when designing Fruit Stand and Beyond the Backyard?

I take so much of my inspiration from mid century design, and that was certainly the case when I started designing my Fruit Stand collection. I nearly always start by developing drawings and doodles that I’ve done along side computer illustration and the colour palette normally comes later.  However the exception may have been my Beyond the Backyard collection where I had a clear vision of the palette I was going to use, I knew I wanted a very bright and bold colour scheme coming through and then combined it with some of my flower illustrations and the odd insect.

4. Who is/are your biggest inspiration(s)?

My inspiration is always changing but at the moment I’m loving the work of Helen Dardik. I love the fact that you know instantly the artist behind the piece of work, just from her style.  Also the mid century work of designers like Lucienne Day are a big influence for me as well as Scandinavian art right now.

5. Favourite place in the world?

My favourite place in the world is Cornwall in the UK.  I love being by the sea and the rugged landscape is spectacular at any time of year, beautiful on a summers day and so dramatic watching the big waves in a storm in the winter.  I also love watching the stars there at night as there’s so little light pollution, in fact I saw the milky way there for the first time recently, amazing!  I’ve visited Cornwall so many times and its always magical.

6. What are some things you enjoy doing in your free time?

Recently I’ve been doing a lot of swimming to keep fit and I love walking in the countryside and if there’s a dog, even better!  I also sew things when I have any spare time and have been known to make a quilt or 2 and like sewing gifts for friends and family.  Also I love watching a good drama series on telly, especially if I can watch a couple of episodes in one sitting as I’m too impatient to wait for the next instalment!

7. Describe your perfect Autumn day.

A long dog walk preferable with a sea view, a nice pub, roaring fire, good food and good company :-)

8. Current favourite song to listen to?

London Grammar – Strong, it’s a beautiful song that just washes over you.

9. What is your favourite quote to live by? 

Always be a first rate version of yourself, instead of a second rate version of somebody else – Judy Garland.

10. What words of advice would you give to someone who wants to start out in design?

Find your own individual style and keep at it!

11. One word (or two!) to describe how you feel about having a fabric license

Fantastic!!!

12. What would your dream license be?

Having a fabric license is a dream come true!  But if I were feeling greedy, I’d say ceramics and stationery, so fingers crossed!

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Thank you so much, Jane, for taking the time to answer some questions for us! We are so glad to have you.

We hope you have gotten to know Jane a bit better through this post. Be sure to keep a lookout for her collections and for all the future excitements to come!

Be sure to follow Jane on her blog, Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, and instagram pages.

Happy Sewing!

Hi everyone!

It’s Friday!! We hope that you have all had a fabulous week. Some things we are looking forward to this weekend are mastering the perfect mini apple tartlets, creating a playlist of upbeat old-and-new holiday songs, DIYing something (or everything!) with glitter, and taking a lovely afternoon walk in the brisk but beautiful fall weather. What are your plans for the weekend?

For today’s Fan Friday, we are sharing with you a project by Sondra Blank. She used our Superman Man of Steel flannel to create a super-hero worthy crib sheet for her little one. The mattress cover is brilliant, and our Superman flannel design fits perfectly with her boy’s blue and green color-schemed bedroom. This is one crib sheet that would make any superhero-in-training happy!

In correlation with all things boys, have you checked out Mdm Samm’s Boy Blog Hop yet? We are the official sponsor, and you could win one of our three boy-inspired fabric bundles! Be sure to check out the Sew We Quilt Blog here for all updates and information. Be sure to check out all the amazing boy-inspired projects!

PS: If you have created a project using any of our fabrics and would love to be featured in a future Fan Friday post, please email us at info@camelotfabrics.com or @mention us on twitter. We LOVE seeing all of your incredible projects using our fabric designs!

Thank you so much, Sondra, for sharing your project with us! Wishing everyone a lovely weekend.

Happy Sewing!