Yesterday I went to Christensen Wholesale’s new beautiful warehouse. First, it’s closer to me (which is always a plus), but the space is so lovely that I would have loved to wander among the racks for hours. I picked up all my cottons a few flannels and laminates for Dainty Blossoms™ to boot. My kids are hoping for pajamas. I think they are going to get their wish. Now to carve out time to sew.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend! Carina

This line is currently on presale to quilt shops and will be available to everybody in April 2012. I’m pretty excited about this line since it is so different than any other fabric line I’ve designed so far.

Click on the image to see all three colorways of this line! It comes in 100% cottons and laminates. Yummy!

Hope you enjoy and I’m hoping to be back soon with some amazing projects by my creative team and a whole lot of photos from CHA. I’m flying in on Saturday and just staying the weekend. I’m sure I’ll have plenty to share.

Cheers! Carina

If you haven’t had a chance to check out the Cutting Corner, you are really missing out. It’s a blog sponsored by Riley Blake Designs with all sorts of free tutorials and patterns. I just found this darling pillow tutorial using my Dainty Blossoms™ fabric line and had to share.

I myself have yet to make it down to the warehouse to pick up my bolts of this new line. I know that it is currently being shipped to stores. Have you seen it yet?

I know I’ve been a bit MIA this January, but ’tis the season for sickness. My family can’t seem to get healthy. So much has gone to the wayside as Flissa has been fighting a week-long fever that also involves strep. We’ve never seen anything this bad and ended up in the ER one night with her. Turns out she is just a kid that can run high fevers (107 degrees!—ya, we were freaked out.). Hoping that everyone starts feeling better before I head out to CHA this weekend…and here’s to hoping I don’t catch anything either!

I’m sure you’ve noticed that we had a much needed makeover here at the .com. I’m sighing with relief that it is mostly finished although there are still a couple of formatting things that are bugging me. But for the most part, the site is making me happy, it’s easier than ever to find stuff, and it absolutely feels like a fresh new year!

So here’s what we’ve been up to:

- Siri turned 8 (Just writing the number made me feel my age!). The pic to the left is her with all her wild-woman hair. That little face makes my heart smile! I haven’t even pulled all the pics off my camera to show you the party we threw. Soon…

- I’ve been preparing for Designer Workshop like mad! I’ve been happy that we have an even portion of seasoned designers with new designers. It’s going to be awesome!

- We have been shipping the new sewing patterns for a week now. If I thought that we had a lot of patterns before, well, I’ve probably reached my sewing pattern limit at the moment as my basement is currently overflowing. My very good husband got all of those patterns in and organized—no small task.

- I’ve had comments on whether I’ll be spilling the beans of my secret paper project at CHA. The sad answer is no. I will be attending CHA though for a couple of short days. And really, there are only a few months left before I will be opening up about my goings ons. I think you will enjoy! It’s taken me a long time to figure out my path in paper, and I’m excited to be able to open up in a few short months about what I will be doing.

- I have a new mentoring program available at JessicaSprague.com. It’s call Designer’s One-on-One Workshop. I thought it would be the next best step for those who are seeking to work more on their fabric, paper, marketing, and digital scrapbooking designs. It’s also a great intermediary step between Art of Digital Design 2 and whatever else I may decide to teach.

Hope your New Year was full of fun new resolutions and plenty of happiness!

Carina

Thanks for your patience! Carina

XOXO—Carina, Josh, Siri, and Felicity

It’s a bag that makes toting all your necessaries easy for the mom-on-the-go or the carry-it-all professional. Have fun mixing and matching fabrics for the flower accessory.

The Dainty Blossoms™ Sling is fully-lined for a professional finish.

Wheww! And that concludes the introduction of our next four sewing patterns! Want to see them all again? Here’s our sewing pattern page: http://www.carinagardner.com/sewing-patterns/.

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas! You’ll see these patterns in quilt shops soon! I expect to see the shipment any day now. (Yippeee!)

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Okay! To the giveaway! Thank you everyone for your comments. The winner of the pinfeathers fat quarter bundle and sweetwater frame is comment #21:

Ava-J says:

Absolutely yummy fabrics, thanks for the chance! Love your Christmas family photo too.

Congrats Ava! But because I’m in charge here, it’s almost Christmas, and because I have a couple more fat quarter sets laying around I’m also sending a blue Pinfeathers set to:

Heather says:

Oooohhh….lets hope I win, because I just learned how to use my sewing machine!!!

and a pink Pinfeathers set to:

erica K says:

That’s a beautiful family portrait. And the stockings on the piano, it’s all so lovely. Wish me luck!

Hope you all get a chance to sew in this busy, busy season! Please email me your address at carina@carinagardner.com.

I posted photos of my Christmas tree  here because 1. I couldn’t think of anything else to post, 2. I just took pics of my tree yesterday, and 3. It seemed festive.

Every few years I pull out these frames and fill it with photos from the year…sort of as a way to remember the past year. And I always place my tree in a huge pot. It’s filled with bricks to hold the tree up. I love how easy it is to place presents under (and how it makes it easy to sweep the needles out from under it).

Hope you are having a wonderful final week before the big day!

The countdown begins…

Talk about a huge change, right? I’ve been basking in the airiness of my little kitchen. The cabinets were done in a white lacquer (which meant a lot of spraying as well as all being fully cut off from the kitchen). It took about 2 days for a handy crew to come in and do it.

The last cosmetic change is to have the counter tops removed and changed out. I’m thinking of having them done in a slab of absolute black granite. Right now this surface is red-dyed concrete…and no matter how faddish it is, it does not keep up well. Acid from lemons and limes soak into it and the seams create cracks that water can drip through.

Ya. It has to go.

It will take me a couple of months, but I plan to getting around to this sooner (rather than later:).

And then there’s the issue of a curtain. I believe some fun fabric is in order. Pictures to come!

Cheers—Carina