The Bear's Blog

NEW Little Quilts Squared Again! Now Available!

 

Our new Little Quilts series is now available! We also have button packs to make life easy :o) Click here to see the series on our website.

 

Quilts shops, be sure to check out our Bear Bundle bags for kitting!

 

 

J2TT Button Packs are Here!

Just a quick note to let you know, we have the button packs and kits for the Just 2 Tea Towels Love Set and also the Just 2 Tea Towels Snowman Set.  Here are the links to the sets, and all kits and buttons packs will be at the bottom of the product page under "Suggested Products"...

J2TT Snowman Set

(Snowman Long Apron Kit shown above.)

 

J2TT Love Set

 

(Love Short Apron Kit shown above.)

 

 

BOGO!

We just posted a "BOGO" (buy one, get one free!) special on our website!  The current special is for the Everything Snowman and the Snowman Gift Bag patterns. This offer is also available to wholesale customers!

We are going to try to rotate these every couple of weeks, so if you would like to be notified whenever they change, be sure to sign up for our newsletter.

Click here to see the current BOGO offer!

 

 

Just an idea...

Our featured free additional idea for today is a candy corn bag to help you get ready for those little trick-or-treaters in your life!  For those of you that don't know, we have ideas on our website to help you extend the use of your patternlets.  Appliques are SOOOOOO versatile, so don't feel like you have to only use it as the pattern instructs.  Use them on EVERYTHING!  So here's an idea for our TWBP08 Candy Corn Patternlet.  There are even more, so be sure to check them out!

Click here for the Candy Corn Goody Bag Additional Idea.

Click here for more Additional Patternlet Ideas. 

 

 

 

WB Tablerunner in F&P Magazine

I posted this on our website, but I forgot to let you blog and Facebook followers know!  I designed a fall tablerunner and hot pad that is currently in the September/October 2011 issue of Fons and Porter's Love of Quilting Magazine.  Click here to see the projects in this issue.  Mine is called Pumpkin Patch.

 

New stuff!

I designed a new series of little quilts for Fons & Porter's QOM club!  They just ran the ad in their July/August issue, and they're taking reservations for the club now.  I'm not sure how many reservations they're taking, but they did say it is limited, so if you want to get the kits, you better sign up now!  Here are some pics, and just click on the link below to go to F&P's website for all of the info and to sign up...

Mini Treats Quilt-of-the-Month Club- designs by The Wooden Bear for Fons & Porter

Quilt shops- we will be showing all of the designs at Spring Market 2012 when we will start taking orders.  The designs are exclusive to Fons & Porter only for a limited time.  Hang in there!  (See our new patterns below if you're just itching for some WB stuff :o)

 
This is the September quilt... the first to ship out.

 

 

AND ANOTHER THING...
Coming very soon, we will have a new series of patterns called "Just 2 Tea Towels."  Each set will have directions for making a long apron, short apron, and tea towels for display.  Each apron is made using ONLY TWO TEA TOWELS, then add your fabric appliques, buttons, and ric-rac!  I'm having a lot of fun with these.  The first two to release will be the Fall Set and the Christmas Set.

 

 

I'll show you some more pics when we release the patterns.   We will post to our blog, FB, and send out a newsletter when they're ready :o)

Tea Time

Boy, you guys were just waiting for a tea towel sale!  We posted our sale and the tea towels just disappeared!  So, the towel sale is over, and we wanted to thank everyone for such great participation :o)  

We just got a brand new shipment of fresh, new towels today.  We thought it was time to get a new look in towels, and some inspiring new designs to go with them.  I am working on a new line of patterns SPECIFICALLY for tea towels.  Once I get them sent off to the printer, I'll post some pics for you to see and start your planning :o)  And watch for the new tea towels to be posted to our website next week!

 
 

Tweet Others Book

Our Tweet Others with Kindness book is scheduled to arrive this week, so I wanted to let you see the project pics.  We are expecting to receive the books on 1/12/11.  The retail price is $16, and the book is FULL COLOR, with a pattern pullout page.  The fabrics used on all of the projects are from my line of fabrics, through Red Rooster Fabrics, also called Tweet Others with Kindness.

 

Here is the 62" x 62" Bird Watching Quilt...

 

 

 

 

 

Mug Mats are shown below...

 

 

 

 

Little Tweets Pincushions can also be used as decoration...

 

Just a word before I go...

We're getting ready to leave for a little family vacation in Colorado, and I can't wait!  I could really use a little relaxation... or a change of scenery at least :o)  I'm so glad I can finally breath a little.  Market and all of its residual is over, my new book, Fresh off the Farm, and two new "Little Quilts Squared" patterns are all at the printer, so now all I can do is anxiously await their delivery.  We will be on vacation this week and then it's back to work on August 2nd.  My wonderful printer, Basin Printing & Imaging, should have everything delivered to me shortly after our return to work.  When I get back, I'll put everything on the web so everyone can start ordering.  Here are a couple of pics to tide you over...

TWBS12 October Scare...

TWBS13 Take the Cake.  Decorate to suit your needs!

Fresh off the Farm!  This book is FULL-COLOR and will retail for $12!

I'll catch up with you when I get back!

Kelly
 
 

Catch up!

Yes, it's been a while!  Market is over, the kids are out of school, and we're doing lots of running around!  I'm wrapping up the Fresh off the Farm book to get to the printer.  I'm hoping to have it by the end of July, but we shall see...   And the October and birthday Little Quilt patterns will hopefully be here around the same time.

So, to get caught up, here are some pics from market...

The back of the truck was full, so we had to SHOVE things into the back seat.

We got to Minneapolis and unloaded into our booth space.

And in no time at all (lol) the booth was ready!

 
I was excited to see that Red Rooster used my "Fresh off the Farm" fabrics in their booth.  They covered chairs, poles, tables, everything!

And here was the "Fresh off the Farm" display in Red Rooster's booth...

We got back from market, unpacked, filled orders, wrote up the free project patterns for RR, gave a presentation at the Covered Bridge Quilters Quilt Guild, had a photo session for FOF book, wrote the book... oy!  I think that gets us caught up!

In case you couldn't tell, I'm loaded with things to do.  I'm definitely experiencing growing pains.  The business end of the business seems to take more time nowadays than the designing.  My mother-in-law, Karol, comes to help box and ship orders and maintain inventory, which is very time-consuming.  She definitely provides much relief!  But there are all of those little things like checking and ordering inventory, answering emails, filling out forms for market, magazine/catalog information, entering receipts, paying bills and taxes... all of those dreaded things that you HAVE to do, and you're glad that you're blessed to have the opportunity to do, but I would SOOOOO much rather just design, design, design!  So when you're wondering, "Where are all of the new patterns?", you can picture me sitting at my work desk rummaging through papers and mumbling incoherently!  

I'll post some pics soon from the new book and Little Quilts, so stay tuned!

 

 

Sunday, April 25th- my aching back!

After a long week and a half of furiously designing, I am relaxing today.  I received my Fresh off the Farm fabrics on Monday 12th, and had to get a quilt designed and pieced and taken to my quilter on the 23rd.  Well, I ended up making TWO quilts!  One uses the girl and chicks from the master panel in the center of the quilt.

If you are familiar with my patterns, I love to give options and additional ways to use the patterns, so I made a second quilt that uses the same outer borders, but the center is made up of a simple quilt block repeated four times.

And the country chick quilt would even be cute as a smaller quilt, leaving off the outer border...

These are designed as "table covers" measuring 60x60 that should fit standard round or square tables.  

Thanks to Jacque and Frank (their fingers are pictured on the top corners of the quilts :o) for holding the pieced tops and for allowing me to use your shop as a drop-off point!  Check out Jacque's blog... Adel Quilting & Dry Goods.  And a special thanks to Julia, for always squeezing me in to your quilting schedule, even when I call back and say, "Can you do two quilts instead of just one?"  

I had many days of starting at 8am and working until midnight, so I am exhausted.  It's not easy on the back sitting at the sewing machine for that long either. 

The Happy Haunters books are to be delivered tomorrow morning, so I added it to the website to start taking orders.  I also added the four new Little Quilts to the site so we can get the orders, invoice them, and have everything ready to fill the orders as soon as we get them.  I'm expecting them to be shipped out from my printer this week, and I know with June coming soon that people are anxiously awaiting their arrival... hang in there!

From One Project, to Another, to Another!

I've been busy, busy, busy!  I have the Happy Haunters book off to the printer after MANY proofreads between myself and Karol.  She is a retired English teacher, so we had that book CAREFULLY scrutinized :o)

One thing that I wanted to do in the book was make it full color.  That allowed me to put the finished, color picture of each project next to the instructions.  This way, you don't have to flip through the book to find the picture as you're reading the instructions.  I think it came out great, and hopefully so will you!

With that big load off my shoulders, I have the June, July, and August Little Quilts Squared finished and I'm working today on September.  I already have the October quilt finished (the one that appeared in last year's Fons & Porter Love of Quilting magazine), so that will complete a year's worth of quilts!  I also plan to add a couple of special occasion Little Quilts.  These should be wrapped up within the next week, to rush off to the printer.  I know, it's getting so close to June already- I'm moving as fast as my schedule will allow!  Hang in there!

June Bugs!

 
July Blooms!

August Fun in the Sun!

I'll keep you posted :o)  
 

It's a Brainstorm

I sat down to do some brainstorming with Karol (my mother-in-law) today. I needed to come up with ideas for the final Little Quilts Squared series and ideas for a new quilt-of-the-month series for next year (more exciting details to come later- when the secret is being let out :o) We came up with a lot of good ideas and a hefty list of things for me to sit down and sketch- one of my favorite things to do!

 
  

 

And it's free!

For those of you that don't know, I thought I would give you this little tip... Red Rooster Fabrics gives away free projects with each line of fabric.  And even if the line is no longer available, you can still get the pattern from their archives.  So there are all of these free patterns out there just waiting for you to sew them!  Here's a link so you can check them out...

http://www.redroosterfabrics.com/quilt/current.php

I made a little bag (and two other smallies) for the Happy Haunters line. Here's a picture of it and RR will have the free pattern available soon...