Sylvia Pippen Designs

A big Mahalo to Washington State Quilters Guild!

sylvia40 — Tue, 08 May 2012 16:18:40 +0000

I am back from a wonderful teaching trip to Spokane Washington; our first workshop focused on sashiko and my Sea Life series, adding just a bit of applique for sparkle. The next day we worked on tropical flowers from my tropical Sashiko Sampler series. I gave two trunk shows; WSQG is so big they need to have an afternoon and evening meeting! Such an enthusiastiic vibrant guild. Thank you to all who made my trip so smooth and enjoyable, especailly Ginger and Kathy. Ginger took me to 5 quilt stores, so I came home with full suitcases and a new stack of exciting fabrics.
Back home, we are in the middle of major reconstruction to enlarge my studio and living space upstairs. The windows are in, siding up, and it is looking spectacular!The studio will be big, airy, and very light and we will have space for massive feasts upstairs.
My Hawaii retreats for 2013 are filling!; Indigo Niche, my Australian distributor, is bringing 12 quilters from the Brisbane area February 18-22th ; another group from Perth is coming April 14-19th, and I am holding an advanced design class March 4-8 with a group from Alaska. There are still plenty of spaces in the February 11-15th retreat.
I am home for the summer with no teaching obligations until the Fall, so I am going to concentrate on new designs. Here is a new quilt my mother put together from a series of Chinese Indigo Sashiko bird designs. The Two Owls is a popular kit; I will release more in the series this summer.
Sashiko Design Book is selling well; we are busy keeping ahead of the demand. I am contemplating making up the Moon and Wave design from the book into a fabric kit.

Sashiko Design Book is hot off the press!

sylvia40 — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 21:49:37 +0000

We are excited to finally release our new book, Sashiko Designs, a Collection of 200 Motifs. It includes sashiko instructions, designs of foliage and flowers, borders, geometrics, corners, medallions and backgrounds. The 56 pages are easy to photo copy, so you can size and create your own designs.

Cost: $20.00 plus shipping

From Flowers to Fabric Retreats in Sylvia’s Studio

sylvia40 — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 02:12:34 +0000

From Flowers to Fabric March 5-9, 2012 Hawaii Retreat

Aloha, We just finished two wonderful 5 day retreats in my studio. A big mahalo, thank you to all of my students for a fun inspirational time together. The trip to the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden was great; so many creative original designs as a result! I will be posting a student gallery so you can all see the finished quilts…….

Feb. 28-March 2nd 2012 From Flowers to Fabric Retreat

Clearance Sale!

sylvia40 — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 20:34:55 +0000

As many of you know, Tropical Foliage and Sea Life series fabric kits will be changing for 2012. Due to a discontinuation in fabric, the new kits will be screened on Moda Marbles. I am happy to be working with Moda and the new fabrics are quite similar in color but there will be a very slight variation. These kits will also no longer include needles and thread, the general feedback from customers has been that they end up with too many needles and threads when they purchase multiple kits. Now you can pick out which needles and thread you really like. If you have already started the series and would like to continue, I would suggest you order soon to guarantee the fabric color matches.

The transition has been tough, some of the kits have sold out and some have not. So, for the remaining stock printed on Robert Kaufman fabric, I will be having my first clearance sale until the stock runs out. Enjoy!

Two Owls Sashiko Kits are Ready!

sylvia40 — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 15:23:04 +0000

A new series of bird designs! A 14 & 1/2″ x 14 & 1/2″ screened panel and Sashiko instructions. Saves the transfer step-just stitch over the dashed lines. Design printed on Moda Marble indigo cotton. $21.00

Indigo Niche Tamborine Mountain Retreat

sylvia40 — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 20:17:27 +0000

Just finished a wonderful 3 day retreat at Eagle Heights Mountain Resort, with a spectacular view of the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia. Indigo Niche set the stage, provided all the supplies and took care of every detail so all I had to do was concentrate on teaching! Hats off to Sue and Colleen for taking such good care of us, so we could get on with the fun, fellowship, and creativity. I am so proud of everyone for taking my sashiko and appliqué techniques and running with it, pushing your own comfort zone to create exciting one-of-a-kind quilts. A hui ho, until we meet again……..

Wildflowers of Western Australia

sylvia40 — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 19:47:24 +0000

Aloha! WE finished 5 days at the Brisbane Quilt and Craft show; it was very successful and I got to meet so many lovely quilters, many who will be in my classes in the next 3 weeks. Sashiko is not as well known in Australia and my non-traditional combination of sashiko and applique was well received. The two Australian wildflower quilts definitely caught alot of attention! I am already designing a quilt of the floral emblems of Australia.

WE are packed up and ready to head out to Tamborine Mountain for a 4 day retreat. Sue and David Howie have been hosting me in their beautiful apartment right on the river in Brisbane, within walking distance of downtown. Fantastic people friendly city. I went to galleries and the museum to see aboriginal art and caught a glimpse of Queen Elizabeth who was in town on a tour!

Peter and Nora are keeping the home fires burning and the business running smoothly while I travel. Thank goodness for the internet and Skype!

I have made . a wonderful contact in New Zealand with Barrie Ashton who is the manager for Wonderful Specialty Threads

Aloha from Australia

sylvia40 — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 22:00:20 +0000

I just finished 8 fabulous days of teaching with Jan Cornish, of Clifton Creations, in Western Australia. Jan is a fabric colorist, using non toxic Australian made Radiance paints. Our workshops started with each student hand coloring their fabric for their appliqued Australian wildflower. The results were stunning! I am very excited about incorporating hand painted and dyed fabric into future . Jan and I are already booking more workshops for 2013! in Australia.

We spent a week along the coast in Jurien Bay, where we taught for 4 days, in between wandering the immese and stunningly beautiful landscape wildflower viewing. This is oneof the biodiverse hotspots on the earth and the variety of wildflowers is incredible.

I am off to Brisbane in afew days and 17 days of teaching for my distributor, Indigo Niche. I am very excited about the seeing a bit of Queensland and the flowers on the East side. I will be at the Brisbane quilt and Craft show for 5 days, in the Tamborine Mountainsfor a retreat, and then teaching for the Queensland Quilt Guild and Indigo Niche.

As I travel, I am dreaming of new quilt designs, meeting fabulous quilters, discovering new methods, and making new friends.

Black and Indigo Essex is back in stock! New! white mechanical pencil

sylvia40 — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 16:06:37 +0000

Essex is a linen and cotton blend perfect for sashiko. The thread count is loose enough to easily pull sashiko thread through it yet it has a sturdy yet soft and drapy hand. Give it a try! $11.00 a yard. Listed under “Supplies”.

Try a quality Fons and Porter white mechanical fine-line pencil. It produces a clean fine line for very accurate marking on dark fabric. Comes with replacement leads. Listed under “Supplies”. $14.00

New products! Sashiko Scissors Holder and Kona Indigo Cotton by the Yard

sylvia40 — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 14:19:01 +0000

A new Sashiko Kit in time for the holidays! This Sashiko Scissors kit includes everything you need to make a unique and attractive gift: 6 sashiko designs to choose from, batiks and other fabrics for the backing, lining and binding, batting, assembly instructions, white pattern transfer paper, white sashiko thread , needles and a button. Fabrics will vary; kit includes enough fabric for one scissors kit. $26.00

Kona indigo cotton by Robert Kaufman is a very sturdy high quality cotton perfect for sashiko and applique backgrounds. The indigo is very rich and dark, contrasting beautifully with white sashiko thread. $6.00 per yard.