If you’re a new here you might wonder “what on earth is Croakfest?”

It’s really just an official excuse Colleen and I came up with to get everyone together and have fun one weekend every summer.  We’re surrounded by a wonderful group of quilters who have been loyal supporters since day one.  They have helped us with everything from making quilts to folding patterns so once a year we round them all up and spoil them rotten.  Our friends at Robert Kaufman never fail to remember this annual event and always send a box of colorful cotton treats for us to share with everyone.  Thank you again to Allie and everyone at Kaufman for always helping to make Croakfest so special for the girls!

Making room for everyone at Croakfest requires a complete reconfiguration of the studio and over all “purge”.  So we decided to do our Open House the day before Croakfest.  Why take the place apart twice a year when you can get away with doing it once right?  We had lots of visitors, had a huge sale to clear some much needed space in our stock room and ate way too many cookies while we finished wrapping all the gifts for Croakfest.

I used my AccuquiltGO! to cut fabric Robert Kaufman sent into Tumble Block kits for each Toadster.  We had hundreds of extra blocks and made all the extra blocks one of the prizes in our Dirty Santa game.  It was loads of fun watching everyone designs their table runners – they all loved that it was all pre cut for them.  We played triva, had some wonderful food and everyone left with a bunch of prizes and a finished project – Ah, the life of a Toad huh? 

There are plenty more pictures of the Open House & Croakfest in our Gallery!

This September marks the beginning of our 5th year…  Quite a journey.  We’re planning to mellow out a bit and make a few changes here and there that will let us focus on the creative side of things rather than the commercial aspects.  Our first step in this direction is our trip to Houston this year…  Only one day spent at Quilt Market, the rest of the week will be dedicated to just enjoying Festival and taking classes (and we’ve signed up for everything that we could pack in!).  We can hardly wait and are counting the days until we can pack up our sewing machines and escape to the house we rented for a week of complete immersion in creative growth….

We had our annual Croakfest and we laughed much more than we croaked!  Be sure to check out the Croakfest Gallery which we’ll be posting in September.  The biggest laugh of all had to come from watching Jo Lax rig up a bottle of wine to use as a spool holder for a large cone of thread.  After all stopped laughing some of us had our own stories of nauty notion use to share.  Recently my husband I indulged on a home made dinner of two lobsters.  It had been so long since we had done lobster we couldn’t even find our picks so resorted to using a couple my Purple Thangs which actually worked much better than the little metal pokers I’ve used in the past….

Naughty Notion Contest

We’re sure we’re not the only ones that have made clever use of notions or turned household objects into notions – so sure in fact that we’re basing our current contest on it.  Fill in the blanks of the below sentance, enter as many times as you’d like.  It can be true, made up – just make sure it’s creative and humorus as thats how we’ll be picking the winner.    The winner will be awarded a Shapes and Shades 30’s Fat Quarter Bundle and pattern and announced here on 15 September 2010.

I used my/a ___________ as a _____________   because _____________.

Examples
I used a wine bottle as a spool holder because I was little tipsy and it was all I had at the time!
I used my purple thang as a lobster pick because I couldn’t find anything else that was small, pointy that I was willing to shove into a lobster.

We’re really proud of this one, and believe it or not, Indian Harvest is one of the first designs Colleen and I did together. It’s a rather long story, but we foolishly gave this design away many years ago and have been trying to get it back ever since – lesson learned! Anyway we got it back late last year and have been waiting with baited breath to see it published in Quilter’s World ever since. Our patience was rewarded when Elisa (the editor) told us we made the cover of the October issue!! If we could have picked one of our designs to be a cover girl, this one would have been the one. It’s one of our long term favorites, we loved designing it and think it will become a Toadusew classic - Indian Harvest kits are available in our store, while supplies last. There’s also another treat in store for you in the October issue of Quilters World – we’ve written our first article all about the trials and tribulations of the 1/4″ seam. Be sure to check out the October Issue of Quilter’s World!

Quilter's World Cover 2010

Indian Harvest photo provided courtesy of Quilter's World Magazine

As many of you know, us Toads live in Florida and July and August it gets pretty toasty down here. Being from the great white Canadian north I have to classify these kinds of temperatures and level of humidity as borderline offensive. As my native born friends savor the heat and other joys of an authentic deep south summer I retreat inside, crank up the AC and think of the cooler autumn months to come. Both Colleen and I love the Fall and seem to spend a lot of time in that season one way or another, either in theme or the colors we use when we design. Before we left for our annual trip to Market last year we put together some really neat ideas and sewed many of them up during the fall and winter.
Getting a preview from the magazines that these designs will be published in was a welcome reminder that Fall is on the horizon, as these designs will all be featured in October issues. For those of you thinking “Bah-humbug on Fall, summer has barely started!” just remember Fall is the warning bell for Christmas, and if you’re a quilter who boycotts store bought gifts, you’d best get cracking .
Here’s a preview of some Toadusew originals you’ll see in the October issues of your favorite magazines and some great ideas for an early start on (ee-gads!) Christmas….

“Eclipse” featured in  Quilter’s Newsletter October/November 2010

Click here to order your Eclipse Kit featuring the beautiful “Shades of the Season” collection from Robert Kaufman!  Be sure to visit the Quilters Newsletter Magazine website and get more information on the October issue and Eclipse Pattern!

“Harvest Traditions” featured in McCall’s Quilting October 2010

Be sure to visit the McCall’s quilting website and get more information on the October issue and Harvest Traditions Pattern!

"Harvest Traditions" photos provided courtesy of McCall's QuickQuick Quilts