Our Stop on the Blog Hop

Today is our stop on the blog hop, yay!! This entry is for three fabric giveaways from our new line, Birds and Berries (see above). We'll be accepting comments through the 14th, and we'll announce the winner on the 15th! So stay tuned!

(Usually, on our blog hop posts... all three of us participate, but it just so happens that my sister, Carrie, is in Spain right now (jealous)... and my mom is frantically trying to put together the patterns that we need to turn in for our book that's coming out sometime next year. :) ) Anyway, it's just going to be me today...

And so without further ado, I'm now going to talk about my hometown of Spartanburg SC. That I fondly refer to as "The Burg".

1. My absolute favorite restaurant in the whole world is Wade's Southern Cooking

It's a "meat and three" restaurant that has been around since 1947. EVERY SINGLE TIME that I go out to eat there, I order 2 fried chicken legs, 2 orders of macaroni & cheese, and 1 order of string beans with a sweet tea and corn bread.

No matter what time of day that you go, there is a line that goes out the door because its awesome!

Now that I've moved away, I only get to eat there maybe once every six months or so which is sad... so my mom usually buys me a t-shirt to get me through the months that I'm away. :) See above.

Anyway, Wade's has these really funny billboards that are all over town... all of which, focus on their tagline, "Have you eaten your veggies?" They crack me up.

2. Andie MacDowell is from Gaffney South Carolina.

Gaffney is spitting-distance away from Spartanburg, so I'm going to lump her into this blog entry... because Spartanburg doesn't have much else. :)

3. And now... a funny story about my family (more specifically my dad), who was famous here in Spartanburg for about a week after he was ARRESTED.

So it all started with a neighbor who lived up the road from us (hmmm, let's call him Mr. Cailey). Well Mr. Cailey was annoyed by the fact that the traffic passing in front of his house, didn't abide by the stop sign at the end of the road. Well... eventually, this was just too much for him to bear, so one morning... after everyone left for school and work... bulldozers and dump trucks arrived to close the road off at the stop sign. Thus dividing the neighborhood into two parts.

When residents returned home that evening and drove down this road (same as always)... they hit a dead end... complete with newly planted grass, shrubbery, and a split rail fence.

Everyone was up in arms about it. School buses had to be rerouted. Fender benders occurred when residents realized (a little too late) that their street was missing. Meetings were held. Petitions signed... Etc. This is a picture of where the street dead-ends. The previously connected road is sitting just beyond the trees.

Well, my dad had a walking route on our street that he took every night. And, street or no street, he REFUSED to be rerouted. He went on his merry way... and when he'd come to this newly landscaped yard (that used to be the street), he walked right across it and continued on to the other half of the neighborhood.

One night Mr. Cailey had the nerve to accuse him of trespassing. To which my dad responded, "Sue me". (My dad lives by no one's rules. And so he was not deterred by this confrontation. He continued his nightly trek.)

The next night, while he was walking across this yard, he tripped and fell over a drainage rock that was sitting in the middle of the path. (He swears that this was strategically placed.) In order to avoid tripping over it in the future, he tossed the rock into the bushes.

...And... at that very moment, Mr. Cailey lept out of the bush and snapped a photo.

The next afternoon, two policemen came to our door to arrest my dad for throwing the rock. He wasn't home at the time, so my mom was instructed to tell her husband to turn himself in at the courthouse after he came home. At which point, they would arrest him. Can you believe this? So that night after dinner, my dad (being the hardened criminal that he was) picked up his Scientific American Magazine, and headed downtown to pay his debt to society. He actually DID spend the night in jail (which he was less than happy about). In the end, he was let go because the grounds for the arrest were downright dumb.

Anyway, to finish up the story, things wound up OK... My Dad took Mr. Cailey to court and won. His record was expunged, and the neighborhood association was granted the right to pave a "scenic walkway" through Mr. Cailey's landscaped street (for walkers like my dad to use).

The funny thing is... this whole story was written up in the Spartanburg Herald Journal. And so, years later, when one of us recounts the story... many listeners will jump up and say... "I SAW that in the paper....that was YOUR husband????...or that was YOUR father???"

Yep, the Jungs were the "buzz" of Spartanburg for a week. True story!!!

And that about wraps up Spartanburg.
Now for the free pattern!

You can download it here. This is a traditional bow-tie pattern with a little something special. The centers of the bow ties stand up off the quilt 3-dimensionally. Super cool, right?

Also, make sure to check out the other two blog hop stops today... Pieces From My Heart   /   Fig Tree & Co.

Hmmm, I think that's it. Am I forgetting something?

Oh! Yes! The giveaway. We have three giveaways on this blog entry! And then THREE MORE giveaways on the next blog entry entitled My New Adventure!

First, to win one of our 3 fabric give-aways (1 jelly roll and 2 layer cakes), simply write us a comment on this blog entry. ...(And if you could "Like Us" on Facebook too, that would be awesome... but not required to enter this first giveaway!)

Then for the SECOND giveaway... I'm working on a really special project right now that I want to share with you. So, if you read the entry right below this, entitled "My New Adventure"... you'll get a chance to win one of 3 FAT-QUARTER-SHOP GIFT CERTIFICATES for $75 each! Yay! Who doesn't like free fabric right?

For those of you who can't find the comments... at the bottom of this entry is a little blue link that tells you how many comments we've gotten. Click on that link, and it will take you to the comment section. :)

We'll be announcing the winners on the 15th!

Thanks for stopping by and happy quilting!

Bad-Boy Soup

This is our sweet boy Rudy… (as many of you probably already know)… and we think he's the greatest.

Whenever we're busy with a project… either on the computer... or laying out quilts, Rudy will usually start to feel neglected... and, as a result, he'll act out to get our attention. After his many failed attempts to entice us to play with his "Headless Bunny", "Dead Squirrel", or "Baby Duck" (his three favorite toys)… he'll plop down, right in the middle of whatever it is we're doing and look up at us with the most adorable expression, as if to say, "What, you didn't want me to sit on top of the fabric pieces that you have been painstakingly arranging for the last hour?"

So when our fabric arrived in the mail, I planned on using this bad-boy-habit of his to my advantage… my plan was to lay out this entire color-wheel of fabric, while ignoring him completely... with the hope that he would eventually wander over and sit in the middle... allowing me to snap some nice photos.

When I finished, Rudy was off by himself looking for salamanders to "play with"… Completely unconcerned with me and my color-wheel.

(On any other day, this would have done the trick.)

Since my plan didn't work, we then tried other techniques, like burying treats inside of the fabric... but this just made him frantic and a mess.

Then we tried using the age-old "Sit" command. But, for some reason, when Rudy learned this command way back when, he learned it in combination with "Roll Over". And, oddly enough, he's never been able to separate the two. He'll sit for a second, then immediately throw himself onto the ground in order to "roll over".

We spent about a half hour trying to get this little dog to act right... but to no avail. The collage of photos shows the results of this little photoshoot.

(A few years back, one of us started telling Rudy that it's a good thing he's cute… otherwise we'd have to make Bad-Boy Soup.)

This particular day was definitely a Bad-Boy Soup Day!

Thanksgiving With The Fam

I know what you're thinking...and yes, we do realize that it is, in fact, January, and we are a bit late on blogging about our Thanksgiving.

But the fact of the matter is, we Jung's had a rather fun filled Thanksgiving which (luckily for you) yielded many great pictures.

While eating copious amounts of food and watching football all day is fun in itself, what made this Thanksgiving so much fun was that I managed to convince almost all of our family to convene in Spartanburg, South Carolina for the holiday...which, if you think about it, was quite the feat, as half of them live in Pennsylvania or New Jersey and my husband and I live in New Mexico.

Pictures documenting the whole vacation can be seen below. Enjoy!

Our pre-meal hike in the woods behind our house took us to an abandoned day camp...complete with an adorable little chapel, play ground, and dunking tank

Grammy and Rudy got along swimmingly...once he realized he could easily convince her to play fetch with him.

Dad served us the long awaited feast! Lauren was lucky to have gotten such a nice shot, as we were all pretty hungry by this point and irritated that the photo was getting in the way of starting the meal.

Poppop helped us solve the world's problems after dinner.

Thanksgiving #2 was held the next day at our cousin Blaine's house. After the meal we were sure to check out his new 3D TV (hence the funny glasses in the photo on the left) and Lauren made everyone check out the new Birds and Berries strikeoffs. (Which turned out awesome too. We can't wait to debut the line in May!)

The next day was reserved for hiking with Dad!

As you can tell, we had a rather fun filled and action packed Thanksgiving. We apologize about the delay in the post...but better late than never I say! I'll go ahead and blame this on Lauren (kidding! sort of) and the fact that there was an insane amount of Lauren + Jessi Design business that needed to be taken care of in the weeks that followed.

What's a little sad though... is this is not the most pending of our posts... We still have to blog about Christmas, and our recent trip to NYC to attend Printsource, as well as my wedding which happened a year and half ago. Way to go, Lauren, and your amazing time management skills. :) Kidding. Sort of. :)

Our Stop on the Blog Hop!

So it's our day on the blog hop, and we're super excited about everything that we've got to talk about.

I guess we sort of have two projects that we came up with. The first started out as a small (carnival-inspired) handkerchief-sized quilt, but then it blew up into a big ordeal (as is usually the case with any project we start)... which then led us to come up with our second... slightly less involved project. Both are super on-target in terms of theme though, so I plan on discussing both... because they're ADORABLE! And as with any project in the Jung family...we documented them with copious amounts of pictures...

So this past weekend, my new boyfriend Atul had the privilege of being my photo assistant for the day. (see below)

He's so cute I can't even stand it!

The location that I chose for this little photo shoot was Princeton University. ...On the ONE weekend when all of the freshman were moving into their dorms.

So there were throngs of students... parents... moving trucks... etc. through which we had to navigate... with quilts... and a box of fabric icecream cones. It's safe to say that a good time was had by all.

Anyway, aside from the fun photoshoots that go along with bloghops... We had a series of questions that we had to answer...

And if you keep up with our blog, you'll already know that Carrie, my younger sister has joined the team now, so the three of us have tag-teamed the following questions.

What's your favorite fair food? If not fair, then just food!

LAUREN / Hmm, I love fair food! Hotdogs, popcorn, funnelcakes! All fun and wonderful. ...Until the ride home when the post-fair nausea begins to set in.

JESSI / Candy apples - of any and all kinds, from the traditional red candy glaze with nuts, to the chocolate and caramel covered apples. I try to eat healthy food...I mean it IS a fruit.

CARRIE / For me, it's not a trip to the fair without a funnel cake.

What's your guilty pleasure?

LAUREN / Internet shopping! I love it entirely too much.

JESSI / Cappuccinos and Lattes - always iced - always caffeinated!

LAUREN (on CARRIE's behalf) / Anthropologie. If you were to check out Carrie's closet, you'd think she held up like ten Anthropologie stores at gunpoint. :)

What's on your bucket list?

LAUREN / 1/Machu Picchu 2/camp in the middle of the fall (right as the leaves are changing... this will probably happen this year) 3/learn a new language 4/vacation in one of those huts in Bora Bora 5/own a pottery studio (I used to do a lot of ceramics in college... definitely something I miss A LOT!)

JESSI / Would you believe, I have yet to go on a cruise?

CARRIE / Well...until recently, it was to be an extra in a movie or TV show. But soon after moving out to Albuquerque I finally got the awesome opportunity to be in the show In Plain Sight. You can find me in Season 4 episode 3. I am the bridal store attendant. It was especially exciting to watch it later because I have a full 4 seconds of screen time and my face isn't blurred either!

What inspires your work?

LAUREN / Internet shopping. :)

JESSI / Well, nature, of course; it's kind of like the beauty pageant answer..."world peace". But I also get inspired through fashion....magazines, catalogues, shop windows. Or I might see a mosaic wall, or a design in a carpet, and think - "that would make a great quilt!"

What movie do you watch again & again?

LAUREN JESSI CARRIE / My Cousin Vinny.

Do you sing when no one else is listening? If so, what is the song or artist?

LAUREN / I've been told I'm tone deaf... so my family only wishes that I would sing while they aren't around. But when I'm in a really good mood I bust out my best rendition of "Total Eclipse of the Heart". ...And Mr. Roboto.

Tell us about your pet… picture?

LAUREN / I'll let my mom take this. She's our "Rudy Spokeswoman"...

JESSI / This is Rudy - he's a Westie! VERY strong-willed!!!! I think that's what I like about him the most! Dogs in general add so much to a household and family...they are always happy to see you, and they never give you any "lip". Just like our children, right? And he's the only one of my children that get's so excited to see me that he tinkles (just a little) on the porch, when I get home from somewhere. And you don't get much cuter than that.

What do you wish people would ask about you more?

CARRIE / I would love it if more people asked me what I do out here in Albuquerque. Because aside from being the very capable project manager for Lauren + Jessi Jung Designs, I am also the local host of All Things Considered on 89.9 KUNM!

How many quilts have you made?

JESSI / hundreds

CARRIE / 4

LAUREN / I have big plans... *rubbing hands together as if to imply something wonderful is in store*

What shows do you TiVo?

LAUREN / Magnum PI.

CARRIE / Battlestar Galactica...just watch it, you'll be hooked too.

So now onto our Country Fair Projects!

Our CELEBRATION QUILT (see below) was designed with a seriously country-fair-esque theme. (Production of this pattern is currently in the works and should be available for sale very soon!) And we think it would make the perfect wall hanging backdrop for a child’s birthday party. Or you could use it as a festive covering for the gift table!

And as a cute little accessory, these ice cream cones can be whipped up in a flash, and given out as party favors. These are our official blog hop project. The instructions and a link to the template can be found below:

The cones are modified from a pattern by Tone Finnanger in the Sew Sunny Homestyle book.

ICE CREAM CONE FAVORS

1. Trace and cut out pattern templates.
2. Trace templates on WRONG sides of chosen fabrics. Cut out fabric pieces, leaving ¼” seam allowance.
3. Pin pieces, right sides together, with ice cream on top. Use template to help with placement. Sew on curved lines.
4. Trim seam allowance on curved edge. Cut slits between curves. Push curves out and press edge.
5. With right sides together, sew down side of unit. Turn right side out.
6. Tuck ice cream inside cone. Top stitch along curved edge ( below curves).
7. Pull ice cream out of cone. Stuff with fiberfil.
8. Turn ice cream top edge under, and hand sew a running stitch along folded edge. Pull thread to gather, and knot to hold.
9. Attach a red pom-pom (cherry) to top of cone.

Lastly, my mom and I also want to mention that both The Celebration Quilt and the fabric ice cream cones feature our new FLORA fabric line. FLORA is our third line and it will be in stores next month! It was inspired by an English Tea Party ambiance... with secret gardens, and small aviaries. My mom is obsessed with plant drawings that show off their roots as well as anything involving birds. We really wanted Flora to have a more elegant/decorative feel, and I think that came across with the set that we turned out.

And that should do it! You have reached the end of our Blog Hop Post. I know, I can be a bit long winded, so to reward your patience we are offering a giveaway. Two lucky winners will be receiving a fat quarter bundle of FLORA! All you have to do is post a comment. We will be announcing the winners a week from today! Thanks again for stopping by!

And if you don't know how to comment... Don't worry! Up at the top of this entry, click on the title. This will take you to the area where you can comment. At the bottom of the page you will see a comment box where you will then be prompted to post your comment, your email address and your name. Then just click "Post Comment". And that's it!! You're done!

Be sure to stop by the next blog on the hop, Stephanie from Lily Ashbury.

Oh!! And follow us on Facebook! We'll keep you posted about new lines... free patterns... etc. Just scroll up to the Facebook box over on the right side of the screen... and click "Like"!