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The Flower Basket Quilt

By Lauren | Published: February 20, 2010
lauren_jung_jessi_jung_basket_quilt_01

This is one of our favorites! Both the subject matter and its bold use of color make BOTANY the perfect assortment of fabrics for such a spring-themed quilt!

Our Flower Basket Pattern is now officially available for download on our site, www.LaurenAndJessiJung.com, in our Quilt Patterns Section.

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Currently, we have a total of 6 patterns available for download, so make sure to check out our entire Free Patterns Section!

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Megan Kibby took these beautiful photos!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Two Rednecks in Hatboro

By Lauren | Published: February 19, 2010
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When I finished up grad school, the economic problems were in full swing, and it took me quite a while to find a job.

At the time, I was interested in an interactive agency in Manhattan called G2 Interactive. I wrote back and forth with them for months about a potential position as a Junior Web Designer. Then, four months into my job search, they offered me the opportunity to work in their PA office… and I jumped at the chance!

No, it wasn’t quite New York City, but it was a job…

Last year in the middle of March, I left the beautiful city of Atlanta to move up to the town of Hatboro, Pennsylvania… a tiny little crumb of a city who’s claim to fame (I’ve been told) is its wind.

Having braved only the tail end of last year’s winter, I am experiencing what a Northern Winter actually means for the first time this year… The last round of snow added another 15 inches to a base of at least 10. (See below.)

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So why are there TWO rednecks in Hatboro (as implied by the title)…  

Well, my sister ran into the same luck as I did when she began her job search, shortly after getting her Masters in Marketing…  

I suggested that she look for an internship somewhere… in order to gain some experience…  To which she responded “Well, How about an internship at G2 with you!”

For people who didn’t witness the two of us growing up, this would sound sweet, but to those who know us, they feared for our safety…  and hair…  a lot of hair pulling goes on between the Jung girls….

Kidding, sort of.

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To make a long story short, she got the job and moved up here on December 2nd.  

Two days later I put in my notice at G2 because I happened to get two job offers from companies in Princeton, NJ!!!  And Princeton is lightyears cooler than Hatboro so I really didn’t have a choice in the matter!  I wound up choosing the offer from a software interface company that creates web components. I’ve been dying to learn how to program websites and this job is teaching me how to do all of that and more. Plus, I was very pleasantly surprised on my first day to find out that they are in the process of rebranding their ENTIRE company… and that I would be in charge of the website and product branding! I’ve always wanted to take a monster of a project… and this opportunity is giving me everything I could ever ask for in that respect!

And now I’m going to steer myself back towards my original topic…  

With Carrie being up here in Hatboro now, I’ve been trying to give her little projects to keep her busy.  

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(I don’t have cable right now because I was sinfully underpaid for the last nine months…)  So I gave her my stack of Botany fabric and my mom’s old sewing machine… and after a day and a night she made this little messenger bag! (See below.)

Kudos to Carrie!  

That next weekend, we experienced our first big snow storm. It was a big day for us and rather than bundling up and staying indoors, we decided to go galavanting about outside… taking photos… because that’s what rednecks like to do in the snow!

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Quilt Kits Rock My World!

By Lauren | Published: February 11, 2010
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Buying fabric always makes for a great time… until that day when the avid fabric enthusiast is forced to come to grips with the fact that her fun little weekend pastime is starting to put a dent into her wallet…

The problem here pretty much boils down to two issues: (1) Quilts that use an eclectic variety of beautifully colored fabrics are awesome… and (2) eclectic varieties of beautifully colored fabrics can get to be VERY expensive.

Thankfully though, necessity has proven, yet again, to breed innovation… because some wonderfully ingenious person came up with the idea of pre-cut kits!

Even though I have always liked each of our fabrics individually, I have to say… that when I saw them come together for the first time, as a group… and interact with one another… something magical happened!

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HANCOCK’S OF PADUCAH® must have felt the same way, because they decided to make a kit out of our Garden Variety Quilt Pattern…

Their Quilt Kit will give you everything that you need to make this particular quilt… PLUS, you get to use each of the 40 fabrics without breaking the bank!

My mom designed our Garden Variety Quilt for Fall Market to showcase all 40 fabrics in Botany… we felt that this particular design really allowed the colors to mingle and play off one another… And after looking at the finished product… I really feel that this quilt embodies the essence of spring and nature… the explosion of colors coupled with the organic subject matter just about requires that this quilt be used when picnicing!

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And finally… I’m in the mood for a tangent.

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Everyone who’s ever visited to Paducah, Kentucky for the Annual Quilt Show, has also been to Hancock’s of Paducah! The two go hand in hand.

My mom (Jessi), and her three best friends have made this trec for several years now and have made Hancock’s their very first stop each time… almost as if the big quilt show, was nothing more than an afterthought!

I’ve listened to their colorful descriptions each year and they don’t seem to go there merely because its a fantastic store… They go there for the “Hancock’s Experience”… And it’s these stories that made me especially excited when I heard that Hancock’s wanted to make a kit out of one of our patterns!

Quilters (armed with little shopping carts) plant themselves between rows of tables piled high with the latest fabrics, (all different measurements). Each person peruses the piles, pulling out favorites… unfolding… refolding… for hours at a time. And after spending these huge chunks of time together… everyone with the same goal in mind… it’s only natural that the women begin to feel as though they’ve formed a camaraderie with one another… one person will yell across the tables for everyone to be on the lookout for a particular fabric… which will often make for yardages being thrown through the air towards some excited recipients…

Apparently, the quilters get so engrossed in their searches… that at closing time each night, an employee will have to announce over the intercom that the store will close in 10 minutes… AND rather than packing up… the women crack up and continue sifting through the mountains of fabric. Definitely a good time!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Carrie Jung Is Getting Married

By Lauren | Published: January 25, 2010
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Carrie is my younger sister by two years, so we were all a little surprised when she was the first one to get engaged…

Those who knew her well, back in her high school years of dating, refer to that time period as her “dumpster diving phase”. She dated a few guys here and there, but each relationship ended quickly and tragically for Little Carrie…

Then in the summer following graduation, she began working at Brusters, an icecream shop in our home town of Spartanburg, SC. She became fast friends with her manager, Inbal, and started hanging out with her on the weekends…

It was on one of these weekend outings that she met Inbal’s boyfriend, Andrew… AND it just so happened… that on this SAME weekend outing, Andrew decided to bring his brother, Jon, along.

Jon fell madly in love with Carrie… Carrie fell madly in love with Jon, and the rest is history.

This wonderful happy ending was made even happier by the fact that while I was living in Atlanta, my boyfriend, Beau decided to move in with Jon. The two of them later moved into my same apartment complex, and the three of us, along with their third roommate, Kevin, became the best of friends!

So, I suppose it works out well for everyone… Carrie’s getting married… Jon was in my “Atlanta gang” so I approve of the decision… my friend, Megan, took these awesome engagement photos (see below)… Beau and I both get to be in the wedding… my bride’s maid dress is ADORABLE…

AND… I was put in charge of the wedding invitations! (…or I might have demanded to be in charge of them, but that’s neither here nor there.) We’ve just finished producing her set of Save the Dates and those will be going out tomorrow. (See above.)

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And those are just a small taste of the interactive experience that is to come with the invitation itself!

Carrie’s wedding is in June and she decided to go with a very natural, garden inspired wedding… I used this organic inspiration as my jumping off point for the design… My first attempt with these produced a wild and crazy mass of plantlife that wound its way across the four page, accordion-fold invitation… But there was something about the illustration’s lack of structure that didn’t sit well with me. So I began again, and even though I kept the same flowers and vines, I let the structure of the vines take on the shape of an intricate wrought iron gate. Which produced this very structured, garden-themed drawing that we all LOVE!

Carrie’s starting to love them a little less, because she’s in charge printing, cutting, stickermaking, gluing, and round-corner punching each piece of her wedding invitation suite.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Table Runner Leaves

By Lauren | Published: January 24, 2010
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Add some leaves to your table top with this quick & easy pattern!

You can find it in the Etc. Section underneath our Free Patterns Tab on our website; just click the pink download button on the right side of the page!
Or, you can click on the direct link here!

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Writing these patterns has become a very tag-team effort between me and my mom. We design them together. Then she takes the designs and figures out how to bring them to life. She writes up all of the instructions and then emails those, along with some rough sketches, to me. I take these and design the cover art and illustrations. Being a non-quilter… I feel as though I can objectively rate the ease of the instructions… and then add in a little here and there. Additionally, I’ve spent A LOT of time coming up with (what I consider to be) the perfect illustrations for each step… Because I know how annoying it is to have directions that were written for people with a very high skill level. (I think that if cookbooks would take a similar approach, I might try cooking once in a while…) After the instructions are written up, my mom then tests the patterns for the second time… just to make sure that we have all of our bases covered.

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We realize though, that even the most thorough instructions may occasionally sound vague to someone who is new to quilting. So we welcome any comments or questions that you all might come across! Feel free to either post your question here on our blog, or you can email us at LandJ@LaurenAndJessiJung.com and we’ll make sure to get back with you right away… as well as update our patterns with any necessary content! Happy quilting!

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Blooming Glories Pillow Pattern

By Lauren | Published: January 10, 2010
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This is one of our favorites!!

As some of you probably already know, we have six free patterns available for download. When we launched our website in October, we only had two of these six patterns actually loaded onto the site. The rest weren’t quite finished yet, but will be available well before our fabric arrives in stores this March.

This is our Blooming Glories Pillow Pattern and I’ve finally finished all of the formatting!! You can download this from our Patterns Section on our website. The download button is on the right hand side of the page.

Or, you can click on the direct link here.

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One really cool feature of this pattern is the back! It contains an image of the the same flower found on the front… but from behind!

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And here’s another color option!

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Lean Mean Quilting Machines

By Lauren | Published: January 1, 2010
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Spartanburg’s band of seven crazed quilters on a mission…

So before Market, my mom enlisted the help of her 7 close friends from Piedmont Piecers Quilt Guild in Spartanburg, SC (where she’s been a member for about 10 years) to help her get ready for Houston… My mom gave everyone the fabric of their choice and told them to have at it!

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Yes, this entry is a little after the fact, but we just received all of our creations back from Moda a few weeks ago… and now we have photographs to share!

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I think it would be really nice to have a photograph of the 8 women together, striking a Charlie’s Angelsesque Style pose. Sadly, no one else has jumped on board with this idea!

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These photos were taken by a close friend of mine, Megan Kibby, from Atlanta who is starting up a photography business. You can view more of her photos at Out of the Box Photography .

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The last photo is a pattern that we made for the Bake Shop. As soon as the line hits the stores we plan to post the instructions for this pattern there. We wanted to take an Andy Warhol Style towards quilting… The multicolored butterflies is somewhat reminiscent of his Marilyn Monroe silk screen prints.

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Posted in Botany, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

We Love Easter Eggs

By Lauren | Published: October 18, 2009
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When painted well, Easter Eggs can be very cool, but the kind of Eggs that I’m referring to are actually, secret surprises that can be found hidden in movies, art… our fabric line… etc.

If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, rest assured, you have probably experienced an Easter Egg at some point in your life… A few well-known examples include: the myriad of racey references sprinkled throughout Disney movies… the Apple logo that appears on the computer, Deep Thought, in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy… and the rather random synchronization of The Wizard of Oz to Pink Floyd’s album, Dark Side of the Moon.

Because of my slightly obsessive love for these wonderful little surprises, my mom and I came up with our very own… In every line of fabric that we design, there will be always be a spiderweb. It might not always be obvious, but, rest assured, it will be there!

Now… you might be wondering, “Why spider webs?”

And to that I say, “Why not spider webs?” They are believed to bring good luck when hidden in crazy quilts and Christmas trees… and, they kill bugs! Anything that saves me the trouble of killing bugs myself, is OK in my book, and will always have a safe haven in my apartment!

Botany has three patterns that contain sed spider webs: Flora, Wildlife, and Toile

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The Infamous “Minibook” Fiasco of 2008

By Lauren | Published: October 16, 2009
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Moderation has never really been my strong suit… I’m not sure why that is exactly, but it began sometime in my early childhood… and… I think I’m going to go ahead and blame my parents.

Kidding… sort of.

Anyway, I’ve recently experienced a wicked bout of déjà vu as my mom and I were frantically assembling our 133 promotional packets before this year’s Fall Market… The following entry describes the source of this déjà vu.

Exactly 1 year ago, immediately following my graduation from the Portfolio Center, our entire class, flew to New York City for a Portfolio Review. The night before my flight, I was frantically trying to design, print, and assemble 10 “minibooks” to hand out at the review. After months of sleep deprivation… I found that I wasn’t in the correct state of mind to begin this task 7 hours before my flight.

After the panic set in, I cried for a few minutes, then called and woke-up a team of helpers at 3:00 in the morning: my boyfriend, Beau, my sister, Carrie, and her boyfriend, Jon. Over the next two hours, we all printed, folded, and cut out the first three pages of sed minibooks, at which point, I came to terms with my inevitable defeat… the minibooks had won.

Carrie and Jon volunteered to make a Kinko’s Run… it was 5:00 AM.

Kinko’s did an amazing job for the minimal fee of $400, but I still had to cut, fold, and assemble these books once arriving at the hotel in New York… Thankfully, I had Carrie with me, who turned out to be quite the little trooper…

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She stayed up with me until midnight in order to finish these before the review the next morning… even after being rudely awakened at 3:00 AM to help me the night before… AND despite her plans to wake up at 4:00 the next morning in order to stand outside of the Today Show with a “Please Hire Me” sign.

And, my story doesn’t end there… after not having slept more than 5 hours in the last three days, my phone alarm wasn’t quite enough to get the job done the next morning… Carrie had to leave her much anticipated Today Show at 8:00 that morning, and walk the 26 blocks back to hotel, in order to wake me up in time for the Portfolio Review. I’m a terrible sister.

Carrie fondly refers to this course of events as the “Infamous Minibook Fiasco of 2008″… and rightfully so. I’m still trying to make it up to her!

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And on a more positive note… I’m happy to report that I must be getting better at these last minute projects from hell… because my mom and I finished up our promotional packets at 11:30 the night before our flight… we had a full 3 hours of sleep before having to wake up and go to the airport the next morning!

Posted in Botany, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

A Little Bit of Background

By Lauren | Published: October 16, 2009
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We’re the Jungs (pronounced “young”), and we love to quilt, create, and inspire!

If you’ve read the About Us Section of either this blog or our website, you can probably skip this entry… it’s pretty much copied and pasted, verbatim.

1 / Lauren:

• Born and raised in Spartanburg, SC
• Studied abroad in Cortona, Italy
• Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts—Furman University
• Graduate Degree in Graphic Design—Portfolio Center, Atlanta
• Currently a web designer—G2 Interactive
• Living in Philadelphia, 818 miles away from her sweet boyfriend, Beau

2 / Jessi:

• Born and raised in Amish country—Pennsylvania
• Bachelor’s Degree in Sociology—Clemson University
• Master’s Degree in Deaf Education—Converse College
• Currently a quilter and pattern designer
• Living in Spartanburg, SC with her husband, Chip, a cute dog named Rudy, and nearby to her youngest daughter, Carrie.

3 / Why We Work

(a little bit of a pun)
• Team work certainly has its merits, especially when coming into this with two completely different backgrounds and skill sets. We do all of our brainstorming together. First, we develop a central concept for the main fabric, then we decide how this will be carried out through each of the supporting fabrics.
• Jessi is in charge of all of the initial sketches, which Lauren takes and recreates on her Mac.
• Together we refine, tweek, arrange, and choose colors.
• Once the line is complete, we divide and conquer… Lauren is in charge of everything web related… designing, programming, blogging, etc., while Jessi is busy designing patterns. She managed to design and write six patterns for our first line!

4 / Our First Line

• Botany attempts to reveal an intricacy and delicacy found within the natural world, while drawing its inspiration from traditional botanical illustrations (as can be seen in the main fabric, Flora.)
• The largest print, Wildlife, takes on a free flowing organic style, and includes elements from each of our nine supporting fabrics, thus unifying the series.

Posted in Botany, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

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    • The Flower Basket Quilt
      This is one of our favorites! Both the subject matter and its bold use of color make BOTANY the perfect assortment of fabrics for such a spring-themed quilt! Our Flower Basket Pattern is now officially available for download on our site, www.LaurenAndJessiJung.com, in our Quilt Patterns Section. Currently, we have a total of 6 patterns available [...] […]
    • Two Rednecks in Hatboro
      When I finished up grad school, the economic problems were in full swing, and it took me quite a while to find a job. At the time, I was interested in an interactive agency in Manhattan called G2 Interactive. I wrote back and forth with them for months about a potential position as a Junior Web [...] […]
    • Quilt Kits Rock My World!
      Buying fabric always makes for a great time… until that day when the avid fabric enthusiast is forced to come to grips with the fact that her fun little weekend pastime is starting to put a dent into her wallet… The problem here pretty much boils down to two issues: (1) Quilts that use an eclectic [...] […]
    • Carrie Jung Is Getting Married
      Carrie is my younger sister by two years, so we were all a little surprised when she was the first one to get engaged… Those who knew her well, back in her high school years of dating, refer to that time period as her “dumpster diving phase”. She dated a few guys here and there, but [...] […]
    • Table Runner Leaves
      Add some leaves to your table top with this quick & easy pattern! You can find it in the Etc. Section underneath our Free Patterns Tab on our website; just click the pink download button on the right side of the page! Or, you can click on the direct link here! Writing these patterns has become a very [...] […]