Halloween Deals and Costume Contest

Visit our shop this Sunday, October 31^st between noon and 5 p.m. IN COSTUME and you may win:

1^st prize:  $50 gift card

2^nd prize:  $25 gift card

3^rd prize:  $15 gift card

We will take your photo and contest results will be posted on our blog and website.  Come join the fun! 

Did we mention that if you visit us dressed in costume this Sunday you ALSO get 20% off your purchase of fabric, notions, patterns and books (not to be combined with other sales or discounts)??

 

 Continuing on sale and marked even further off:

 

45% off fall, Halloween and Eek monster fabric

20% off our selection of wide-back fabrics (106”—112”) We have 24 bolts to choose from!

 

 Free sewing on Fridays from 9:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.  Come join us!

 

Remember we will have open sewing on Thursday—Saturday during the quilt show, November 4^th through November 6^th during regular business hours. Get inspired, then come sew!

Busy Week

It has been a very busy and fun week at the shop. The weather has cooled down and people are out and about thinking about holiday gifts, etc...
We had a hand applique class, machine quilting class and a Fabric Bling group meet this week in the classroom. I love seeing people charged up and inspired when they have learned a new technique, a new door opens and off they go. 

This little guy showed up at the shop this morning wanting some quilting lessons maybe?  I suggested he instead look at a long arm machine since well....you see he had very long arms.  I said sadly we were a bug free store though and he could look online possibly on our website of Nolting Longarm's website for further information. Any of our human customers are welcome to come in and talk with Patricia about purchasing a long arm or having a quilt top machine quilted at the shop.
Here are some new fabrics. I confess we have never really been into Civil War Reproductions but this line from Marcus had a book that went along with it kind of telling a story that was interesting so we decided to give them a try.  What do you think?

More batiks arrived this week! And we got the cutest coffee fabric line from Clothworks to balance out our tea party line! It has a panel and a free pattern that even includes directions for pot holders! 

We still have quilt festival tickets available stop in and avoid the lines downtown! Scissor guy will be here early next week- get your scissors in!!

New techniques anyone?

Dolores, is one of our teachers at the shop and she loves to dabble in all different techniques, play with different media, tools etc... and she wants to share what she has learned with our customers.  Fabric Bling is the name of this class.  You'll be exploring all different ways to play with the fabric and you can come once or  more than once to build on what you have learned like a course in creativity and inspiration!

This is just getting started so now is the time to jump in if you are trying to learn new techniques but do not want to invest huge amounts of money into materials for a new project.  Dolores keeps costs low and the class fee is only $15 per student --  all you bring is your basic sewing supplies and sewing machine this time.  Here are some samples of the technique you'll be learning this week. Fabric Weaving with decorative stitches to embellish! Look at these beautiful samples:

If you love the technique she designed a purse pattern to use the fabric you create in class.

 Or maybe as a wallhanging? 

How cute!

Class is Thursday October 21 from 5-8pm.   Spaces still available!

Feather your nest/quick gift idea

I acquired 3 towels on clearance at that fancy store with a red bullseye logo for $2 each.  I decided they needed a little {love} from the shop. I will post each towel's transformation here in a  tutorial form as I complete them so you'll have three cute and quick gift ideas or decorating ideas to start the fall season.


Towel #1
Materials:

1 hand towel
1/8 yard of fabric (4.5"x WOF) that compliments your towel color/season/ theme etc..
1 yard Trim matching the towel and fabric combo
Basic Sewing supplies- matching thread, rotary mat, rotary cutter, ruler, pins, sewing machine with zipper foot, iron etc...


First measure your towel width. (Mine is 16.5")  

Cut your fabric piece to measure one inch longer than your towel measurement and 4.5" wide. (I cut mine to measure 17.5" x 4.5").


Next cut your fabric piece lengthwise down the middle giving you two rectangles- mine measured 17.5"x 2.25" each.

Using a zipper foot, sew the trim along the right side of the fabric rectangles' long edges keeping close the the raw edges.  Make sure your fringe is laying on the fabric and the edge of the trim is laying with the edge of your fabric:

Once both sides are sewn on you'll have this:

Next sew the strips right sides together along all four sides but leave an opening in one of the long sides about 3 inches long as you would a pillowcase you mean to turn right side out. Seam allowance 1/4" for this making sure you are stitching beyond the stitches that attached your trim to the rectangle so they are hidden when you turn the right sides out.

Trim your corners. Flip the right sides out and be careful to get your corners poked out using a manicure stick or knitting needle. Press neatly turning the raw edges of the opening in.

Lay the decorative band you have just created onto your towel and pin in place wherever it suits you.

Match your top thread to your band and your bottom thread to the towel color.  Top stitch the band onto the towel 1/8" from the trim on the fabric.  You'll catch the band opening which was turned in as you stitch closing the opening with these stitches.

Here is your finished towel ready to use or to gift!

Other ideas:

Use an embroidery to stitch a monogram onto the band before placing it on the towel or use children's novelty fabric and give as a burp cloth at a baby shower. 

This technique will be used but, added onto in the next tutorial so stay tuned!

New fabrics and lots of them!!

Michael Millers wildflower fabrics and coordinates.

 

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Ginny Beyer's fabric line with borders "Sophia" and her border prints from the Northern Lights line and others.

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Marcus Brothers line called Metropolis with rich blues and antique browns.

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Mrs. Sew and Sew

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"Happy" from In the Beginning fabrics

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Violet Wishes- check out the current issue of Fons and Porter Magazine for an adorable quilt made with this line.

Sale and free sewing all weekend.

Our classroom calendar is open all weekend so you are welcome to come hang out and sew Friday 10am-10 pm, Saturday 9:30-4 and Sunday 12-5. Think how much you could get done!

Our Halloween line, Spooktacular is on sale, as is EEK Monsters. These are both fun colorful fabric lines suitable for a child's quilt, Halloween treat bag, or even a pillowcase. 
EEK Monsters has a panel with 5 monsters on it, so half your quilt is made for you already all you have to do is set the blocks and add some accents. A perfect quilt for your favorite little monster! 
We have four fabrics from the Fall into Winter fabric line which show leaves with rich fall colors. These fabrics make us Yankees remember the colorful autumns we had when we lived up north.  
Several new lines arrived this week in the shop and I will snap photos tomorrow so you can check them out too.
See you this weekend!

We said what we meant and we meant what we said....

We knew it was a risky to open a quilt store without batiks. 

Nearly.  everyone.  loves.  batiks.  

We *love* batiks. 

BUT....we wanted to stand by our statement that we were not going to offer our customers the same old same old in fabrics. 

We really wanted to offer things that you couldn't get anywhere else or that you hadn't seen anywhere else yet. 

For the past two months we have felt our blood pressure hitch up nervously everytime a customer came in and said, "Where are your batiks?"

We have been tempted by companies that said, "You can get our batiks in less than a week!" But we crossed our arms and stayed true just like Horton in Horton Hears a Who? by Dr. Seuss.

And now that wait is over... the batiks have arrived! 

They are in our store right now. 

You can come over and buy some and we really really hope you will!

Hoffman fabrics have brand new batiks out this year, in new colorways and new prints. 

 Prints that made even soft spoken Patricia say, "Oh that is beautiful!"