Seeew...Ships ahoy girlfriends! I feel kind of like we're on the "Love Boat." We just need a cast of characters to appear in the middle of the ship's wheel...in alphabetical order! I can see it all now. I'll give a little turn of the head, a flip of the hair and a big cheesey smile (see Richard Gilliland in the below clip). The song would sound something like this...."Quilts....exciting and new...come inside...we're expecting yooouuu! The Quilt Shoppe! Soon you'll be making a brand new quilt...." BA-HA HA HA HA. But I will only do this if I get to be Julie. The cruise director. Um...if you can't tell people what to do...why bother? P.S. Love that Anderson Cooper's mother is on this episode! But uh...who are the rest of these people?
As I shared in the last post...Polly Minick and Laurie Simpson of Moda's Minick & Simpson, spent this last weekend here at the "Shoppe" sharing their love of quilts and rug hooking. Just like with our holiday and Christmas fabrics, we have a variety of Americana fabrics and other red, white and blue combinations. When the students were not upstairs in the workshop, they were down in the "Shoppe" mingling through our Minick & Simpson area! The quilt below is called, "La Playa" and I literally want to pick it up and take it with me to the beach! Of course, our long-arm quilter Monica Mesdag, did a fabulous job with the quilting as you will see below. You also may notice Old Glory is back! The pattern is from the Old Glory Threads book by Renee Nanneman and Jan has carefully chosen new fabrics to bring back this popular kit! We have a limited number of kits left, so feel free to call us when you can!
What is not to love about 4th of July? While it ranks third next to my love of Thanksgiving and Christmas, it is just as fun to decorate for! Check out all of our Minick & Simpson inspired quilts and build one for your patio...right now! Everybody needs a red, white and blue quilt for their patio during the Summer! Everybody. Do I need to get Oprah on the phone? She'll tell you. EVERYBODY NEEDS A QUILT ON THEIR PATIO! Ba-ha-ha-ha-ha. Totally kidding. P.S. Apparently the rumor on the street is we are a "Moda" only store. While we absolutely love Moda, we have plenty of other fabrics as well such as Jo Morton and other designers from Andover fabrics. Seriously...we have 10,000 bolts of fabric between our two sections...it's not all Moda, but we give the folks at Moda complete props for their inspiring fabric collections and pre-cuts! You can check out some of our favorite red, white, and blue quilts here, here, here, and here.
Are any of you sewing quilts for the Quilts of Valor Foundation? Here is one of our Quilts of Valor kits from the Jo Morton collection, Hurrah. The goal of the Quilts of Valor Foundation is to cover all of those brave service men and women in wartime quilts called, Quilts of Valor. You can find out more information by clicking here. We also offer another kit featuring fabrics from Moda's Bar Harbor collection...here.
Back up in the classroom, the Victory Tour continued with Laurie and Polly at the helm. Polly's rugs are beautiful and some of them are becoming rare. My mom and I loooooove this!
"With liberty and justice for all." Too often we forget that. Loves it. Oh...who do we have here? It looks like two more famous "hookers" ....hooking their soon to be beautiful rugs. Colleen (right) traveled from California, along with Pat (left) for this event and coincidently Colleen was one of our first blog contest winners late last year! They had this to say about the event....
"Jan and Brian have have been the "Best in the Great NorthWest Hosts" you could ever ask for! Polly and Laurie are wonderful! The teaching and craft they are sharing is Outstanding! Us California gals have found these past two days to be over the top! Can't wait till tomorrow. Thank you to all who have worked on putting this together."~ Colleen and Pat
Wow. Thank you ladies! It was certainly a lot of fun and my mom and I were glad to meet you! P.S. Pat had secretly scouted out the shop a few months prior to the event:-) They are fans!
The one thing we have here that is a blessing is...size. Well, sometimes it is a blessing. Other times it's a curse in which I feel keeps me trapped in my tower...like Rapunzel. Before I forget ...above are pictures of the Moda Quilts of Valor quilt and the Cabin On The Shore pattern. We decorate the entire space including the classroom (above). It takes an obscene amount of time and I don't blame other shops for not doing it. However, the joy that people get from walking into our "Shoppe" is very much worth it. But most often, I don't get to hear it. Seeew....when our loyal fans, our "Holly Berries" share with me on the blog...we love it. It motivates us to keep on doing what we love! Seeew...thank you. Thank you Colleen, thank you Pat...thank you Cynthia (from last week's post) and thank you to all of you!
Here we have a picture of one of the cabinets upstairs in the classroom. Featured on top, the flag from the coffin of my Uncle Mike...my mom's oldest brother. He died shortly after I was born. Many of the gifts you have seen in this post can also be found at our gift shop, Pickleweed, located across the street in our original location. You can also see how our kits are packaged. I believe the kit on the shelf is the Alma's Quilt kit. Kits may be ordered through the website and will generally fit into a flat rate box with USPS. They will not fit into a flat-rate envelope.
Um...look at this new wool....lots of red and blue and this...was just up in the classroom! You should see what's in the "Shoppe!" Jan makes sure that we officially have one of the largest wool collections available in Wool Fat Quarters and 1/2yd cuts in our area! I'll have to take some new updated pictures of the rest of it when I feature our primitive section on the blog again.
Oh...and look who it is...here is Laurie Simpson putting the wool through the wool cutter thingy....and making strips of wool for rug hooking! Loves it...Loves Her...and Loves Polly! They will be back in November...and I can't wait to announce it as all part of our 2011 3rd Annual Homespun & Holly, November 12 and November 19, 2011! I'll have all the details for you soon!
Now...I have to get to work. If that isn't enough eye-candy for one day, I don't know what is!
Coming up....(I know I say this every time and then get side-tracked)...I've got lots to show you from our new French General collections, gifts at Pickleweed...including jewelry and other accessories, the Carrie Nelson and Joanna Figueroa events, the 3rd Annual Homespun & Holly event, the Christmas season re-set and seeew much more!
Here's to inspiration! ~ Brian
