Spring cleaning....

Okay....I am off in just a few minutes to do a little more tidying before you all come to the party at our annual Spring Cleaning Sale! I meant to take a picture or two last night, but I ran out of time before my ride got there. Jan and I cleaned out boxes and bags of great "stuff" that had gotten tossed in the back room. My goal was to wow Linda and Harriet when they get to work this morning with how much room we made there. Now, it's up to you guys to make some room out on the sales floor for some of the fabulous fabrics we have coming in! On the horizon there's a beautiful floral from Maywood Studios, Artful Home by Heather Mulder Peterson (Anka's Treasures), and I know, but I must tell you, Christmas 2011 fabrics are going to start coming any time now! I just got a bill for some batiks too....haven't appeared yet, though.

So....it didn't snow as far as I can tell, but it's really cold (37 at my house). Tracey and I will be the late shift until 8:00 tonight. Hope to see some of you in the next three days!

We interrupt our regular program....

We interrupt our regular program for this breaking news to announce the arrival of Elliana LeMay Stewart, born Monday, April 25th. Ellie was scheduled to be born by c-section on May 3rd, but decided she wanted to come and meet everyone a week early! And she was in a hurry, too! No time for c-section. These are pictures of her and her brother, Cody and Momma, Nikki. Everyone doing fine and she has already been loved and held by Aunties, Uncles, Grandmas, Grandpas and all of her cousins! Congratulations, Dave and Nikki.

We will now return you to your regular fabric news!

Tiptoe through the tulips....

Well, I see now that I've put these up here, that my perspective wasn't at all the same when I took these pictures of the Two Hour Tulip Purse(s)! Okay, I confess, I was just too lazy to go and get the ladder and take down the bigger one to get a better picture....sorry. But, you get the idea, right? It's a great pattern that actually has four sizes of purses! I love the small one.
Alicia made both of these and is letting us borrow them for display purposes. Everybody we've talked to says that you really can't make the first one in quite two hours, but all of the other ones only take two hours. Which tells us that once you make one, you'll want to do more! One customer made the small ones for Christmas gifts last year for her granddaughters and filled them with fun stuff! I think a smaller one would be just perfect for me to go grocery shopping. Hmmm...might have to try the small, or maybe the next size up?

Hope your Friday was wonderful. I took part of the day off! And the sun was even shining! WOW! John and I went out to breakfast and then ran an errand or two before I got back to the shop. Yesterday, Harriet, Linda and I moved a bunch of fabric around. (We need to move the ones in the windows pretty often so we avoid any sun damage!) And it's always good to give a new look. We moved a few samples and just did some general tidying. I am working on Spring cleaning the back room, too.

Tomorrow should be a great day. I'm going to finish getting more kits ready for a couple of tumbler quilts we have going and work some more on the Spring cleaning thing. I hear it's going to be another beautiful day - hope you get to enjoy it. If it's quiet at the shop, I may just have to go outside and sit on one of our chairs and get my vitamin D. Happy Easter everyone!

50 stars....

You guys rock! I mentioned in the last e-mail, in a blog post and then in the newsletter that Moda had a project going called "Just One Star". They were asking folks to make just one star and send it in so they could make 100 quilts in 100 days for the Semper Fi organization that assists some of our wounded military personnel. Look at that pile of blocks! You all were so generous to bring in 50 star blocks in just a few weeks. This is the pile before I put them in their Priority Mail box and sent them to Moda. Thank you so much for your continued generosity! How's your weekend going? The sun came out today - what a treat! And I just noticed that some of the seeds I put in a few pots are actually starting to show signs of life! Yes....Spring will arrive after all. We had a lovely day around here. Drove to Smokey Point and met all of the kids and grand kids for lunch. It was the "hand off" of the curtains and quilt for the new baby girl we're expecting in just over two weeks! I loved her quilt (pic was up a couple of weeks ago) and I may have to think of another one using that fun zig zag pattern. We sold all of the kits and even though we called it Lilly's Quilt....seems her Mom and Dad have new idea for a name. That's to be announced with her arrival! Okay, I still have a few more things to do this evening. Hope you've had a relaxing Sunday and are ready for a great new week! We got the tumbler quilt back from Nikki Saturday, so we'll be sewing binding and finishing those pre-cut tumbler kits (sold one already before I could even get the directions in it!) And we'll be moving fabric too this week....just to keep you on your toes! Goodnight.....

April.....

Okay....what's up with this weather anyway? Snow?!? As Harriet said today, it wasn't even April Fool's Day! Well, this is a picture of one of the great "Little Quilts Squared" that Diane has been working on. They are designed by The Wooden Bear and there is one for each month, plus a fun birthday cake. And, this being Diane's forte, she has just finished making all 13 of them for us! This guy in the picture is the April bunny. Isn't he cute? They fit perfectly on these 12" scroll stands, so you can set that somewhere and change it out each month. Or, they'd make great gifts for friends, too. And the birthday cake could be one you get out for whenever somebody in the family is having a birthday! Sorry I haven't posted in nearly a week. It's been a busy time around here! Lots of happy customers and some new fabrics. Today, we got some fabulous flannels (and we needed flannel today!), plus a great group called "Perch" from Timeless Treasures. Yes, there is a bird involved! Earlier in the week a few fabrics from the Quilts of Valor line came in from Marcus Bros. Speaking of which, if you're making a star block for the Just One Star drive that Moda is doing, I'll be mailing them this weekend....you have until Saturday to get it to the shop. (You can still mail one in after that if you'd like - we're just doing a "group" thing!) Hope your week has been a good one. Will try to be better about keeping up on all of the latest around here. Have a lovely evening!

Another deadline....

Another deadline nearly met here at Fab-Etc. This year's Shop Hop block MUST be in the mail tomorrow. After a few fits and starts, I finally got it together and this is our block for 2011. The fabric hanging from the machine is the fabric that you will receive at each shop and the fabric for the spool of thread is just one of the great coordinates for this year's Hop. We have a few "embellishing" ideas for the block we'll have at the store, but really, for the one that goes into THE quilt for the poster, those don't show up. I'll try and get another block made tonight to hang at the shop and then it's on to figuring out how many bolts of each we need to buy to make 2,000+ kits for this year! (I confess that we'll probably take a breather for a week or two before all of that begins. Then once the fabric arrives, it will be cut, cut, cut, package, package, package.) Wasn't it a pretty day today? The sun was glorious to look at. Tracey led her KT Klub this morning and they all had done such great things with their projects. The next class is Wednesday night...I still need to do quilting and binding! Alicia and I had a great day with lots of fun visitors. Quite a few parents of WWU students have been in this week! We're happy they have found us as another place to visit when they come to see their kiddos in college. We got two new magazines today - Stitch and 101 Patchwork Ideas. Didn't have much time to look them over, but did hear some "Oohs" and "Look at this" from customers. Other than that, it was just a few basic notions that arrived. Hope your weekend is wonderful!

Tumbling....

With the Tri-County Tour behind us, we've been able to take a breath and work on a few things around the shop. We've been wanting to do something with the larger tumbler block die on our Accuquilt Studio. So, Saturday, after Velina's EQ class Alicia and I started cutting and playing. It's going to be a good lap-sized quilt and is really coming out fun! It only took less than 1/2 hour to cut all of the shapes and Jan just started putting them together yesterday and pretty much has finished the middle in addition to waiting on lots of customers and helping host a Tea Party today! The plan is to cut some kits for you and have them within a week or so. She's taken it home with her to finish and then I'm going to send it out to one of our area's many fabulous machine quilters to quilt. Tea Party today was lots of fun. Some great "show and tell" and of course, Jan's killer scones! The double wedding ring die for the Accuquilt arrived and we got some of Heather Mulder Peterson's (Anka's Treasures) "Artful Home" line in today. It's yummy. Oh, for more time to play...... Hope your week is going well. Wasn't it nice to see sun today? Even if it was cold! Okay, a few things to take care of....and tomorrow Harriet is back from her trip to Arizona, so I get to hear more about that. Have a terrific Thursday!

X marks the spot....

X marks the spot where I am beginning our next KT Kub project. I really NEEDED to sew something for fun! This is a "cot quilt" used during the war for the soldiers' beds. It's taken from The Civil War Sewing Circle book that we're working out of for KT Klub this year. (Can you keep a secret? I fired up my EQ7 program and resized the block to make a smaller quilt....would just be more useful and do-able for me right now.) So, this is my first block and it's been pretty fun so far. I'm sure I will soon be obsessing over which fabrics to make the X out of and what the borders should be, etc. All part of the fun! Hope your week is going well....pretty wet, isn't it? Great sewing weather was the comment lots of our customers made today. Alicia came and helped out this afternoon - we got really busy thanks to this great sewing weather! Saturday was another fabulous EQ class Velina taught. I have an idea from the lesson for a project using the newest fabric off of the UPS truck, "Muffintops". Yup, looks just like it sounds - and it's cute to boot. Saturday after class we pulled out the Accuquilt and started cutting the larger tumbler blocks for a bright and happy quilt. Jan and I might get a chance to sew on it tomorrow before we have to set up the Tea Party for Wednesday. Laundry ready for the dryer and maybe I'll make another block? Have a wonderful evening!