New Fabrics

Finished up inventory this afternoon, now that was a task.  We took the Christmas fabric off the shelves to make room for some new fabrics.  The pictures don't do justice to any of these but here are some of the new fabrics. 

The first is Hug Me by Clothworks, wouldn't this make great pillowcases?

Next is a new line by Nothcott called Heard it through the Grapevine.  Jane is going to make a wonderful spring quilt as you go table runner out of these.  I can't wait to see it.

Lastly is new fabric by Moda called Sukura.  This reminds me of Washington DC in the spring with all the Cherry Blossoms.  In Sukura we have jelly rolls, layer cakes and several bolts of yardage. 

Quilts of Kindness #6

We are now up to six quilts collected for the Quilts of Kindness effort.  This beautiful quilt was dropped off by Nan yesterday.  

The little sashing makes this striking and lots of wonderful fabrics in the quilt, the picture doesn't do it justice.  

Quilts of Kindness 4 and 5

Two more quilts were dropped off today for our Quilts of Kindness effort.  Quilt #4 was made by Mary.  I love the way the white between the scrappy strips set this off.

Quilt #5 is a beautiful hand quilted scrap quilt donated by Jennifer.  What wonderful work.  

Thank you ladies, I am sure that they will be very appreciated by their recipients.  

26 Quilts of Kindness (Quilts #2 and #3)

Two quilts were dropped off today for our 26 Quilts of Kindness effort.  The first is a small child's quilt made and donated by Ann.

The second is a strippy quilt made by Sue.

Thanks ladies for your wonderful donations.

26 Quilts of Kindness (Quilt #1)

I sent out this via email earlier today....

26 Quilts of Kindness

I love the effort that is taking off for people to do 26 acts of kindness in honor and memory of the 26 adults and children that perished at Sandy Hook Elementary.   Quilters are kind and loving people and always jump in to help when a tragedy or crisis strikes and I know that our fellow quilters in New England are probably hard at work already to make and give quilts to families and survivors in their community.

As part of the 26 Acts of Kindness effort I would like Olde Towne Stitchery to act as a collection point to collect 26 quilts from quilters in our area to give to our local charities in honor of Sandy Hook. 

If you would like to participate in the 26 Quilts of Kindness event, just drop off a finished kids or adult quilt at the shop. There is no time limit; we will accept them until we accumulate 26 quilts.  I will post pictures on the shop blog www.oldetownestitchery.blogspot.com  as they are received and once we reach 26 quilts they will be delivered to local charities.  Adult lap (maximum twin size) quilts will be delivered to St. Mary’s Hospice House and the Charlotte Hall Veteran’s Home, and children’s quilts will be delivered to St. Mary’s Hospital and to Project Linus. 

I found a childs quilt at home that I had made and never sold or given away so this will be the start to this effort.  This Neon Cats quilt will be Quilt #1 of the 26 Quilts of Kindness.

Quick Tip

A quick tip... if you are lucky enough to receive flowers (I got a beautiful bouquet yesterday at my husband's retirement ceremony) keep the little plastic containers on the ends of the flowers that hold small amounts of water.  They have a hole in the top and are terrific for putting all your broken needles and bent pins in.  Then when the container is full you can put the whole thing in the trash and not risk poking yourself.

The Winner

The winner of our goodie basket was Pat Steiber.  Congratulations Pat, hope she enjoys every.  The basket continued to grow a bit as time went on.

Here is another sample for the upcoming beginning quilting class.  Always nice to show something in a couple of different color ways especially for the beginning quilter that may not be able to picture how something might look in a different color.

Many techniques will be learned on this little quilt, rotary cutting and pressing, 1/4 seams, how to measure for borders and corner stones and many others.

New Classes

We have been working on figuring out January and early February class schedules and many of them have now been posted on our website http://oldetownestitchery.com  One of the classes is a new revised Beginning Quilting class.  We have designed it so that someone can try out quilting and see if it is for them without a huge time or money committtment.  

This small wall hanging or pillow topper will be made while learning to cut, iron and sew a perfect seam.  Techniques of strip piecing, borders and cornerstones will be taught. 

We are also adding two youth classes for age 9 and above, in addition to classes on how to sew curves, techniques for squaring up a finished quilt and binding, a free Jelly roll class (with purchase) and favorites like machine quilting and photo transfer are both back on the schedule. 

Charm Square Tote Bag

This summer when the Moda rep was in the shop my daughter fell in love with the Cuzco fabrics and wanted me to make her something when the fabric came in.  She does not need another quilt at college so made this little tote bag the other day using 1 charm square package and 1/2 yard (part of lining and handles) of coordinating for a fun and quick to make gift.

On Loan

Northcott Fabrics recently loaned us both of these quilts to display since we have the fabric lines in the shop.

This first quilt is made using the whole Freckles line.  It is beautiful and the quilting on it is just amazing.  I look at it every day wishing I could do work like that.  

The second quilt is made from the Stonehenge panel and Stars and Stripes QOV line of fabrics.

I like the way a panel was made into such a wonder quilt.  I might have to start looking at my panels differently.  

New in the Shop

Yesterday I spent time putting all the Moda Give Thanks (fall) pre-cuts and yardage in the discount room and in its place moving out the new Moda fabric.  This is called Cuzco and we have the charm packs, jelly rolls and some yardage.

Very pretty with bright clear colors.   Since my daughter was in the shop the day the Moda rep came and LOVED this fabric I think I am going to spend part of today sewing together charm squares to make her a tote bag.

We also have left out our display table of gifty items set up for the open house this past saturday.  If you are still in need for a gift for your quilt guild Christmas party, quilting friend or just a gift to yourself come in and check them out.

Recent News

I can't believe I have not updated the blog in a month.  Chalk it up to a couple of busy weekends of brownie sewing classes, the holiday and being sick the last couple of weeks.

Two weekends in a row we hosted a total of four classes of browines learning to sew.  They made either a pillow case or a simple tote bag and had a great time.  I think several of them have added a sewing machine to their Christmas list.

Both the free Christmas tree napkin class and the table top Christmas tree were well received and people left with completed projects.  

Upcoming events include Leonardtown's first Friday festivities tomorrow night from 5:00 to 8:00 with Christmas fabric on sale and an all day open house on saturday with homemade refreshments, gift items displayed and a special coupon sale.

New in the shop are some additional bolts of batiks, Moda's Morris Apprentice (pre-cuts and a few bolts), red and white fabric by Northcott and my favorite a bolt of ABC fabric that is also like an eye spy fabric.  Each block you search to see how many items in the block start with that letter.  For example the P block has a Pig, in Pajamas eating Pancakes.