Show and Tell with Friends

One of my favorite things about getting together with my quilt friends is Show and Tell. We always remember to bring our latest projects to share. Of course, we ooh and aah and we all want to make every quilt we see! 

Our recent reunion was no exception. Pam, Anne, Karen, Tisha and I have been swapping blocks for a year and this trip was a chance for us to all be together again. I wanted to share some of the great show and tell quilts with you.

     

Pam joined the Jo's Little Women club at her local quilt shop and made the quilt on the left. The quilt on the right was a Jo Morton pattern in American Patchwork and Quilting magazine last Fall-Pam made it in Jo's fabrics too.

        

The quilt on the left is called "Across the Wide Missouri" and was made from the patterns in the Kansas City Star newspaper. Anne swapped Churn Dash blocks with a friend and made this beautiful pink and brown quilt on the right. 

Karen held her quilt so high that we can't see her face :( These T blocks were a swap that 6 of us did with each other when we went to the Houston Quilt Show in Nov 2010--Karen is the first of us to put them together, so she wins the prize! Job well done, Karen!

I love Show and Tell, but more than that--I love spending time with friends.

Happy Quilting!

The Old Country Store and Other Amish Quilt Shops

I have to confess, I LOVE FABRIC. I have a lot of it--and I mean a LOT of it. I am sure that  my shelves of fabric could be labeled as S.A.B.L.E. (Stash Accumulation Beyond Life Expectancy) and yet I buy more. I tell my husband that "collecting fabric" is a hobby completely separate and different from quilting. He should not expect me to use all of my fabric. Some of it is just too gorgeous to ever cut into it. :)

A trip to Amish quilt shops is always fun and hard to resist, no matter how much fabric you already own. My very recent trip to Lancaster County, PA yielded a few more yards for my stash. I was very good and used a lot of restraint, though. I did not buy fat quarters or even half yard pieces just to build up my stash-I stuck to shopping for borders and backings, so my purchases were two yards of this one and four yards of that one, etc!

The first two quilt shops that we went to were in Intercourse, PA. The Old Country Store was our first stop and it is always a favorite of mine. 

The shop has a wide variety of fabrics at great prices, and their book selection is awesome. I shop their website when I am at home in GA and even with shipping, their prices are still great. Upstairs is a gift shop and quilt museum. I was thrilled that there was an exhibit of Jo Morton quilts when we were there. 

I am a huge Jo fan so it was so fun to see her work in person!

And all of the Jo Morton fabric was on sale for $5.99/yard!!

Our second stop was right down the street-Zooks Fabrics. A lot of Amish women shop here, so there are a lot of solids for their clothing needs, but they also have a great selection of quilting fabric for the rest of us. Their prices were great too-I didn't see anything over $8.00/yard!

Sauder's Quilt Shop is located off the Pennsylvania turnpike in Denver, PA. It is in the basement of a house, but has thousands of bolts of fabric, lots of notions, and even carries spices, flours, and grains.  In addition to fabric, I bought four packages of batting. I am determined to finish up UFOs and if I can save money on borders, backing and batting, so much the better. EVERYTHING in the store was 20% off, so the bargains were even sweeter!

Our last stop was at Burkholder Fabrics, also in Denver. I do think that they had more bolts of fabrics than any of the other shops. The store has a great notion wall, is very well lit, and is super organized. The employees were so friendly and helpful. We were pressed for time and could have shopped a lot longer here-there was so much to see and buy. They have a great website and I am going to be buying from them in the future too. 

There are many other great quilt shops in Lancaster County, but these were the only ones we went to on this trip. I hope to go back again soon (maybe in March for the Lancaster quilt show) so that I can check out a few more. In the meantime, I need to use up some of the fabric I bought on this trip--or not. :)

Book Review

I love quilt books. I collect them and read them just like a novel. I don't feel like I need to make a single quilt out of a quilt book that I purchase. I read it and look at the pictures and enjoy it, just like a great coffee table book. In fact, in my house they are coffee table books! I keep the newest ones out on the coffee table in my quilt room. I often learn a new technique, or pick up a tip on color, or read about the history of a antique quilt. I get a lot of pleasure from my quilt books.

With that said, I have to confess that I have recently acquired three new quilt books. :-)

The first book is not brand new, but it is new for me and it is very special too.  My good friend, Pam, went to a quilt guild meeting where Jo Morton was giving a trunk show. (Green with envy!!  She is a FAVE of mine!) Pam purchased Banner Day for me and had Jo autograph it to me!! I am in heaven.  

If you like Civil War reproduction fabrics and the quilts you can create from them, then you will like Jo Morton's books and fabrics. 

Several weeks ago I found a quilt book at A Scarlet Thread that I have never seen before. It was published in 2011 by Kansas City Star Books and is called Four Seasons at Minglewood by Debbie Roberts. Debbie owns The Quilted Moose in Gretna, NE and her shop was featured in the Fall/Winter 2007 issue of Quilt Sampler magazine. The cover quilt on this book is absolutely gorgeous! It features 32 pieced blocks around a large center applique' block-done in Christmas fabrics. I know I will never make this 101 X 101" quilt, but I would love to make a smaller version of it. One of my favorite things about this book is the fact that each individual quilt block is shown large enough to see the quilting pattern. That's a definite plus to those of us who may be quilting challenged. 

My third book was pre-ordered months ago and arrived on my doorstep yesterday. Hot off the presses is Kim Diehl's latest book, Simple Charm. I love her books (I own every one of them!) and knew that I needed this one too, so ordering it sight-unseen was a no-brainer for me. And she did not disappoint. This book of scrap quilts is wonderful. Kim has included table runners, wall and bed sized quilts, pieced and appliqued projects, wool and even an adorable cat. If you love the look of scrap quilts, you will want to add this book to your quilting library.

Happy reading and happy quilting!