Busy busy Fabric Friday. There has been a lot of Allison in my sewing room this week. We have been watching her while her mommy was at Girl's Camp for our church. But we'll be seeing even more of her at our house and in Nanny's sewing room. My daughter Whitney broke her foot while navigating from a zip line to a rope ladder. It is kind of a bad break with 3 bones and possible surgery. More of Allison for all of us! but poor Whitney.
I think most everyone knows of my love for kitchen fabric. I think it really is my first love even over dots and Japanese reproduction. This is a vintage piece I got from Donna. Donna has an inspiring blog and any vintage fabric lover will want to dream about her wonderful fabrics. I really love this one above.
I received a little giftie from Monica last week. She sent me a prize from her trip to Market and Iowa. I was so tickled to get it. Vintagey kitchen wonderfulness. In 3 colorways!!!
I put them with some of my kitcheney fabric I got at Material Girls this week during shop hop. I totally think they should be used together.
And this thick cotton fabric I also got at Material Girls. I just couldn't pass it up. I felt it and loved it right away. It is like a thick table cloth fabric. In fact that is what I want to make with it. And I think it would be great in a bag too. It is that perfect weight and the color is just right for my kitchen. Red would compliment it well I think. Lori suggested I sew pom poms to the edge. I think I will just do that!

Busy busy here with Allison and all the going on. Have a great week. I don't know that I'll have tons of sewing time but I sure hope I have some.

-nanette

Read More

After Lori and I went to Material Girls yesterday, we Shop Hopped over to Quilts, Etc. in Sandy, Utah.
We were greeted by the beautiful orange/peach roses over the fence in the adjoining yard. Quilts was celebrating The Super Bowl for there theme.
So they rolled out the green to welcome the Shop Hop guests to their store.
The wonderful Sandra was on the phone when we got there. Sandra is in charge of the vintage Clothesline Club Tuesday meetings that Lori and RaeAnn go to there.
They had a quilt by Kari and her book displayed front and center.
I'm always attracted to the reproduction fabrics. So cute.I thought this flag quilt was really beautiful. It is simple yet elegant.

We had a great time at Quilts and the ladies were so friendly. They were even serving hot dogs in the parking lot like a tail gait party. But Lori and I were on a mission to get to the next store so we pushed forward.

Next we went to Pine Needles located in Gardner Village in southwest SLC. If you visit the Salt Lake County area you must come to Gardner Village. The quaint shops made in vintage cottages are really fun. There is a little pond and a great restaurant.There was so much to look at in Pine Needles. Wendy and the girls have been really busy getting ready. Of course the aprons caught my eye. Isn't this an incredible basket quilt.They had a really great line of Christmas fabric displayed and Lori and I snagged a few fat quarters from the display that will coordinate with Monica's Happy Holiday line when it is delivered to me Monday. Isn't that teacup cute. They got it at Hobby Lobby. Hmmm. I want that.And of course I can't keep away from the Lecien displays at the stores. I do have this fabric so I wasn't tempted to buy, mostly. But it is wonderful to look at.Every inch of the store contained things I would want to make.Isn't this quilt wonderful. I love it, of course. It has little girls clothes. It is just made so well and such a sweet design.This corner caught both Lori's and my eye. Isn't that quilt with the rick rack compelling. The pinwheel in the middle of the block makes the design really special. And the rick rack finishes it off so well.This is a great layer cake design in this quilt. Lori picked up the pattern to use with her Moda layer cakes. It looks like a fun quilt.

Well that does it for Lori and me on the Shop Hop yesterday. Tomorrow after work I go alone to a couple more stores. I would like to get to Piper's in Sugar House too (maybe Saturday). I think the local stores are some of the best quilt stores in the nation. They really outdo themselves at Shop Hop time.

-nanette

Read More

I admit I've never completed the total Utah Shop Hop experience. Usually I try to hit a few stores over the 4 days of Shop Hop. This year it just seemed so strange to have cooler weather (and wind). Usually Shop Hop is hot hot hot. The 3 stores I did go to (so far) were hot hot hot and it was fun to go with my BFF Lori Holt . . .
Yes, that's us. Lori is on the left and I'm on the right. We are posing in our crowns that Material Girls gave out to celebrate Mother's Day, or Queen for a Day as we called it. Each store has a theme for an "event". Whenever Lori and I get together we have an awesome (I hardly ever use that word, so for emphasis you know I mean it) time together. Today was no exception. We went first to Material Girls, then Quilts in Sandy and then Pine Needles in Gardner Village. Lori and I have extremely tight schedules so we have to plan time together.
Nadine was there to meet us when we went to Material Girls. I won a prize (yay). We got there early but by the time we left that store was very busy. (Don't tell but Lori helped me cut my own fabric.)
I took some random shop pictures. I love the eye candy. All the stores had so many wonderful quilts and inspirational displays. It was just so fantastic.
Flower Sugar II is quickly being sold at Material Girls. You can see Pam's pattern displayed right with the fabric.
Here is Lori's Paper Doll Quilt in progress on the back wall. Lori teaches at Material Girls and it is sorta her 2nd home. I love the high ceilings at Material Girls. There is so much to look at.
Lori's niece was there selling jewelry and cute decorated flip flops.

If you check out the photo of me and Lori you can see we are modeling our necklaces. It is vintage cute.Lori gave me this darling gift. She is just so incredibly talented and genius really. I love love love this pincushion. I had it in my sewing room and my daughter said "that is the cutest pincushion I've ever seen". And she's right. It is going to sit right next to me at my machine. Thanks Lori.
My Internet connection has been terrible lately. So I'll try to post again tomorrow. I want to show you the other shops we visited and maybe I'll get to Broadbent's and Quilting Cottage this week to show you those shops, too.

-nanette

Read More

Part of the fun in going to the Panguitch Quilt Walk Retreat is in the lovely quilts they have hung in the gymnasium of the school. The quilts are surrounded by the merchant mall, another fun thing. But I really didn't have time to shop. My 17 year-old daughter was really sick when I left home and she kept begging me to come home early. So I did return home early only to find her better and then she left for a church project the next day. I wished I could have stayed longer but I was really glad she was better. Here are a few of the fun quilts I (or Mason) photographed:













The best part of a retreat is catching up with old friends. Nedra taught in the same room after my class. We barely had time to say hi this time. But I did get some wonderful bonding time in with Emily. Emily and I have so much in common. She kept me company while I helped some of the gals in the "free sew" room. When we left to go home my son said, "She's really nice, I like her". It is great when a 15-year-old boy can appreciate the friend of his mother.
Here is Emily showing her quilt to the gals in the "free sew" room.
When Mason and I left town we drove around a bit. Panguitch has some great old farm houses. I love old houses like this.
They all have the same red/orange brick. The whole town is wide streets with no side walks. It has been the same for more than 100 years.

-nanette

Read More

Panguitch Quilt walk was a great event last week and I was very happy to be a small part of it. Panguitch is such a sweet little town and the retreat is just part of the community festivities.
The organizing gals gave everyone this great little back/pack goodie bag, which I'm definitely going to keep and use again.
See Claudia pictured in the middle of my classroom. Claudia is friendly and sweet and made me feel so welcome and valued as a teacher. I had a huge issue as soon as I started to unpack in my classroom supplies. I had left my bolt of interfacing!!! sitting in the living room. I panicked. But Claudia and staff to the rescue. They found one of the merchants to bring me interfacing and saved the day. What could have ruined my class was only a moment of terror for me. And right away the gals took care of me. Next to Claudia sitting at the desk is Jan Marie. Jan Marie has made a blog of all the fun things that happen during the retreat. It is Quilt Walk Talk, go check it out. Next year you might want to join us! The quilts here are so fabulous.
This is all the fun stuff inside my goodie bag. It was unbelievable to me that the bag contained a seam ripper. My seam ripper was virtually useless from use. It is dull (I've gotta find a way to sharpen it). So this new seam ripper was perfect.
I stayed in a sweet old fashioned motel on the main drag. The funniest thing is they still made reservations in a book. It was like stepping back a bit in time. The room was clean and had a fridge, flat TV and internet. Perfect!
Panguitch has less than 2000 people. And I believe they told me the graduating class in high school was around 36 or 38.
All the classes are held in the high school rooms with lots of desk space and plugs. Here are my gals busy at work making their "Mixed Bags to Quilt" from my pattern.
I can't say enough about how great all the women were that I met in my class - such appreciative students. And they all did such a great job on their bags.
My prize student, Shannon, teaches bag making at Corn Wagon, a local shop. Shannon purchased a kit from me a while back so she brought her kit to class and she finished making her bag first, not that it was a race.
Shannon has a cute blog. You've got to go over and say hi. It is really cute just like her and all the fun things that she makes. She even had a gift for me at the end of class!!
It is really fun to see the bags coming together during the class. Some of the girls purchased kits from me.
And some brought their own kits they made from their stash.
Each gal did a really nice job with their bag. My goal was that everyone would finish a bag. Not everyone was able to finish but most everyone got really far.
I took my son, Mason with me to help tote and run. He discovered the streets of Panguitch on his skate board and ran coke and lunch runs for some of the ladies in the class. Poor guy, he had to tote my purse and bags around but he's a good sport.
Some of the women were able to move into the "free sew" room to finish their bags after lunch. I stayed with a few of them to help and I'm so glad I did.
It was a joy to get to know the ladies as they finished up. These girls come every year and are sister-in-laws. They are so cute.
I even found that one of the sweet women, Sandra, is related to my brother-in-law. It is a small world, especially among quilters.

Thanks to all the girls in my class. I so enjoyed getting to know them and I hope they all had fun making the bags.

Tomorrow I'll show you a few of the quilts I photographed that were hanging in the show. That is if my internet connection is fixed.

-nanette

Read More