Quilting Adventures ~ The Friendly Store for Everyone Who Creates With Fabric!

Smocking, the decorative art of fullness control, can be seen on adult and children’s clothing in today’s market.  Gathering at the neck, on a cuff or across a yoke is appearing in today’s apparel with the fullness controlled by a beautiful stitching technique known as English Smocking.  Come see how these touches are applied while meeting the members of the Cardinal Chapter of SAGA, The Smocking Arts Guild of America, at Quilting Adventures on February 9, 2008, from 10-2.  These women meet monthly to learn and practice smocking on both children’s and adult clothing.  They will be demonstrating this art, answering questions and allowing some ‘hand’s on” participation as they smock hospital bereavement gowns for MCV.

Here’s a smocked dress by Susan Scheer:

Many of you have taken classes with Laura Blanchard and already know what a great teacher she is.  Next week she’s teaching a new class on machine appliqué where you will learn two different techniques for doing lovely appliqué by machine.  The picture below is not her sample – it’s actually the pattern cover – but her sample is more beautiful!  Here’s the link to all the details on this class; please call or stop by soon to sign up – you won’t want to miss it!

Today and tomorrow  – 27th and 28th – are our regular Finish the Bolt days.  Help us make room for all the new stuff that comes at the beginning of the next month!  Buy whatever’s left on the bolt and get 25% off!

Also, yesterday I went around with my discount tags and hungs lots of new ones (and have more to do today!), marking fabric with 20%, 30%, 40%, 50%, and yes, even 60% off tags!  Even some batiks!  Some come see what kind of bargains you can find. 

~ Joyce

Susan will be doing more on yo-yos at this weekends demos – she’s especially focus on the heart and flower yo-yos – but check out this picture:

Demos are Saturday at 11 and 2 and Sunday at 2 – come get inspired!

~Joyce

I’m actually kind of reluctant to post pictures of this new group.  I haven’t bought my share yet and two bolts are gone already!  Clearly I’ll be reordering this.     The first picture shows my favorite colorway sharing a shelf with Boho Blossom from Michael Miller, another one of my favorites, and I think they just look AWESOME together!

I started making fabric postcards many years ago. Initially, I made some that weren’t meant for mailing, they were more like small quilts that looked like picture postcards but bigger. But then someone somewhere decided to actually *mail* them! And, well, I’ve
been hooked ever since.

Here are a few I’ve made:

Wednesday night is the first meeting of our current postcard club. We will talk about techniques and inspiration, and then we each make four cards before our next meeting, mailing three to other members and keeping one for ourselves. It’s so much FUN to get these in the mail! We still have room in this group; please call us to sign up. Follow this link for more info (and pictures).

There’s still room in Diana’s new class on Mixed Media Collage this Saturday (January 26). This is a great opportunity to experiment with new and unusual materials and techniques while creating your own art quilt. Follow the link above for more info and a photo of the class sample!

~ Joyce

Hello all!

I thought I’d write a quick review of the Jan Beaney and Jean Littlejohn books here.  I’m so excited that we carry these, as they are some of my favorite embellishment books.  We have quite a few of them, ranging from one on sketchbooks to one on felting to one on just using two stitches or the color red.  The wonderful thing about these books is they provide so many opportunities for development.  They are mostly technique books – each page providing more and more ideas for that technique.  Included are many pictures that demonstrate the technique.  You can always look at the pictures and just be inspired from those.  Also included are good ways for each technique to be used – for example, using couched thread to show ripples in the water.  Jan and Jean are always straight to the point, and never waste an inch of page, therefore their books look rather thin.  However, each page makes it worth every single penny.  My personal favorites are A Sketch in Time and Over the Line.  

Phoebe

Next Thursday (January 24) evening is Diana’s class on Quilt Design, Color & Fabric Selection.  Here’s a few words from Diana about the class:

COLOR: The WOW Factor! Easy guides for fabric selection that makes the quilt!  Bring your plans and patterns and we will brain storm, prowl the store for creative solutions. Helpful books and samples will be available for help! 

Now (this is Joyce writing again), lately we’ve had lots of people sign up for classes after the one-week cutoff for cancellation has come and gone.  We’ve had several classes that we almost cancelled for low enrollment, and then people started signing up and we ended up with a full class!   Since Diana’s color class requires NO supplies, we’re going to NOT cancel the class for low enrollment (yet) and give you all a chance to sign up!  If you want to take the class, please call us so we can get your name on the list and you can always come in and pay this weekend.  We often hear that customers struggle with color choices; this is a great opportunity to learn more from one of the best!

~Joyce

Tomorrow is the first of this session’s Stashbusters groups!  This is always a fun class, and a good opportunity to take a bite out of the stash (and make room for more fabric!) and/or to learn about how to pick colors for your quilt, especially scrappy quilts.  I’ve been working hard on the patterns for this new session – all new patterns again -and sewing away to try to get my samples done!

There’s plenty of room left in all the groups, but especially the Friday night section which starts this Friday night.  Follow this link to the full schedule and more information.   Even if you don’t make any of the quilts this time, you’ll learn about color and choosing fabrics and have fun in the process, so come join us!

~ Joyce

This week’s demo is on the Quilter’s FabriCalc.  This is one of those gadgets that you just shouldn’t be without!  It is SO EASY to calculate yardages for borders, binding, and backing – not to mention *sashing* – that alone makes it worth the price (and it’s 10% off through Sunday!).  I’ve put together a little cheat sheet on the most commonly used functions, and now even my most techno-phobic staff are loving it.  Come check it out!  Demos on Saturday at 11 and 2, Sunday at 2.