Sweet Home Quilt Co.

Whee! It has been a wild, wild afternoon here at Sweet Home! Apparently, a local business was robbed and the perpetrator (I just love using “cop speak”!) decided he’d hide out in the neighborhood behind us. We’ve had the doors at the shop locked all afternoon, and in between customers I’ve been mostly watching out the windows at the police activity in the neighborhood with an ear tuned to the sound of several helicopters hovering overhead. We even got to see the city’s newest officer, a bloodhound, in action! Unfortunately, the robber was not caught, which meant Mike wouldn’t allow me to stay at the shop by myself after we closed so I couldn’t get finished with this post. My son dropped off my granddaughter and grandson after work so I’ve been playing Go Fish (10,000 times!!!), sword fighting, and watching Prancer with them all evening. They have just gone home, so finally, a minute of peace and quiet to get this done!!!  It is still Friday, so technically, I’m not late yet!

The last Friday Favorite giveaway of the year was apparently not as popular as the other Friday Favorites – only 26 comments this time! I guess there aren’t many applique enthusiasts among my blog readers! That is good news for this week’s winner, though. The random generator thingy at random.org selected comment number 11 – Leiann (no blog)! Congratulations, Leiann, you’ll have some great designs in this book with which to practice your new applique skills.

I will begin First Friday Favorite giveaways in January so stay tuned. I hope you’ll stick around and keep up with what’s happening at Sweet Home Quilt Co. even without the weekly giveaways! I’m enjoying getting to know you all!

I guess I was right about last week’s giveaway fabric being an “unknown” to many people. It seemed just about every comment mentioned not having seen the fabric before! If you missed it, check out last week’s Friday Favorite  post here. And the lucky winner of the one yard of yumminess is Happy Cottage Quilter.  Congratulations, Jocelyn!   (If you aren’t Jocelyn and you really must have this fabric, we still have some in stock and will be happy to send it to you!)

This week’s Friday Favorite giveaway will be the last for the year. Remember that in January, we’ll move to a First Friday Favorite format – that means there will be a giveaway on New Year’s Day!

This week I picked a book for the giveaway. A Gathering of Days by Elisa Wilson of Elisa’s Backporch has both quilt and home decor projects included along with yummy recipes. And before I hear about those of you who don’t “do” applique, let me encourage you to at least try it! The projects in this book are all fusible applique, which couldn’t be easier, and a perfect way to try applique if it is new to you. And if you’re an experienced applique enthusiast, these designs are easily adapted to hand or machine applique techniques.

Here’s how the Friday Favorite giveaway works:

• Leave a comment for one entry.
• Leave a comment and post about the giveaway on your blog and receive 3 entries.
• Leave a comment and add us to your blogroll or become a follower of my blog and receive 5 entries.

Remember to leave a link to your blog and/or an email address so we can contact you if you win! I’ll announce the winner in the next Friday Favorite post!  Good luck!

I am really enjoying visiting the blogs of those of you who’ve taken time to comment. I can spend hours and hours blog hopping, and I am inspired over and over again with each blog that I visit. Thanks, also, to those who’ve become a follower of Sweet Home Quilt Co.’s blog.

I hope all of you in the U.S.  had a terrific Thanksgiving holiday yesterday! All of our kids were scattered here and yon, so it was just me and Mike enjoying a rare, quiet day at home … I didn’t go out of the house all day long! BLISS!

The winner of last week’s Friday Favorite giveaway (the five patterns from ModaU) is Brenda. Yay Brenda! Be sure to visit her blog when you get a chance.  And thanks for the empathy re: my tech support issues from last week! Luckily, the issue was corrected relatively quickly – it’s just the aggravation and inconvenience that were so annoying!

One of my most favorite Christmas fabric lines from the collections we’ve had this year is one called “Winter Welcome” by Wilmington Studios. The focus print of this line is a beautiful Victorian-esque scenic print that has proven to be perfect for large-scale patterns and even borders. This was a very small line of fabric and it probably isn’t one that a lot of people have seen, so this week’s giveaway is one yard of the Winter Welcome scenic print to add to your stash of Christmas fabric.

Here’s how the Friday Favorite giveaway works:

• Leave a comment for one entry.
• Leave a comment and post about the giveaway on your blog and receive 3 entries.
• Leave a comment and add us to your blogroll or become a follower of my blog and receive 5 entries.

Remember to leave a link to your blog and/or an email address so we can contact you if you win! I’ll announce the winner in the next Friday Favorite post!  Good luck!

This will be the last weekly Friday Favorite giveaway; instead I’m going to change it to “First Friday Favorite” and do a monthly giveaway on the first Friday of the month. I think I’ve cleaned out most of the good stuff that was hidden away in the storage room! Since next week begins a new month, there will be a “First Friday Favorite” giveaway next week so be sure to come back and check it out.

Here’s hoping you have lots of leftovers for the weekend so you don’t have to cook, and if you were out shopping in the Black Friday crowds today, I hope you found everything you were looking for!!!

I know, I know, I’m very very late posting today, but it IS still Friday so technically I’m not late! But really, it wasn’t my fault. It seems that AT&T upgraded my DSL service yesterday and managed to mangle not only my website and internet access, but my email accounts, too! I have resisted this upgrade for over a year because I knew suspected this might be the result. But they happened to call last week and got Mike on the phone with the promise of a “free” DSL upgrade and he said “sure, go for it!”  So that “free” upgrade has cost me about 10 hours worth of headache and frustration trying to get the mess straightened out. I so hate tech support issues!!! But in all fairness, I will say that the young lady at AT&T Tech Support who helped me was very courteous and patient, even in the face of my extreme frustration.  Did I mention how I hate tech support issues??? (For those who don’t know, that was my life for 20 years before I opened the quilt shop – I thought I had left all that behind!)

Anyway, I digress. What you’re really here for, I know, is to find out who won last week’s Friday Favorite giveaway, right? It was a backpack made from the Dandelion Girl collection by Fig Tree Quilts, remember? OK, OK, the winner is JoyP!  Congratulations, Joy, I’ll contact you by email.  You have to go take a look at Joy’s blog to see the pictures of the biggest cat I have ever seen! Fred is his name, I think! Amazing!

Moving on to this week’s giveaway, I’m still in cleaning mode around here and I ran across some patterns that were left over from our ModaU Club a while back.  There are only four patterns shown in the picture, but there are actually five in the giveaway. I found another one after I had already taken the picture and I was too lazy busy to go back and take another picture. The 5th pattern is also a ModaU pattern, and it is called Hearts Aflutter, designed for a panel but can be modified to use without a panel, too. You’ll just have to trust me – it is a cute pattern, too!

Oh yea, the pattern on the left is a “Swatches” pattern that actually includes a set of 2 1/2″ swatches from Moda’s Chocolat fabric collection – remember that one? Another one of my favorites from a while back …

Here’s how the Friday Favorite giveaway works:

• Leave a comment for one entry.
• Leave a comment and post about the giveaway on your blog and receive 3 entries.
• Leave a comment and add us to your blogroll or become a follower of my blog and receive 5 entries.

Remember to leave a link to your blog and/or an email address so we can contact you if you win! I’ll announce the winner in the next Friday Favorite post!  Good luck!

I hope you all have a fun weekend planned. I’m planning to go to a Holiday Celebration in a neighboring town on Sunday afternoon – can’t wait. I’ll share pictures next week.  Go quilt something …

FINALLY! I’ve made it back to blogland to post the Friday Favorite winner from last week’s giveaway, and to share a new Friday Favorite with you! What a day! Thank goodness for great employees who understand delayed payroll checks!;  happy, sharing customers who know just when to bring in a treasured show and tell to distract me; and a super-fantastic web host who jumps right in to figure out a problem even though they are on the other side of the world (the United Kingdom to be exact!)  A significant glitch with our website consumed my attention this morning, but happily the problem has been identified and even better – fixed!!!  So on to what you’re really here for – the giveaway winner.

Last week, our Friday Favorite was an oldie, but goodie that I found stashed away at the shop – a selection of Cinnamon Stars from Fig Tree Quilts for Moda.  And the winner is Anita Amodeo!  Congratulations, Anita! (Be sure to go over and visit Anita’s cute, cute blog, too!)

Since you all seemed to LOVE Fig Tree, I found another Fig Tree product that I decided to share this week. In addition to fabric collections, Moda also has a division called Moda Home, which has ready-made items that are sold not only to quilt shops but also to gift shops and boutiques. Some items feature Moda’s fabric collections and others are more theme-based. We do special orders from Moda Home for our customers, but I don’t generally stock Moda Home items in the shop. I did find, however, a special order piece that the customer never picked up so it is time for it to have a new home.

The Friday Favorite this week is a Moda Home backpack made from the wovens in Fig Tree Quilts’ Dandelion Girl fabric collection.  (This one is in soft yellows, sage green and apricot colors whereas the one shown in the picture features the aqua colorway.)  A perfect everyday tote for yourself, or that favorite pre-teen or teen girl in your life!

If you’ve been following my Friday Favorite posts then you know the drill, but just in case you’re new here, the giveway works like this:

• Leave a comment for one entry.
• Leave a comment and post about our giveaway on your blog and receive 3 entries.
• Leave a comment and add us to your blogroll (or tell me we’re already on your blogroll) and receive 5 entries.

Remember to leave a link to your blog and/or an email address so we can contact you if you win! I’ll announce the winner in the next Friday Favorite post!  Good luck!

Have a quilty weekend!

Sorry I’m late posting today – I thought it was Thursday until I looked at my calendar to see what was on the schedule for today and realized it was already Friday! I lost a whole day somewhere this week! And on top of that, I had a class to teach this morning! I had to do some scrambling to catch up, let me tell you!

At any rate, thanks for ALL the comments to last week’s Friday Favorite giveaway; seems everyone wanted that Shangri La fabric and the winner is Pokey! Congratulations, Pokey, and thanks so much to everyone who commented for a chance to win!

Ready for another Friday Favorite giveaway? Remember I said I’d been finding all sorts of forgotten goodies tucked away at the shop? Well, here’s another “oldie but goodie” that needs a new home!

This is Cinnamon Stars by Fig Tree Quilts for Moda, and it is probably 3 or 4 years old! Once again, I’m sure we cut this for a project of some sort (loooong forgotten now!) but surely it will spark someone’s imagination! If I didn’t already have so many projects in the queue I’d keep this one for myself. The giveaway includes 65 – 5×5 inch charms, plus 3/8 yard of the gold and 1 3/8 of the large brown floral. If you missed adding Cinnamon Stars to your stash the first time around, now is your chance! Aren’t you glad I’ve been in a “cleaning mood?!?!?”

Here’s how the giveaway works – help us spread the word and get more chances to win!

• Leave a comment for one entry.
• Leave a comment and post about our giveaway on your blog and receive 3 entries.
• Leave a comment and add us to your blogroll (or tell me we’re already on your blogroll) and receive 5 entries.

Remember to leave a link to your blog and/or an email address so we can contact you if you win! I’ll announce the winner in the next Friday Favorite post!  Good luck!

Just in time for Halloween, the winner of last week’s Friday Favorite Spooky Ghost kit is:

1. Diana Says:
   October 23rd, 2009 at 6:26 PM What a great wall hanging. I have a wall that needs covering. Would love to ave an entire year to finish, should be enough time.

Diana, I don’t have an email for you so you’ll need to contact me with your snail mail address so I can get your kit off to you. Congratulations!

We’ve started to do a little preparation for end of year inventory, and we’re finding stuff we didn’t know we still had – great stuff, too! We never want to count more than we have to at inventory time, so I’ll be giving away some of these “finds” over the next few weeks so they’ll have new homes before we have to do inventory! Thus, the Friday Favorite this week is an oldie, but goodie!

It was a “treat” (get it, Halloween = treat – never mind!) to find a box of kit leftovers of Moda’s Shangri La collection from 3 Sisters. I think this line was from about 18 months ago and we had put aside some charm packs and yardage for extra kits that somehow got shoved to the back of the shelf; I don’t even remember what the kit was now.  Not quite vintage, just a little aged (but not nearly as old as some of the stuff in my stash!) and it blends perfectly with the newest 3 Sisters collection, Glacè, which we still have in stock.

The Friday Favorite giveaway this week is for not one, but two charm packs and a one-and-a-quarter-yard cut of the large focus print as shown above. Enough for a small project, but you could always add to it from the Glacè line if you want to make something bigger – I’m telling you the two collections are perfect together!

Here’s how the giveaway works – help us spread the word and get more chances to win!

• Leave a comment for one entry.
• Leave a comment and post about our giveaway on your blog and receive 3 entries.
• Leave a comment and add us to your blogroll and receive 5 entries.

Remember to leave a link to your blog and/or an email address so we can contact you if you win! I’ll announce the winner in the next Friday Favorite post!

First, let me apologize for being late with this week’s Friday Favorite. My back is giving me fits and sitting at the computer has been almost impossible. This will be short and sweet.

The winner of last week’s Friday Favorite book, Designer Quilts: Great Projects from Moda’s Best Fabric Artists, is #10:

1. Leisa Says:
   October 19th, 2009 at 9:15 PM edit o.k let try this again, i did not win the fabric last week. so let see how this one will go. Another 1-800-GOT-TO HAVE IT. i am a big fan of moda.

Congratulations, Leisa! I’ll send you an email!

This week’s Friday Favorite is one of my favorite kits that we’ve done this year, and while it will be too late for this Halloween, you’ll have a head start on next Halloween! We only have a few of these left, so I thought I’d give one away!

This little kit includes everything you need to make this adorable wallhanging (except the thread). The ghost, stars and moon are wool, while the background, borders, binding and backing are cotton fabrics. It works up quickly and is just sooooo cute!

You know the drill, leave a comment on this post before I post next week’s Friday Favorite and you could be the winner!

I’m off to commune with my heating pad … hope you have a quilty weekend!

Welcome to this week’s Friday Favorite! First things first, though, I need to announce the winner of last week’s Friday Favorite, which was this yummy Aunt Grace 30′s print:

Using the trusty random number generator at random.org, the winner is #6,

Mary on Lake Pulaski Says:

1. October 9th, 2009 at 8:48 PM This is such cute fabric and could be used in so many fun ways. Thanks for having a give away.

Congrats, Mary! Send me your snail mail address and I’ll get a yard of this yumminess in the mail to you!

Everyone knows I love MODA anything! so this week’s Friday Favorite is a book called Designer Quilts: Great Projects from Moda’s Best Fabric Artists, published by Kansas City Star Books.

In this unique book, nineteen of Moda’s star fabric designers are brought together to share their lives, talents, and 12 beautiful quilts along with 4 special projects created just for this book. The designers’ biographies and photos offer an unusual behind-the-scenes look at the faces behind the fabrics.  Some of the designers include Alma Allen & Barb Adams, Lynne Hagmeier, Jan Patek, Laurie Simpson and Terry Clothier Thompson to name just a few. Here are some of the featured projects in the book:

This is a terrific book, very interesting to read about the designers, and the projects are enticing, too!

You know the drill – leave a comment before Friday, Oct 23, and you could win a copy of this great book for your quilting library. Mention the giveaway on your blog and leave another comment that you’ve done so and I’ll put your name in the hat a second time! Remember, I have to have a way to contact you if you win so be sure to put your blog address or your email address in your comment!