Sweet Home Quilt Co.

I’ve never been the “rolls and soda” person at Thanksgiving, but I’m getting close this year! For the first time in my married life (25 years!) I will not be cooking Thanksgiving at my house. My youngest son, who is a terrific cook by the way, has invited us to his home to have Thanksgiving dinner. All he asked was that I bring the dressing since he’s never made it and he loves my dressing. Now, how could I refuse? Not to mention I’ll get to spend the day with two of my grandies, and NO DISHES!

I’ve just closed the shop for the holiday, and as is my practice, I’m sitting here unwinding just a bit before I head home. I want to take the opportunity to thank my wonderful friends and customers who make it possible for me to live this dream. My wish is that you will all enjoy good food, family, and friends this Thanksgiving. I am thankful to have you all in my life!

–Melisa

And people who hand wash their delicates can’t get enough of feeling soft and smelling great.

Here’s the scoop:  SOAK is gentle on fabrics and is easy to use with no rinsing. SOAK makes whites white again and keeps unfinished projects from distorting and fraying. It’s gentle formulation is fiber-friendly…perfect for hand-knits, raw fibers, spinning – even felting!  SOAK is gentle enough for everything from cashmere and wool to cotton and silk. Available in three fresh, contemporary fragrances that smell great – Flora, Aquae, and Citrus – plus Unscented.  Can’t decide? Also available in 3-piece Starter Kit.

Grab a few bottles of SOAK for your quilting & knitting friends, Secret Sister, Mom & Grandmom and don’t forget a bottle for YOU!

Now for the finishing touch.  Here’s another great gifty idea – SOAK care labels! Butter soft and easy to sew in, these labels work in all your SOAK worthy creations. Each package contains 12 labels with 4 phrases:

• I made this
• Hand knit with love
• Look what I made for you
• Don’t lose me.

While supplies last, get one single label free with the purchase of a 14 oz. bottle of SOAK.

Bulloch Hall Quilt Guild will host Ami Simms for an evening lecture December 8, 2008, 7PM, at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, 10250 Haynes Bridge Road, Alpharetta, GA. Register to attend here. 

Ami has written numerous books including How NOT to Make a Prize Winning Quilt, and is the founder and executive director of the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative. Visit Ami’s website to learn more about her.

 
This is an event you don’t want to miss! I’ll be there – will you?

We are well into the planning for the 10th Annual Greater Atlanta Quilt Shop Hop! The dates have been set, the theme has been chosen, and the nine participating shops are busy making plans for their interpretation of the main theme. Check out my post on the new Greater Atlanta Quilt Shop Hop blog to see what Sweet Home Quilt Co. is up to!

Also be sure to check out the updated website for the Shop Hop. Check back often as each shop will be sharing updates on the blog.

Here’s some eye candy from our friend, Ruthanne, who was mighty busy recently while her daughter, Susie, was in town! She brought four finished projects to share with us. It makes me so happy when quilters finish projects – and bring them back for us to see! We have to live vicariously through our customers sometimes because we just don’t often get time to quilt for ourselves. Great job, Ruthanne (and Susie!).

Ruthanne made her own version of what we affectionately call “The Sheep Quilt!” She added a sheep panel for the center block, and substituted more sheep for the shepherd. “Shepherd’s Fold” pattern from Star of Wonder book by Art to Heart.

A terrific wallhanging Ruthanne made from Kaye England’s Spice Market fabric line.

Ruthanne made the pastel version of our International Mystery Tour quilt from France. (Again, this was a Moda 3 Sisters fabric line whose name I cannot remember!)

Ruthanne’s 4th project was one of our Strip Club offerings, and for some reason the picture I took was too blurry to post! Just trust me, it is beautifully pieced and quilted! My apologies, Ruthanne. Thanks for sharing with us.

Just wanted to quickly share a few of my favorite vendor booths at Market.

Always a favorite, Bonnie Blue Quilts, designer for Marcus Fabrics. Watch for their Basics fabric line to arrive soon.

One of the specific requests I had for Market was to find more stitchery patterns & projects, especially from Australian designers. Hatched and Patched was my favorite find! Their patterns will be in stock soon!

Cindy Taylor Oates is another favorite designer, and we’ve had lots of her books in the shop in the past. Her latest book features robes, and we’ve got the book on order. Watch for a possible class soon, too!

Jo Morton had a terrific booth just packed with yummy goodness! I was never able to catch her in the booth to say hello, but I have ordered several of her new lines for early 2009.

Patty Young’s booth was so eye-catching. Her new fabric line, Andalucia (I think?), is very fresh and bright. Lots of great ideas to be had here.

Another bright, modern booth from designer Sandi Henderson. Made me want to rush home and make little dresses for my granddaughter!

Michael Miller Fabrics always has a fabulous booth, and this year was no exception. Their theme was fairies – check out the forest fairy bed in the next photo. It was amazing! They won an award for their booth design (second place I think) and it was well deserved!

I’ve saved the best for last – our favorite local designer, Silver Thimble Quilt Co.  Pat introduced several new patterns at market, as well as a new block-of-the-month program. The green & black sample in her booth is part of the BOM. Stay tuned for more details.

I’ve just barely scratched the surface, but I’m out of room. I’ve got a few photos of everyone’s favorite – MODA! which I’ll share in a separate post, along with a few sneak peeks of what I ordered! Stay tuned for the last of my market recap.

Our friend Jayne stopped by the shop Friday to share her FIRST quilt with us. It is king-sized (!) and destined for her son’s bed. She did a terrific job. Congratulations Jayne! We can’t wait to see your next project.

My plans for today were pretty simple - go to church with the grandies and spend some time planning for the Batty Babes gathering on Tuesday. (More on the Batty Babes in another post – they are good friends with whom I’ve been quilting every other week since 2000 and you’ll hear a lot about them on this blog.) It is my turn to host, which means it is time to clean house! I confess, housework is one of my least favorite things to do and I only do it when I absolutely have to!

Next on my list of least favorite things to do is yardwork or anything that has to be done outside. I much prefer to be inside pursuing my favorite hobbies! Sometime, though, it just has to be done. I had planned to do a little shrub trimming and sweep the front porch in preparation for the Babes on Tuesday evening. Forget that the grass needs cutting and the leaves need raking! Luckily the Babes know me very well so their expectations aren’t very high! But what I anticipated to be a quick spruce up outside turned into an ordeal that lasted all afternoon.

Sometime last Spring DH noticed a couple of birds starting to build a nest on the front porch. He knocked the nest down several times, but the birds just kept coming back and starting over. I guess he either gave up or forgot about it because one day I noticed the nest was complete, eggs and all! I didn’t feel right about destroying the nest at that point so I just left it alone.

Looks pretty harmless, doesn’t it? Keep in mind that we rarely go in or out the front door of our home – we always use the garage entrance. So today, after not having even opened the front door in months, I very nearly had a stroke when I stepped out onto the front porch! What a mess! The bird’s nest had disintegrated and bird poop was everywhere! I should have taken a photo but it would have been too gross to share. My first thought was to call a friend who owns a pressure washing business and have him come deal with it. No luck – he couldn’t fit us in for at least a week – too late to do me any good. So I bit the bullet and spent several hours trying to clean up the front porch so it would at least be presentable. When I’d nearly finished sweeping I realized that I’d probably been breathing all sorts of toxic particles – ick! My attempts to clean the marks off the porch railings and floor were unsuccessful. I scrubbed with bleach water, floor cleaner, vinegar water and NOTHING would remove those disgusting marks. After about 4 hours I finally called it quits and decided a nap was in order. Thank goodness tomorrow is Monday and I can get back to doing something fun and quilty! Hope you had a better Sunday. And if you have any suggestions for finishing this job, please leave me a comment.

It is hard to believe I’ve been back from Fall Quilt Market almost two weeks! I enjoyed the trip to Houston with Pat (be sure to check out her blog for more Market updates) and Kathy. The 1200 mile drive doesn’t seem nearly as long when you’re sharing it with laughter and fun among good friends! The bad news about this market is that I got deathly ill on Friday night and spent most of the next two days holed up in the hotel – some sort of stomach virus, I guess. I’ll spare you the details, but let’s just say it has been a long, long time since I’ve been that sick! Unfortunately, that means that I didn’t get to do nearly what I needed to do at Market, but I did manage to get a few photos to share with you during what little time I spent on the market floor. 

Setting up for Quilt Market is a HUGE undertaking! Consider that the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston is as big as probably three football fields, and just about every inch is covered with either vendor booths or the quilt exhibits. I thought you might enjoy seeing a few behind the scenes photos of the setup – it is fascinating to watch! Some of these companies have this process down to a science, and others, not so much!

This is the view from Pat’s booth looking down the aisle toward the back of the convention center Friday morning as booth setup was beginning. Imagine 24 aisles that look this way!

Friday afternoon and progress has been made – there’s still a long way to go, though! (Sorry, I should have cropped out that arm – wonder who that belongs to?)

Pat and her “slave” Kathy working hard to get the Silver Thimble Quilt Co. booth setup. In addition to setup, Friday is also Schoolhouse day where many of the vendors do 15 to 30 minute presentations to introduce their new products. So while Pat and Kathy were slaving away at the booth, I was fighting the hordes to get into my chosen schoolhouse sessions. The schoolhouse sessions are invaluable for gleaning new ideas and inspiration, but it is exhausting, too. Beginning at 10AM, there are sessions every 15 minutes up until 5PM. I made it to 24 sessions before my eyes glazed over and my brain shut down!

Pretty obvious they’ve been working hard. Notice Pat has a Diet Coke in one hand and water in the other – must keep the strength up! I wasn’t much help because I was trying to document the process for posterity with my trusty new camera!

Silver Thimble Quilt Co. ready for business!

Here’s an overall view of the market floor. This photo was taken from the second floor through a porthole window and shows maybe one fourth of the market floor!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this behind the scenes view of Quilt Market. It is fun and exciting, but such hard work, too. Just imagine having all these choices to make and a limited budget to spend! Makes the old brain hurt, trust me!

I’ll share pictures of some of my favorite vendor booths in the next post, so stay tuned!

Melisa

Isn’t there a saying about some road being paved with good intentions?? When I made the first post to this blog back in September (!) I fully intended to post at least weekly. Unfortunately, despite my best intentions, that hasn’t happened. I discovered after the first post that the website, which wasn’t ‘quite’ ready for prime time, would be available to all the world if I opened up the blog. So I backed off the blog posts and worked on getting the kinks out of the website. I still have a long way to go, but the website is finally live and thus, so is this blog! Go take a look at the website and let me know what you think. Remember, it is a work in progress but if you find any glitches please shoot me an email so we can get them resolved.

I’ve got loads of updates for you so check back often in the next few days for more posts. I’ll be giving you a Quilt Market recap and a sneak peek of a few things I ordered for your shopping pleasure, as well as sharing a few things that are new in the shop that haven’t made their way onto the website yet. I surely wish I could just wave my magic wand and have all the products show up online; alas, there are a gazillion steps involved in getting things added to the website so it takes more time than I would like! My patience is shorter than my little finger, but I hope your’s is longer! Keep checking back…

Melisa