Sweet Home Quilt Co.

Don’t know why, but the shadow-y photo on the right is one of my favorites from all that I took! This was Day One, about 8AM, and the beautiful sunshine and mild temperatures promised a great day ahead!

As soon as it warms up just a bit more, I’ll be planting flowers with the old bicycle…right now it is covered in grapevines!

I know, I know…it’s a “gender-neutral” mannequin…but it was the illusion I was after! This was a Popsicle Sticks (Atkinson Designs) quilt made with Tonga Treats, and we had no more wall space to hang it! I added a zipper flower “belt” and a little bling around the neck to complete the look! So I wouldn’t make the cut on Project Runway…I haven’t quit my day job…yet!

Cathy did a great job with our Quilt Book Library…that’s Melville Dewey you see up there…as in Dewey Decimal System! He had all sorts of quotable things to say to our hoppers!

A couple of our free-standing demo boards – I loved watching customers’ faces for the “Aha” moment!

…we had a “fierce” teacher in the classroom…Gwen was stern but helpful to all our shop hop friends, making sure they followed the “Rules of our School!” Her biggest thing was #9…Don’t Spit! You can see our big chalkboard on the front porch, welcoming hoppers with our demo/lecture schedule.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my little shop hop picture tour of Sweet Home! I’ve still got pictures of all the shops’ quilts and they are wonderful…stay tuned, more to come!

Melisa

We’ve closed the books on the 2011 Greater Atlanta Quilt Shop Hop, and from all indications it was a huge success. Our numbers indicate more than 1100 people participated, and everyone agreed a fun time was had by all! The shop owners met this morning to select the prize winners, and I know everyone is anxious to hear who won our great prizes:

Shari Parris of Grovetown, GA was our Grand Prize Winner. Shari won a $100 gift certificate to each of the 11 shops – an $1,100 value.

Bettye Stilley of Jacksonville, FL was the winner of our Second Prize – a Baby Lock “Grace” sewing machine with attachments and Sew Steady Table – a $500 value.

Nancy Shipp of Covington, GA won the Third Prize – a basket of fabric and quilting notions valued at $250.

Each shop also had a Fourth Prize drawing, and the winner of Sweet Home’s drawing was Maria Figueroa of Lawrenceville, GA. Maria won a quilt kit valued at $100.

Congratulations to all of the winners! It is always so much fun when we call each of them and hear their excitement (and in some cases disbelief!) when told they’ve won! It is the highlight of our wrap-up meeting, for sure!

We always put up new displays and samples and spiff up the shop to reflect our theme each year, and this year was no exception. I think we had more new samples than ever before! So I’ll leave you with pictures of our 2011 Shop Hop adventure, and invite you to join us in 2012 for more fun!

          Dr. Seuss was a big hit with shoppers, young and old alike!

Our Special Edition “Georgia” fabric was used as the border on this “Name Game” quilt spelling out GEORGIA, from Fat Quarter Fonts by Atkinson Designs.

Our school lunch trays were fun…we had an apple and a strawberry, corn on the cobb, potatoes and a pepper/cheese sandwich…with milk!

I’ll post more shop hop pictures in a bit as this post is getting a bit picture-heavy…stay tuned!

Melisa

Fun class this weekend with our beginners, who were all pumped up and excited to share their quilt tops…they have all done such great work, and their quilts are coming along nicely!

              Angie                               Charlotte

                   Linda                                                 Mary

                Robyne

Our lesson after Show & Tell was on how to measure and apply borders, and their homework was to apply the inner and outer borders to their quilt tops. I know each quilt is going to look totally different when the borders go on, and I can’t wait to see!

Melisa

We’ve had some wonderful projects shared with us in the last couple of weeks…I know you’ll be inspired!

Barbara made this fabulous oriental panel into a work of art for a wedding gift. She used gold metallic thread to “quilt” it with several hundred French knots, some of which you can see in the close-up photo. It was stunning!

You know my first love is for scrappy quilts…Kay did a wonderful job with this Double T quilt which she recently brought in to share with us.

Pat F. shared her beautiful floral applique quilt all in 30’s prints…it just sings of Springtime!

Peggy A. shared this scrappy quilt with us…it was a Moda kit from a few years back…I think it was called Country Paths or something like that by Fig Tree. Peggy’s mother started this quilt before she died a couple of years ago and Peggy finished it up…beautiful! See the bits of rick rack?

Nancy T. finished up her One Block Wonder and it was “wonder-ful”!!!

Thanks for sharing your beautiful work with us, ladies. You continue to inspire me!

Melisa

One of my most favorite classes to teach is the Day & Night Quilt from Quilt in a Day. I love proving to quilters that they CAN make this quilt which looks so complex, but is actually very easy to make. Plus, I haven’t seen a finished quilt of this design yet that I didn’t just absolutely love. Today’s class did not disappoint…

These are all going to be fabulous quilts when finished…and look how all those points and seams come together perfectly…it’s magical! Great job Kathleen, June, Ruthanne, and Donna…I’m looking forward to seeing your finished quilts very soon…hint, hint!

Melisa