Sweet Home Quilt Co.

When planning my trips to Quilt Market, I try to arrange some girlfriend time with friends that I only get to see a couple of times a year. I arrived in Houston a day early this time and met up with Kelly Ann Richardson, owner of Kelly Ann’s Quilting in Warrenton, VA, and Roseann Kermes, owner of Rosebud’s Cottage in White Bear Lake, MN. We headed out for an afternoon of fun in Spring, Texas.

Old Town Springis a quaint little turn of the century railroad town filled with cute shops and restaurants.

Beautiful gardens everywhere you looked.

Anyone know what these are? Some kind of fern, I think…I wonder if they would grow in Georgia?

Good thing I was flying home – I would have loved to do some shopping here! I have a proven “black thumb” but I’m a sucker for beautiful plants and flowers.

A cute little bottle tree; look at the color of the building – don’t they call that orchid?

This cute little shop was, unfortunately, closed, but the rusty bicycle out front reminded me of Sweet Home!

We didn’t try any of the fried food offerings…fried Snickers…who knew?

The old houses turned into shops were great.

My favorite find of the day…this place was for rent! Wouldn’t it make a fantastic quilt shop? Too bad it’s about 700 miles too far from home…not a good commute!

A fun afternoon with great friends! Can’t wait to do it again!

~Melisa

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Houston, TX

It is really hard to find a few minutes of quiet time to do a blog post, but I have a few minutes between my 8AM lecture (!?!?!?) and the opening of the market floor so I wanted to give you a quick recap of yesterday.

The day before quilt market opens is always dedicated to Schoolhouse, which is basically an all day series of lecture/demo/infomercials from vendors, manufacturers and designers. It is a great opportunity to get a sneek peek at new products and glean ideas for the shop, but it is also exhausting…sort of like taking a full load of classes in college and having back-to-back classes all day…learning is hard work!!!

Here are just a few pictures from my day…

Aren’t these beaded ornaments gorgeous? Paula Nadelstern did a session showcasing her new collection, Patternista, which was used to make these no sew ornaments. I’m thinking we may need to play with some beads and sequins!

Schoolhouse presenters do demos for the shop owners just like you’ll often see in the shop…

Love seeing the different projects from the new fabric collections…

Hoffman Bali Pops were the focus here…

Ended the day at Sample Spree, which is our opportunity to buy ready-made shop samples and products we want to try without having to buy a wholesale minimum quantity. The line stretched as far as you could see in two directions at 8PM…by 8:03 all of those people were inside the ballroom!

Eleanor Burns talking about her new book.

How stinkin’ cute are these pincushions?

A little late night girlfriend time is always in order, and a great way to end a long, tiring day!

Stay tuned for more market reports!

~Melisa

Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Houston, TX

The laminate fabrics available today are fun to sew with, and almost as easy as sewing with regular cotton fabric. This video gives some great tips for sewing with laminates as well as easy instructions for inserting a zipper into a cute travel bag.

 

Check out our selection of laminates and whip up a few of these cute travel bags for Christmas gifts. And don’t forget our great selection of colorful zippers from Atkinson Designs to coordinate with your choice of fabric.

Melisa

Our retreat was designed to offer plenty of time for everyone to work on their own projects, but we also offered an optional mystery quilt project and challenge, which many of the ladies participated in. We provided kits for the mystery quilt project in Fall and Christmas versions so no one would have to agonize over what fabrics to use.

The mystery project was small and only had four steps…we had pre-cut most of the kit fabrics so all their time wouldn’t be spent on the cutting.

Even so, intense concentration was called for…Leiann is in her own little world!

This is Janet with her Christmas version…all complete except for the borders!

Risa changed up the setting for her Fall version so she could use it as a table topper. Just two side borders and it will be finished!

Our “Bag of Parts” Challenge was a little more intense. Participants received a kit containing block parts…squares, rectangles, triangles, etc…and they had to use all the parts in their project. Here Debbie and Brenda are collaborating on a possible block layout.

These were a few of the blocks Mellie made at the shop to test the block cuts…

You can see what a variety of results came out of those little bags! (They all had the same parts, just different fabrics.)

Doris was our Viewer’s Choice winner! Her prize was a 12-piece collection of Auriful threads from designer Pat Sloan.

Everyone got a little package of fabric-covered tacks (all handmade by moi!) and Risa won a fat quarter bundle because her package contained the one lone ORANGE tack!

No, Vicki isn’t modeling a new look…that’s an ice pack on her neck in the picture on the left…we thought we’d found a new use for the amazing Wonder Clips, but the ice was a little too heavy. Vicki ended up wrapping the ice pack in her retreat pillowcase and clipping it around her neck…worked like a charm! Quilters are very resourceful in the face of necessity!

I personally hate wearing a name tag, so we made little chalkboard painted treat baskets for everyone and wrote their names in chalk, which were placed on their tables before they arrived. No one had to worry about not getting a good seat because there wasn’t a bad seat in the house!

The view out my rear window as I drove away Sunday afternoon…a perfect ending to a perfect weekend!

Melisa

Pretty quilts to share with you…

 

Annette made this great Snowball quilt for a family friend.

Cathy was on a roll during her summer break and finished off these great quilts that will be gifts for friends.

Joyce shared this fun quilt made with the Polka Dot Garden collection from In the Beginning Fabrics.

Margo shared this fabulous swap quilt that she made with her quilting group, The Crows! I know the Crows and they all do the most amazing work…this quilt was unbelievable!

Another block swap quilt from Margo.

Sally brought this quilt in to show me because of how much I love working with wool. This quilt was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! It is a Primitive Gatherings pattern, but Sally had truly made it her own with little personal touches, and her stitchery was to die for…words just can’t explain how marvelous this quilt is! Here’s a close-up of the zinnias block…my favorite flower!

Don’t they look real!!!!

Melisa

Personally, I didn’t get much any quilting done at retreat since I managed to leave the power cord for my machine at home! I brought the extension cord and I thought it was still attached…NOT! I did manage to do a little handwork, but there was plenty of work getting done by everyone else…

Debbie worked on putting together her niece’s wedding quilt.

Gwen auditioned backings for her Jelly Roll Race quilt top, and eventually decided to make a quilt from one of the potential backings…it’s a cheater piece that she added borders to…

The Jelly Roll Race quilt will get a plain backing!

Mary had to get creative with her setting triangles when she ran out of the orange fabric.

Peggy made five bags this weekend to take on a trip to Chicago next week.

Doris’ version of a cover quilt from McCall’s magazine…the church even has stained glass-looking windows!

Here’s Donna hiding behind this great “Georgia” quilt she made for her sister-in-law. We had a few Georgia Bulldogs fans in the room who really coveted this quilt!

In between projects, Peggy managed to find a little snack!

Impromptu teaching moments and quick demos happened all weekend! We learned some great techniques…like making hexagons from a circle without templates or papers!

Millie officially hates pinwheels now!

Next up, pictures of our mystery quilt project and Bag of Parts Challenge.

Melisa

Sadly, our Runaway Quilter’s Retreat is behind us, but we have so many wonderful memories and new friends made during the weekend that I can’t really be too sad. I don’t think I could have asked for our first retreat to have gone any better…the weather was perfect, the facility was fabulous, the food was delicious, and most of all, we had the greatest group of quilters there that you’d ever have the pleasure to meet!

This gives you an idea of what a wonderful quilting space we had…there are two rows behind where I’m standing. Everyone had plenty of room to spread out.

We enjoyed a nice comfy lounge/dining area with beautiful murals on the walls. This facility is part of a Wildlife Management Area so there is an emphasis on the outdoors. I stood at the door Saturday morning talking on the phone to Mike and watched an 8-point buck emerge from the woods and walk across the parking lot toward me…magnificent! Several of the ladies reported seeing herds of deer, foxes and racoons…and you wouldn’t believe how peaceful and quiet it was…outside, at least!

Meal times were always fun…the food was delicious and plentiful, but best of all, none of us had to cook it!

From our “Taste of Mexico” buffet…

Saturday night we enjoyed a “Death by Chocolate” buffet complete with chocolate fountain. There were marshmallows, pound cake, bananas, apples, and pretzels for dipping, along with chocolate cake, chocolate chip pecan bars, brownies, chocolate bark…chocolate, chocolate, chocolate! The whole group was totally wired after all the chocolate we consumed…resulting in this…

Good thing they share the same taste in music!

More to come…our Mystery Quilt project and Bag of Parts Challenge!

Melisa

It’s a new month and all of you PhD students know what that means, right? Time to put September’s project away and start working on your next assignment. I’ll get to that in a minute, but first, a little business to take care of…namely, progress reports from September!

We had three students report in this week with finishes (!) for the month! Melanie brought in a quilt that she’d made for a friend who is ill…I didn’t have my camera available the day she brought the quilt for Show & Tell, but she’ll give us a picture at graduation. Her #3 project was listed as:

3. Me and my sister charm squares quilt – finish quilting, bind and label

Great job finishing the project, Melanie, and I know your friend will cherish the quilt you made for her!

Leiann caught me on a good day camera-wise, and this is the lap quilt she finished piecing:

I know she’s been working on this project a while because it was a fabric collection we had in the shop not long after we opened…six years ago! But it’s done and off to the quilter now, and it is truly beautiful. I remember that I wasn’t especially fond of the fabric collection when we had it, but seeing this project makes me wish I had some of the fabric in my stash! Leiann’s #3 project was listed as:

3. Trip Around the World

Great job, Leiann!

Barb came by with her finished project photographed, but she couldn’t get the pictures downloaded from her camera…so she brought the camera in to show me! A sampler-type project that you’ll get to see at graduation, too! Barb’s #3 Project was listed as:

3. Finish quilting wall hanging from Tallahassee/ quilted and appliqued. Needs to be quilted and finished.

I can’t wait to see this one in person, Barb! Great job…

So three finishes means there are three names in the pot for September’s $25 shop gift certificate. I used the random number generator at random.org, but I couldn’t figure out how to copy and paste the thingy to show you…you’ll just have to take my word for it! The winner of the $25 gift certificate is…..drumroll, please…..Barb Rintamaa! Congratulations, Barb, and great going on finishing September’s project!

Ten “students” registered for the September PhD program, and the winner of the $10 shop gift certificate is….drumroll….Doli Larotunda! Congratulations, Doli!

If you’re reading this blog post and wondering what the heck is this PhD program or if you can’t remember the parameters for the program, you can read my initial post here for all the details. It isn’t too late to sign up, but you must send me an email with your project list to be eligible for the monthly gift certificate giveaways and the graduation ceremony. So go find your five projects and send me the list of project names to info@sweethomequiltco.com and get busy on this month’s project.

So the moment you’ve all been waiting for…

October Project Assignment":

Project # 1

Time’s a wastin’…get busy!

Melisa