Sweet Home Quilt Co.

OK, Mr. Brown was VERY good to us today – it’s like Christmas morning when he rolls in the big MODA boxes! So many of you have been asking about some of these, I thought I’d better get the word out right away – and don’t start calling me ‘Bad Melisa’ – I’m just doing what you asked!  There were lots of goodies in those boxes! Take a look – -

Rouenneries from French General is here, finally! Well, the pre-cuts are here at least – the fabric won’t be here for about another month. We have fat quarter bundles, layer cakes and jelly rolls.

New from Minick & Simpson – Wiscasset. Hey, Pat, are you listening??? I am wishing I had ordered more of this line – it is soooo gorgeous!

We have fat quarter bundles, layer cakes, jelly rolls and charm packs of this yumminess!

Here’s another one that surprised me – Aster Manor from 3 Sisters. Soft, soothing colors in pinks, browns and creams with a POP of red.

We got the full Monte here – fat quarter bundles, jelly rolls, honey buns and charm packs are available.

The latest in Moda’s Collection for a Cause series – Alliance, supporting The Alliance for American Quilts. This collection is a reproduction of an antique quilt dated 1830-1840.

Again, the whole shebang arrived – fat quarter bundles, honey buns, jelly rolls and charm packs.

Wonder of wonders, I have already uploaded all of these to the website, too. Check under New Arrivals-Moda. Now you all know how it is with Moda, I can’t re-order and I probably should have ordered more than I did. Nonetheless, when they’re gone, they’re gone – at least at Sweet Home. WOW, that rhymes! Can you tell it’s been a loooonnnggg day?!?!?

Yesterday I was invited to “play” with the Silver Thimble Quilt Club at their annual Summer Stitch-in.  I arrived a little early (but there were others much more anxious than I was apparently who arrived well before me!) and it took me nearly an hour to get unpacked and set up to sew. I think I mentioned that I took far more than I could ever possibly get done in 12 hours, but I was optimistic. I did get a little done, in between the laughter and the eating and the visiting with friends. Unfortunately I can’t show you what I accomplished because it is a mystery quilt that I’m working on with the Batty Babes and I don’t want them to see it yet! Let me just say that I am loving how it is turning out, though.

Pat is offering optional mini projects for the group to work on at various times throughout the week, and Monday’s project from Sweet Home Quilt Co. was the Moda Bake Shop Christmas Stockings.  Each of these little mini Honey Buns makes 3 little stockings, plus a half yard for the backings per box. The technique is Seminole piecing, which is not difficult at all to do, but is something that not a lot of people have done before.  We have a limited number of these kits in the shop.

Somehow I didn’t get any pictures of the group working on their individual stockings, but here’s Pat in her “teaching” mode. She’s a great teacher!

Here’s Pat “threatening” me for taking her picture! Lordy, she scares me! Did you see on her blog where she actually declared “WAR” if I posted an unflattering photo of her??? So no unflattering photos…this time!I think I did get my name on the board for this one, though!

You can see that the entire room was buzzing with the sounds of laughter and conversation amid the whirr of sewing machines. A running tally is kept of the number of projects finished during the retreat and it seems like the total was at five or six when I left yesterday. This group knows how to have fun, but they can turn out the work, too!

Here’s Julie B. showing a fat quarter quilt she’s working on – all it needs is the three borders. I helped her pick out the fabrics for this one, and the green is a little unexpected with the red, white and blue. Doesn’t it look fantastic, though!

Here’s Marie M. with her Dancing Stars quilt on the design wall. I think she still has one more multi-color border to go, but it is looking wonderful! This was a Silver Thimble Quilt Club selection from April, which we kitted at Sweet Home. A couple of kits are still available.

Here’s Teresa W. showing her completed Ring in the New stitchery BOM. This was a BOM from Kathy Schmitz that we offered at Sweet Home last year, and Pat designed the setting exclusively for us. The stitchery is blackwork done on aged muslin. A few kits are still available for this one, also.

Teresa also won the day’s “Princess Prize” drawing, which was a much-coveted notions bag in red and brown. We’ll all be searching all over town to find one of these, I’m sure!

This is a shop sample that I took to share with the group (I actually intended to sew the binding on, but didn’t get to it!) The basket blocks are hand embroidered, set with a variety of scrappy 30′s prints. The quilt is STUNNING in person! We have a limited number of kits available in the shop.

A rousing game of Left Right Center resulted in lots of laughter and a pile of really ugly fat quarters, none of which, I can assure you, came from Sweet Home Quilt Co.!

Julie D. was the lucky winner – see that expression of delight as she looks through the awesome selection she won!!!

I had such a blast with this group of friends – it was just the therapy I needed! Pat goes to great lengths to make sure her retreaters have everything they need or could possibly want – the food, the fun and the learning are all in plentiful supply! I sure hope I get invited back next time…hint, hint!

If you have an opportunity to retreat with other quilters, take advantage of it! Even if you don’t know anyone, trust me, you’ll be fast friends before you know it and you’ll have the best time, I guarantee!

Play time is over, and I’ve got to get back to work. I’ve got lots of things brewing at the shop this week and it won’t happen if I don’t buckle down!

We’ve had lots of customers stop by lately with show and tell, and I knew you’d enjoy seeing their projects. I’ll even show you one that I recently finished!

You’ll recognize Kris who works in the shop several Saturdays a month. She adapted the Little Charmers 2 table runner pattern from Anka’s Treasures into this cute lap quilt, which she made as a wedding gift. She used the Bistro collection from Moda reflecting the couple’s coffee interest. I love how it turned out, and what a great idea to revamp the table runner pattern!

Marty brought her latest finish to share ea rlier in the week – a cute, cute baby quilt of colorful kites on a sky blue background. She had been in the shop not long ago to purchase a backing and we helped her settle on a ‘perfect’ multi-color dots to finish it off. The tails on the kites are 3-D and Marty pointed out that she waited until after the top was quilted to add the tails so that the “windy” quilting pattern would be uninterrupted.

Here’s another cute baby quilt made with one of our pre-cut flannel rag quilt kits. These kits are perfect for a quick gift in a hurry because the squares are already pre-cut so all you have to do is sew, clip and wash!

Kathy brought in her amazing Civil War Diary quilt top to share with us and it is fabulous! Those are six-inch paper-pieced blocks!  She did a terrific job picking out her fabrics and piecing the blocks – this was her first experience with paper-piecing, too! The black pinstripe sashing that she used to pull the blocks together is the perfect frame for these incredible blocks. Kathy attended a six-month class at the shop last year which focused on the Civil War Diary Quilt and she’s the first to finish her project. I am so thrilled that she finished it although she said it would be a while before she quilted it because she’s sick of looking at it!

Last up is a table runner I finished as a gift for a friend’s birthday. This is a new pattern I found at Spring Quilt Market from The Teacher’s Pet called Strip Center. It is designed for 1-1/2 inch strips so I used a honey bun from Moda’s Zippity Do Dah collection. I love how it turned out, and I’m working on another one which will be a shop sample. One thing I’m doing differently this time is to use Mary Ellen’s Best Press on the strips before cutting and sewing – I think that will help with the stretching.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this little Show & Tell episode. I love it when our customers bring in their projects to share with us – we don’t often get to see the end result so it is always fun to see how projects turn out. I try to always have my camera charged and close at hand so bring your projects in so we can share them here with all our blog readers!

Tomorrow is a “retreat” day for me. I’m heading over to Grayson to spend the day at Pat’s Summer Stitch-In for the Silver Thimble Quilt Club. I packed far more projects than I’ll ever get done in a day, but hope springs eternal. Maybe I’ll get a little something done anyway! And if I don’t that will be ok, too, I know it will be fun, fun regardless! Hopefully I’ll have pics to share afterward…stay tuned.

The long-awaited Aviary collection by 3 Sisters for Moda has finally arrived! We have the full collection including jelly rolls, honey buns and charms, along with a limited number of kits for the quilt shown below. I’m working on getting these loaded to the website, but they are going fast so if you need some of this beautiful collection, call us or stop by the shop soon before it’s all gone!

Aviary is inspired by vintage prints and field study engravings from a time when the world outside was shared through drawing rather than photographs. Full of detail and texture in a supple palette of pinks, greens, aquas and cream, this refreshing collection is elegant and sophisticated. Classic florals and paislies make this a collection that exemplifies beauty by anyone’s terms.

This quilt features the soft colors of green, blue, pink and ivory floral and tone-on-tone patterns from the Aviary fabric collection. The intricate border is created with Seminole piecing, with appliqued leaves and stems creating a unique design on the multi-patterned background blocks.

Kit contains the pattern and fabric to make the quilt top as shown, including binding. Quilt backing (6 yards) is available as a separate purchase. The kit is packaged in a reusable backpack of woven twill in soft teal and cream colors. Retail $140.00.

Moda’s newest collection of reproduction prints from Howard Marcus is called Legacy—Collection for a Cause. The proceeds from Legacy go to help fund the research to find a cure for Juvenile Diabetes. We have the complete fabric collection, including Charms, Layer Cakes, Jelly Rolls and Honey Buns.  A limited number of Pineapple Sundae kits (shown above) are available along with the Pineapple Ruler by Possibilities. The 65×78 quilt is absolutely breathtaking in the ivory, soft blues, chestnut and double pink fabrics of the Legacy collection. The kit retails for $150.00 and is packaged in a collectible lunchbox tin, and the ruler retails for $11.00.

Come in soon to pick up a kit or yardage to make a beautiful project and support a worthwhile charitable cause at the same time.

over on the Greater Atlanta Quilt Shop Hop blog.  Leave us a comment with your feedback for one entry, and then tell everyone you know to leave a comment and be sure to tell me you sent them. If the winning comment includes your name, you’ll be a secondary winner! And the prizes are too, too cute!

Becky made up the Sweet Treats bags using the Moda Honey Bun Bake Shop box and I’m giving one away (the other I’m keeping on display as a sample in the shop.) And the secondary prize is a Moda Honey Bun Bake Shop box so you can make your own bags. See how cute they are! (click on the pictures to get a better view – sorry I can’t figure out how to make them add to the post correctly! It’s that blog learning curve thing…)

So get thy self on over to the Greater Atlanta Shop Hop blog and leave a comment! Someone’s going to win (two someone’s actually!) and it could be you or you or you or…you get the picture! Go, now, leave a comment and then send all your bloggy friends over to comment, too.

Hope you have some quilty time this weekend!

Melisa

but it’s sure beginning to look like a Sweet Shop to me.  Oh, here it comes, it’s a “Sweet” quilt shop! Aarrgghh! Sorry, I just couldn’t resist. It is looking like a sweet shop around here, though, with new Jelly Rolls, Honey Buns and other “sweet” treats that arrived today.

Let me introduce you to these Moda ”mini” Honey Buns (Sweets Box, $19.99.) Each mini has ten strips 1 1/2-inches by WOF.  (The larger Honey Bun has 40 strips.) The Bake Shop package includes one Aviary mini-HoneyBun (designed by 3 Sisters) and one Spring Magic mini-HoneyBun (designed by April Cornell).

Moda has included a free pattern in each Sweets Box to make a Sweet Treat Bag – each little mini Honey Bun will make one bag. Or make four bags from a full size Honey Bun.

The picture is terrible, but the best I could do on short notice! These are Moda’s new Scrap Bags! You get approximately forty 3 1/2-inch color coordinated selvage strips in each bag – that’s over 3 yards!!! – for just $9.99. These aren’t scraps all from one line of fabric – the key here is that they are “color coordinated” making this a great bargain for scrap quilters.

This time of year I feel real empathy for our UPS man. All of the orders I had on hold until after the dreaded year-end inventory have started to pour in, and he’s definately feeling the strain! I thought I’d give you a look at some of the newest arrivals just to whet your appetite!

First up are new additions to our Black & White selection. Several of these are fun motifs – musical notes and keyboards and even recipe cards! – while others are more graphic and elegant. See the first one on the left? It reminds me of flocked velvet and you don’t realize it’s even cotton until you reach out and touch it! Not shown is a black and white floral that we’ve added to our wide backings selection (just one of several wide backings we’ve recently added.)

Hello Betty is a well-done 40′s retro line from Moda. I see some really cute aprons and totes from this line. We also have jelly rolls and the all new Honey Buns in this line. What’s a Honey Bun? Moda introduced these at Fall Market – little cousin to the 2 1/2-inch Jelly Rolls, Honey Buns are strip rolls just 1 1/2 inches wide. A terrific new sample is in the works with the Hello Betty Honey Buns!

A favorite find from Fall Market  is a new fabric company, StudioE. This premier collection is called Enchantment and it is much softer and more feminine than this picture shows. Beautiful paisleys, florals and stripes in soft pastel colors – can Spring be far behind???  More fun (and different!) samples are in the works using this line.

Just in today (and still in the boxes!) is a fun new line from Sandy Gervais for Moda called  Zippity Do Dah! Reds, blue and cream prints in fun geometrics, florals and funky stripes with a great panel, too. Jelly rolls, Honey Buns, Layer Cakes and charm packs, too, plus two wide backings with this group.

We’ll be working hard in the next few days to get things rearranged in the shop to make room for these new lines, as well as the many others that are due in at any time. We’re moving things around and changing out samples after a thorough cleaning after inventory was done, so the shop is in somewhat of a disarray at the moment. But the fabric is just as beautiful! So overlook the mess, and come see the new stuff!

As Gretchen would say “Bad Melisa is at it again!”