Book Signing Dec 6

Exciting news! Joy Neal Kidney (my cousin) will be in the shop Friday evening, December 6, during the Adel Holiday Open House for a book signing of her just released book, Leora's Letters.

This is a true story based on her Dallas Co, Iowa family's WWII letters, documenting a story of love and loss.

If you are looking for a great gift or just a great read, this is it.

Read more and order a book on Amazon now or get your copy here Dec 6 evening.

Small Business Saturday

Small Business Saturday - what's it all about. Here is an excerpt for Farm Bureau Financial Service. They say it well:

For small business owners, their business is not just a business. To them, it is an extension of who they are. Giving the local businesses within your community a chance is crucial to not only their survival, but to give them an opportunity to win you over as a customer. 

This year, step out of your comfort zone and stop by your local bakery, restaurant, coffee shop, or boutique and support your neighborhood store rather than shopping a national chain. Shopping local matters because it affects the entire community. More money spent at local stores means more money stays within the community. This not only helps schools and other organizations through taxes, but small businesses are usually the organizations that support local sports teams, charities and events. The community wins as a whole, but the individuals that took a chance and made their dream a reality win as well. 

And I might add - your local quilt shop. Visit us in Adel Saturday. We have a few Shop Local Totes to use for bulkier purchases. Better come get some batting - - or lots of fabric - - - or lots and lots and lots of thread.  

Shop Local Saturday Special - Robinson Anton thread bogo - Buy one, get one at half price.

Thanksgiving

"Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has plenty; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some." Charles Dickens

We will be closed Thursday to celebrate Thanksgiving with family and friends.  We hope you do the same and maybe sneak in a little quilting this weekend!

Quilters Trek

The Row x Row nation-wide shop hop has had a big and needed refreshing:
New Name - Quilters Trek
New Dates - May 22 to August 31
New Themes - Colors rather than objects - This year is Blue
More Prizes - Each shop gives 2 bundles of 15 FQ each
New Patterns - Now 9" divisible units rather than rows
New Fabric Tokens - Little fabric patches that will be hidden in shop kits like Cracker Jack prizes.

November Quilt Circle

We met in the shop on the third Monday of November. After sharing family news and quilt shop news, we started around the circle with our Show and Share.

These pictures of future quilters are Margaret's Twin Great Grandchildren.

A baby quilt made by Margaret and her church group of quilters for charity.

Margaret's Free Quilt.

Trish's own design.

Trish's Bermuda Triangle

These two slackers showed up with no name tags so made them from scraps of paper. HAHAHA. 

Sue is making Free Potholders - using what she has to make potholders.

Abbie's charity quilt.

Abby's almost Free quilt made after an AQS class.

The back.

Abbie showed how she cuts a slit in an empty large thread spool and then uses it to wrap and store binding strips.

Deanna's Bermuda Triangle. Just one more section to go on these Bermuda BOM quilts.

Deanna's Taster's Mystery Tree.

Kathy's Taster's Mystery Tree.

A baby boy quilt.

With Minion's in the quilting pattern.

Kathy shared her plans to do the Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt, using these paint chips as inspiration.

 

Gloria is making potholder table favors for a woman's luncheon.

Deb's Free Quilt! Done!!

And the Free back (using what she has)

Flo's quilt made with a curvy ruler.

And her Free baby quilt.

Flo's Stone Hedge quilt.

And this lovely number by Flo.

Nancy's mini quilt.

And her dolly quilt.

Nancy also shared this adorable nine patch.

Jackie O and friends are making a dozen Quilts of Valor for high school classmates.

After a demo of making these hexagons with interfacing and a fun way to machine quilt, it was time to draw for prizes and enjoy a treat.

Jackie O brought these yummy bars to share - Rice Krispie Cappuccino Bars - Very yummy. Thanks, Jackie.

Plus our annual November Pumpkin Bars.

As always, it was a lovely time spent with my Quilt Circle of Friends.

Thank you to Jackie O for taking all of these pictures.

Sunday Sewday

This was my Sunday Sewday. Using a 4" Hexagon ruler (with 2" sides) I cut 10 hexagons from fabric and 10 - 4" squares of cotton fusible interfacing. Stitched the two together, made a slit in the interfacing and turned the unit inside out.

I then arranged and fused them into this tree, leaving a small space between each.

When I was ready to layer and quilt, I used metallic thread and quilted across each hexagon, stitching in the ditch between on my way to the next hexagon. I kept doing that until each hexagon had been criss-crossed three times and there was quilting between each hexagon and around the outer edge.

Then I did a straight line echo of the tree to machine quilt the background. I used my small ruler and chalk o liner to mark 1 1/2" spaces, marking as I went.

This was a very fun project with lots of diversity. Possible design layouts for the hexies are endless and, no raw edges so no machine applique required.

I made and quilted this whole runner in about 2 hours. Fun!

Here we go again!

Time to mark your calendar with all of the 2020 Open Sew Dates at the Adel Library. We start each day at 10 am and sew until the last stitch of the day is made!

Dec 12 & 13

Jan 23 & 24

Feb 13 & 14

Mar 12 & 13

April 16 & 17

May 14 & 15

June 18 & 19

July 16 & 17

Aug 20 & 21

Sept 17 & 18

Oct 15 & 16

Nov 19 & 20

Dec 17 & 18

Warp Up

It's been a big week or so let's wrap it up:

I returned Wednesday after a nice visit with these two in Texas

Next up was Open Sew at the Adel Library.

And the next day was Sisters of the Cloth!

One of the just-for-fun things we did in Sisters of the Cloth was to build a Mystery Quilt Block. Here are some of the blocks at step 2. In class Saturday, they received the instructions for step 3, the last part of this block. Now they know it's a Snails Trail.

We also wrapped up our instruction on our Grandmother's Dancing Flower blocks with patterns and kits for this quilt.

These kits, originally saved for SOC members, are now available to all.

Next up was our speaker, Sue Kluber. A fantastic fiber artist, it was a treat to listen to her and to see her trunk show.

And, of course, Show and Share

Kathy's holiday tree.

Margaret's red and white quilt, made by her grandmother and hand quilted by Margaret.

Jenny saw these pretty shavings in her sewing trash and decided to rescue them for an ornament.

And this is Jenny's Bermuda Triangle - - Almost done!

Suzanne shared this special quilt, made for her by her grandma.  Several years ago, Suzanne went through breast cancer and wrapped up in this quilt after treatments. What could feel better!

Suzanne's mother was a guest, all the way from Texas. She shared this pretty red and white quilt. Each block is a quilting cartoon. Cute.

Kris shared the Grandmother Blocks she has made and shared her idea to make one into a Sun with rays and place it in the upper corner of her quilt.

I always enjoy seeing guests working on handwork while we present the program. You know what they say about idle hands. We provide fabric, templates and supplies to make Grandmother's Flower blocks but some bring their own stitching to do.

Binding

Knitting

And making hexagons for Grandmother's Flower blocks.

We close as with any good gathering with refreshments and door prize drawing.

Thank you to all of our special friends and customers that gather with us for this 3 series class each year. I have already started booking speakers for next year!  This is open to all. Registration is $50 for all three classes.

2020 dates - July 18, Sept 19 and Nov 21. If you have a program or speaker referral, we are always listening.