Moda Block Shuffle

The fabric designers for Moda each submitted blocks for this Block Shuffle. Blocks finish 6". Check back in here each month on the 15th for three blocks. There is a total of 30 blocks plus a finishing pattern. Here are the first three. Enjoy!

Happy Valentines Day!

Beginner's Quilt Class

Beginners Quilting Class is scheduled for Saturday morning, 9 am to noon, February 27 at the Adel Library.

The class will include instruction and hand outs on rotary cutting, 1/4" stitching and pressing. There will also be a review on straight line machine quilting and binding.

Class fee is $35 which includes fabric required for class, notebook and several reference hand outs. Students are required to bring a sewing machine.

Pre-registration is required.

Sunday Sewday

I wanted something to bind during the Super Bowl game so I finished the quilting on this fun panel. This is a replication on fabric of Hoffman's basic batik color chart.

 And I had enough time before the game to finish up 3 more blocks for our Grunge Sampler Block of the Month. If you are not familar with Grunge, it is the semi-solids shown here. Moda has a whole line of Grunge in their basic collection.

This BOM starts in March at just $10 a month.

Good day for soup!

The Adel Library is hosting a soup contest today. Drop by the library Saturday the 13th and vote for your favorite. There will be 9 soups to pick from as well as several desserts, all for a free will offering, 11 am to 1 pm.

New!

This fun fabric is just in. I know of one grandma that is making a baby quilt from this, using the red on the right, Moda's plushy fireside fabrics.

Reversible Crossover Bib

From Indygo Junction - - - 

Jenny O made these and let the flannel fabric be the feature instead of applique, nice and soft. I love the fasten in the front feature.

All of the applique images drive the pattern price up but, these fun images can be used over and over for a fun kids quilt, pillow, costume or backpack.

OPEN SEEEEW!!!

Open Sew is at the Adel Library this week, Thursday and Friday. 

Tired of the snow and cold? Join us for a day of stitching and chatting. No fee. Just drop in with your projects and stay for as long as you can.

Celebrate in Adel!

An invite from our favorite local restaurant. While you are in Adel for Open Sew on Friday, swing by and celebrate with them.

BRICK STREET BOOKS AND CAFE

Brick Street Books and Café is celebrating it's 5th year anniversary February 12, 2016! The Café will be serving Cake, snacks, and drinks. There will also drawings for gift cards and T-Shirts. 

Brick Street Books and Café appreciates our wonderful customers and friends who support us through their patronage and encouragement. We look forward to serving Adel in the years to come!

February Open Sew

February Open Sew is Feb 11 and 12 at the Adel Library, 10 am until the last stitch is made. Come for one day or both or  just drop by for an hour or two.

Bring your machine and projects or just bring some hand work. Whatever works for you. The room will be locked and secure overnight.

There will be snacks to share and coffee brewed. No fee.

Join us if you can!

Another Quilter's Tip

Sue H is also getting organized by challenging herself. She has a chalk board in her sewing room with 5 UFO quilt projects listed on it.

The goal is to finish those 5 projects by June. When those are done, she has 5 more lined up to replace them on the list.

Of course, the best part of this process is when she gets to pick up that chalk and cross one off as DONE! Such a good feeling.

How about you? Do you have a progress plan to share? We are encouraged by successes and entertained by fails so, send us your comments to post. 

No judgements. Folded fabric neatly stacked (or not so neatly) can bring great joy every time you enter the sewing room plus, it provides great insulation.

Here's one to add to my wish list!

It's on! Our Super Sale.

Are you an Adel Quilting Bag Girl? Super Bowl Days (today and tomorrow) is your first surprise. Bring in your bag and receive 20% off purchase of regular price items.

Not an Adel Quilting Bag Girl yet? Buy one for just $4.95 or get one free when you register for our Strip Club or Grunge BOM.

Did you know we brought back the fat quarter table? And, to continue our Super Bowl Sale tradition, all fat quarters today and tomorrow are 10 for $20!

I spent the first 4 days of this week with these little angels - - 

- - and came home last eve to find these new blenders had been delivered from one of my favorite new designers, Dear Stella Designs. 

a close up - -

With all the new fabric we have been receiving the past two weeks, it is time to move some bolts from the regular price shelves to our Bargain Shelves. I even added a couple more shelves to make room. All $6 a yard with 1 yard minimum cuts.

These flannels, now just $6 a yard!

 Plus these selections of what we call Quilter's Bolts - some skinny and some not-so skinny :)  :)

Just to entice, we also moved several bolts of Kansas Troubles to the Bargain Shelves. As a fan fav, they will not last there long.

Another sweet donation - -

We are a drop off center for Ryan's Case for Smiles. Pillowcases dropped off here are distributed to hospitals for children going through treatment.

These cases, made by Sandy Urfer, were recently dropped off. How very kind. Thank you Sandy. 

Looking for a super deal?

Friday and Saturday this week:

• If you are one of our Bag Ladies (have one of our purple bags) come in for 20% off your purchase of regular price merchandise.
• All fat quarters are 10 for $20.
• Lots of bolts have been added to the Bargain Shelf - $6 a yard

Come visit us for these Super deals and then stay home Sunday to watch the game and snack.  Here is a snack I recently had and liked!

Hawaiian Bun Ham Sandwiches 

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup melted butter
• 1 1/2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
• 1 1/2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1 1/2 tablespoons poppy seeds

 

• 1 tablespoon dried minced onion
• 24 mini Hawaiian Bun sandwich rolls
• 1 pound thinly sliced cooked deli ham
• 1 pound thinly sliced Swiss cheese

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9x13-inch baking dish.
2. In a bowl, mix together butter, Dijon mustard, Worcestershire sauce, poppy seeds, and dried onion. Separate the tops from bottoms of the rolls, and place the bottom pieces into the prepared baking dish. Layer about half the ham onto the rolls. Arrange the Swiss cheese over the ham, and top with remaining ham slices in a layer. Place the tops of the rolls onto the sandwiches. Pour the mustard mixture evenly over the rolls.
3. Bake in the preheated oven until the rolls are lightly browned and the cheese has melted, about 20 minutes. Slice into individual rolls through the ham and cheese layers to serve.
4. 
   

I had this made with turkey and without the poppy seeds or onions and it was still very good.

A generous gift - -

Penny White is a former Quilt Circle member that moved away a few years ago. She was in the area recently and dropped in to drop off these two quilts for our June quilt sale, a fund raiser for the Adel Library. Sweet in more ways than one!

Thank you, Penny!

More new fabric

New from Timeless Treasures, this fabric was printed to support the Row by Row Experience. The license plates are actual plates that were in the program a couple years ago, before Iowa was a participant.

The 2016 theme for Row x Row is Home Sweet Home. It begins June 22 but these fabrics will not last that long. Really cute. We hope to reorder as needed but that is always a risk.

and these are the blenders that go along with the above prints.

Block Stock begins today!

Adding to the fun of the June All Iowa Shop Hop and the late summer Row by Row Experience, we now have Block Stock.

What is Block Stock? It's an opportunity to grow your stock of block patterns by collecting free block patterns from participating quilt shops as you travel across USA and Canada, Feb 1 through Apr 30, 2016.

The Block Stock website has complete lists of participating shops, block patterns by shops and several quilt setting patterns. The links on this website will be live after 8 am on February 1 through April 2016. www.blockstock.net 

To add to the fun, each of the participating shops will also give away a $75 value gift basket. Those will be displayed at the Block Stock website as well.

This is our block pattern. Well actually, this is three blocks of our block pattern, strung together to make a table runner. We named our block "Path to Adel".

In addition to the free pattern and drawing opportunity, we also have kits available for this 12" x 36" table runner.

Purchase is required to pick up free block patterns but the drawing is free to all.

New fabrics just in

These are a few of the new Grunge fabrics from Moda that we will be using in our sampler block of the month.

From Hoffman, these are all batiks.

Bags are in!

Our new shopping bags came in today! Buy one for just $4.95 or get one free when you sign up for our new Strip Club or Grunge Sampler. Limit one bag per customer.

Enter our monthly drawing each time you use it. As a Bag Girl, you will also be eligible for ongoing specials and surprises.

Quilters Tip

Janet V. was in today. She has a plan in place to facilitate her stash of wantabee quilts.

• She assigned a number to each quilt project she has waiting to be done.
• Each month, she will draw a number and that is the project she has to complete that month.
• In between each project, she is determined to work on other UFO's.

That's an aggressive plan and I have no doubt Janet will stay on task. I'll keep you posted on her progress. In the meanwhile - what is your plan?

Madelyn's Get Er Done

Our youngest Quilt Circle member, Madelyn B, could not come to our holiday party so she came by the shop to show me her Get Er Done quilt. With help from Grandma Celia, she got this beautiful quilt done. Good job, Maddie!

Sunday Sewday!

This is one thing I got done on Sunday. As a sponsor for the new Iowa Quilt Museum, we were invited to make this 6" block and to either write or embroider our shop name in the center.  We were to use colors that represent rural Iowa - farms, fields, corn, beans, skies.

Niece Lindsay helped me out here. She did the embroidered logo for the center. Love it.

Jenny's Wreath

This is a kit that Jenny received as a Christmas gift. What's cuter, the wreath or the granddaughter peeking through? Sweet.

New fabric!

Lovin this Hoffman line. Makes me think of Hollywood Glam.

Here is a close up of a tumbling block print. I am hearing this is the new popular trend in design and starting to see it in back splash tiles, floor tiles, upholstery and pillows and, of course, in trend setting fabrics. I am working on a shop sample that you will see soon.

And lots of new batiks from Hoffman. So pretty. We have seriously expanded our selection of batiks, each prettier than the one before.

News!

We just uploaded an all new newsletter to the website. So much to share:

• New Spring Quilt Retreat
• New Strip Club Project
• 2 New Block of the Month Programs
• New AQDG Bag incentive
• New spring BlockStock program
• New Classes
• New Featured Quilter
• New All Iowa Shop Hop Fabric
• New Quilt Museum
• New Hotel

What are you doing still reading this?!? Get on over to the website and check it out!

QC Holiday Party

As a group of busy mothers and grandmothers, we postpone our holiday party until January.

We start as any good party does - - - with a potluck. Then it's on to show and share. Since we pass on a December meeting, there is always lots of S'nS.

Theresa has been knitting hats for gifts, these with little fox ears.

and has nearly completed her flannel brick quilt.

We've been watching this project grow. It was from a class Theresa took. Love the blue and white.

Marti finished this fun Hoffman color-chart panel with a simple border. She made it special, though by custom quilting and adding a variety of quilters pins. That's what the dots are.

Jackie is in a group that makes comfort quilts as needed for Adel Alumni. Always in school colors, see one above and one below.

Nancy shared this pretty little quilt made from a charm pack.

and this large quilt made with exchange strips from an online group.

Nancy requested black and white strips in the exchange and then added this turquoise. Love this combo of colors.

For Christmas, Nancy requested her daughter make her a book documenting quilts she has made. What a wonderful keepsake.

This is Bonnie's interpretation of Flower Box Medley. All done in red and black, there is a tiny strip of green piping in the binding. Just beautiful.

Trish has been making coin purses (above) and blocks for a lake house quilts (below).

Trish shared these blocks at our last meeting. Here it is all set together. I guess retirement is working for her!

Margaret received this as a gift. It may be the inspiration for our Row x Row quilt this year. The theme is Home Sweet Home.

Speaking of Row quilts, here is another from the 2015 event that Abbie has completed. On the dark blue river, Abbie added crystals so the water really sparkles. Really nice. 

and this is a Spider Man quilt for a grandson. It will be delivered with the Frozen quilt she is working on now for his sister. Abbie shared that she had trouble finding a Frozen panel so, she bought a set of Frozen sheets and made her on panel and quilt.

Next, we shared our Get Er Done Archive quilts. This is a challenge we do at the beginning of each year where we designate just one old project and pledge to complete it in the new year.

Marti completed this from her collection of ladies hankies featuring violets.

The blocks included embroidery and coloring with crayons.

Nancy J. shared these quilts (above and below). She has been making one for each grandchild. The blocks are all cut from her father in law's Hawaiian shirts.

I had hoped to complete this applique and embroidery quilt that I started about 13 years ago but in the end was happy to at least get all 12 blocks completed. I have plans to set it together soon.

Janet claimed this cute baby quilt as her archive Get Er Done.

and Bonnie shared this quilt made for her son. In the red border, she has couched thread to spell Dreamin of Fishin in Minnesota. That is her son's retirement dream.

This big quilt was Barb's Get Er Done Archive and, she got it done!

Jackie O finished this large quilt, a request from a relative. Sweet.

Several other Archive Get Er Done quilts have already be gifted. About 75% of members claimed and completed one archive quilt in 2015. Now, that's a success story.

Next, we shared progress on our animal and/or snowball block exchange quilts.

Margaret's is done. So cute!

 

Mine is near completion.

Imagine this as a snowball block. Bonnie cut all of her snowball blocks diagonally in both directions. Then she used those triangles with a black print triangle to create these pinwheel blocks. Isn't that both creative and beautiful?

Marti set her snowball blocks together using a block called "Thrifty" for the offset block. So pretty.

We closed our meeting with three rounds of Quilter's Trade, using strips and squares for our poker chips. 

Now, our challenge for the Feb meeting is to make something from the charms and strips we each collected in this game.

It was another special evening with my Quilt Circle of Friends. Even with the sub-zero temps, we had near perfect attendance. Condolences to Celia who was home sick. Celia, you were missed.

And, as always, special thanks to Jackie O. for taking all these pictures and sending then to me.