Make and Takes and more

First, I'll take a step back before I show you the Make and Takes from Redwood Sewing Center. Last week our good friend, Karen Snyder of Anna Lena's came to visit. Karen likes all things 30's....as in Vintage 1930's fabrics. And butterflies and orange and aqua and....well, Karen is just fantastic. We have known each other for about 11 years, met at a Trade Show for Quilt Shop Owners and belong to a sort of secret sisterhood of quilt shop owners. A bunch of us went on a cruise to Eastern Mexico and she and I were roomies. Such fun!

Karen and Bob her delightful husband came to Eureka, explored some of the redwood coast, Ferndale and she fit in a trunk show and book signing for us. We still have a few copies of her 4 books. Bundles of Fun, Fat Quarter Fun, Big Print Quilts and Quilts From My Garden and all of them are autographed . Here's Carolyn getting her book signed. Ok, back to today.............Redwood Sewing Center celebrated Small Business Saturday with the first of our three Make & Take Saturdays before Christmas. They are great. You sign up, pay your $10 and come to the store. You don't have to bring anything. Really. Nothing. And you leave with a really cool gift you can give...or keep! It's up to you. Today the gals made Little Wallets with a Valori Wells pattern. Just perfect to give a gift card.Then they made a cute tote bag, Christmas Tree Napkins and Chicken Pincushions.
Here's Terri ironing her tote bag handles.Here's Liz explaining the next step.Over the next two Saturdays some of these projects will be repeated and new ones are on the calendar. One gal said, "So I just bring my machine and I can make this." No, you don't have to bring your machine. "So how much fabric do I bring for clutch bag?" No, you don't have to bring fabric. "So I bring my pins and my scissors and rotary cutter." No, you don't have to bring a thing! There is still room in most of the classes, but call Redwood Sewing Center to register. Just $10 per class.

A few weeks ago I had two eager students in a sewing class. My Daughter Beka had a birthday on Nov. 18 and Jakob and Mercedes asked if I would teach them to use the sewing machine. We made hot pads for Mama's birthday. They chose the fabrics and Grammy cut them out and some padding. They layered and ironed the squares and pinned them. They sat on my lap and guided their fabrics through the machine. Each was quite particular and careful about sewing. They turned their pot holders right side out and then we top stitched and quilted the squares. Then they posed with their holders.Jakob stitched a spiderweb design on his.Sades tried the abstract approach.Here they are showing the opposite sides of their pads. We wrapped them in paper with bows and they made cards for Mama's Birthday. I have it on good authority that Beka used them on Thanksgiving!

Lots of "making" going on! What are YOU making this holiday season?

Come along on Our Market Tour

The actual Market part of Quilt Market only lasts 3 days. But of course there are meetings, dinners, classes that stretch our trip to 6-7 days. During that time you have a chance to chat with the "celebs" of quilting, with vendors and manufacturers of fabric, batting, thread, notions and more. We were delighted to meet Heather Bailey, a very talented young lady. We're posing with her in front of her new fabric line. We loved it and ordered accordingly. You are going to love it too, I"m sure. I learned only today that Heather is the daughter of elinor peace bailey the famous doll maker. Her brother is a famous photographer too. What a family heritage.

The official announcement has been made: My good friend, Karen Snyder is now the spokesperson for Elna sewing machines. Congratulations Karen! Other spokeswomen include Marie Osmond for Janome, Eleanor Burns for Viking and more. I've owned an Elna 6003 for several years and am quite happy with it. Can you believe it, Karen, YOUR face on the posters. And I knew you when.....

Each booth at Quilt Market is unique, portraying the personality of the booth owner. It might be a pattern designer, a fabric company....it may exude a feeling of calm, of electricity...or a trademark design. Sandy Klopp who designs fabric (for Moda) and quilt patterns under the name American Jane. Look at the great black and white striped awning valence! It plays so very well with the bright primary colors of her 30-ish, Dick and Jane-ish, Elementary School-ish fabrics. Sandy's fabrics are happy, evoking good childhood memories for the Baby Boomers and their children and their children's children.

Quilt Market is not all work and no play. Many of the fabric companies host dinners, parties and the like. We usually get more invitations than we can attend. Saturday night we started out at the Moda Party, probably the largest party of Market. It always includes an awesome dinner and fabulous entertainment. We dined with 3 ladies from a shop in Florida and 3 ladies from another fabric company (they'll remain nameless since they were "crashing the party"). Then the Flamico dancers came out. They were beautiful the way the moved. A Salsa dance team performed and then we snuck out.....to the Robert Kaufmann Fabrics party! Parties, parties....Sunday night we went to Classic Cotton's party and met up with my "posse," a group of shop owners I meet with on a regular basis. Off to bed too, too late. More next time.

Quilt Market Friday

Friday at Fall Market means School House. This is an entire day of classes. At 9:30 am they pass out a booklet listing all the various classes being offered each session. Note that there are 15 sessions AND a 30 min. introduction and a lunch period. Here is my friend, Sandi Brawner (she owns an awesome shop, Quilt Country in Lewiston, TX. Sandi was explaining how to run a block of the month program and showing off one of their new patterns. Don't you love her lime green tie-dye shirt? Sandi always says that lime green is a neutral! Then in another class about how to use big prints effectively my good friend (and Mexican Cruise cabin-mate) Karen Snyder shows off one of the quilts in her new book: Big Print Quilts.

Each of these classes is only 15 minutes to 30 minutes long and there may be 300 or 30 in a class depending on the subject. I took classes on 8 Essential Things a Shop Owner Should Do, Jo Morton and her new fabric line, How to use Cut Goods (like Jelly rolls, charm packs, etc) and so many more. At lunch we (Bill, Liz & I) found a table and over our bagels shared our class experiences. Liz took a class on publishing. Bill took a class on rulers.
At 6 pm we were done and we were tired! My feet hurt and I was hungry. There weren't any food vendors open in the convention center so we schlepped out stuff out to the car and began to walk through downtown. We needed to find a place we could walk to. Liz asked a street cop if there was anywhere we could get a good, quick meal and he directed us to a Chinese place. It was serene, quiet and cool. Perfect! Sitting down to a table with white tablecloth and glasses of iced water was heaven!

Then it was back to the convention center for Sample Spree. Note the sign: No Rolling Luggage allowed! This event is a madhouse. You have never seen so many people (mostly women)

grabbing, tugging, elbowing their way to the tables to buy Fat Quarter towers, jelly rolls, patterns, sample aprons and more. We didn't plan to buy very much. But we'll be carrying at least a 50 lbs. suitcase full of stuff and probably shipping boxes too!
Here's a picture of the BEGINNING of the line to get in. Behind the glass partition in the back of the picture the line divides and goes on for at least 100 yards in each direction 6 or 8 deep. This line is probably 30 people wide. Well, off to be again. Tomorrow I'll report on Sat.....where we met Heather Bailey and ordered her new fabric and surprise, surprise for those of you who are Project Runway fans.....2nd Season Jay McCarrol now designs fabric for Westminster. Lots more to share and lots and lots of pictures.

More Market Glimses

Quilt Market is always fun, especially when you get to see the wonderful friends you've made over the years in this business. Fabric & Pattern Designers, authors, sales reps, teachers and more. Here I am with Karen Snyder, quilt shop owner (Anna Lena's in Long Beach, WA), fabric designer for Andover Fabrics (Washtub prints---and several other 1930's reproduction lines) author of several books like Bundles of Fun, Fat Quarter Fun and her latest, Quilts from My Garden. Karen and I meet up at every Quilt Market and trade show we can and were cabin-mates on a Mexican Cruise for shop owners last year. Not only is she a very talented woman, but she's a lot of fun too!






The booths at Market are quite elaborate. Here are a couple more. Jackie Robinson of Animas Quilts has her booth on the left. The Scottie dog Quilt Club used one of her patterns (Glory Be!)
one year for it's Block of the Month. Her booth is always beautiful and the colors in hers were predominately cream, greens and watermelon reds.




Moda/United Notions always takes up a large section of the Market Floor. They divide it into three very distinct sections. One if for fabric---lots of tables for all their sales reps to show the samples and sell the fabrics (lots of quilt samples shown there too), one section for books, patterns and notions, and another large section for Moda Home. Moda also sells duvet covers, sheets, aprons, baskets, and more. This shot is of a small section of the Moda Home booth. They built a Farmer's Market shed right into the booth. It was so big several people could go inside at once! Of course we were tempted and you'll see more of Moda Home in our store in the future.