Country Sampler Quilts

Market this and that....

Well, it no particular order, I wanted to show you a few more pics from Quilt Market.

First though, remember in a previous post when I was talking about Edyta Sitar from Laundry Basket Quilts??? Well duhhhh.... I forgot to show you her new line of fabrics for fall, called Dancing in the Rain.  Really awesome.  I want it all!

Oh, and I bought this contemporary line called, Bella, from Windham Fabrics, for the West Center store.

 

 

Here's another look at it ... kind of fun, huh?  It would be really neat in clothing too!

 

 

And, still on the contemporary side of fabric design ... the West Center store is getting this really cool chevron fabric from Riley Blake.  I can see lots of fun stuff from this fabric!

 

We bought a TON -- no really, A TON --- of batiks.  It seemed like every fabric company had gor-ge-ous batiks, so we bought from them all!  Bought the new Hoffman strips too!

 

 

Most of the new batiks won't be in until fall, but there's a medium size group that's arriving in July - yah!!  Below is a picture of the Hoffman booth - pretty cool, huh?

And, of course, Fig Tree's booth was total eye candy for a quilter ....

 

Whew!!  That's enough for today - I've got to get to work sometime today!

More market... Primitive Gatherings!!

Another booth we always love is Primitive Gatherings... it's always chock full of wool and fabric goodies... Isn't this booth lovely??!

 

 

We bought LOTS here ... in fact, we went back the second day and bought more.  We bought sooo much we couldn't carry it all back to the hotel - thank goodness we drove to KC!  We'd never get everything back if we flew!

 

Look at all the wool!!  I can't even imagine overdying this much wool!! So, of course, we bought some....

 

 

And we couldn't resist these two patriotic kits .... so we bought them both!!

 

 

The little star and stripes pincushion is so sweet and the wool kit and pattern is just $19.98!  The Flag Day Penny Banner finishes 16" x 28" and is SOOO COOL!!  Just think... buy it today and you could have it finished for the Fourth!!! 

 

But that's no all!!  Other cool wool kits we bought...

 

 

 

 

Aren't they yummy??  We bought even MORE wool kits from Lisa, but we're saving some of those back for Christmas in July.  (Hey, we've got to have a lot of projects to WOW you with in July!)

 

AND (trumpets blow here) we bought TONS of Valdani threads...

 

 

See 'em in the cabinet there??  I'm SOOO excited about this buy - we bought 25 of the most popular colors of Valdani thread for both stores!  Sew.... you can pick up all the threads that Lisa uses in her projects right here at Country Sampler!!!

 

The thread should be arriving in the next week or two, but the kits are in stock NOW!!  Come see us!!!

A Little Market...

Well, as promised, I have a few pics from Spring Quilt Market.  I don't have any real plan for this week's market posts, but I thought I'd start with one of the most awesome booths at market and probably the nicest designer on the face of the earth  -- Edyta Sutar, of Laundry Basket Quilts.  This is Edyta...

Isn't she a cutie??!  Here's the first photo I took of her booth at market. Notice all the shop owners shopping their little hearts out???

 

We always have an appointment with Moda before the market opens, so I took a minute to sneak over to her booth and get a picture before the hoards of shoppers came back.  Here's the other side of the booth (without the heads)...

 

 

Aren't her quilts amazing?!  So much eye candy you hardly know where to look!  

She's got a new book too - in fact, I won a copy at schoolhouse - yay me!  It's particularly amazing since I seldom win anything, but the quilting gods were smiling on me!  Here's the new book ....

 

Look at the quilt on the cover - whew, it's amazing, isn't it??  In fact, ALL the quilts in the books are to-die-for!! AND ... we brought back several copies and they're in the shop now!  Hurray!!

Whew!

Guess where I've been???  If you read a lot of blogs, you'll probably guess.....

 

Ann and I headed south to Kansas City and Spring Quilt Market... but, of course, we weren't alone... look at this mob as Market opens up!!

This picture doesn't show the rest of the line waiting to go up the escalator to get started on some serious shopping!!

We found TONS of new goodies for you!  In the next week I'll try and blog about some of the booths, the people, and, of course... the goodies we found at market!  Stay tuned!

Happy Mother's Day!!

Hopefully, you're having a great Mother's Day - I know I am!  

I had an early Mother's Day present on Friday when we went to see the "hooding" of the new law graduates from Creighton University here in Omaha. After three years of hard work, my son has graduated from law school!!

 

Can I have an AMEN??!  

Now, he just has to study some more ... pass the bar.... and get a job!!  

 

Winner, Winner... Chicken Dinner!!

We have a winner for the giveaway book!!!

 

The winner is Katie, who wrote me this email...

What an awesome giveaway! I'm working on a couple baby quilts for some pregnant friends and I am also working on the "Dream Big" pattern in Camille Roskelley's book Simplify. I'm using a lot of fabrics from the Etchings line by 3 sisters. I also have my eye on some embroidery projects!

Katie, I'm sending ya an email today... Congrats!

Making "Merry Merry" easier...

I was working on my Merry Merry Snowmen - block three, yesterday and I got to thinking about the "stuff" I use to make construction easier. You know these, they're the notions that one accumulates after quilting and crafting for a hundred ... errrr ... LOTS of years.  So here's a little run-down of a couple of things that make my "Snowman" life easier...

How 'bout a big pressing board???

 

 

Can you tell mine has been verrry loved??  The Merry Merry Snowman blocks are BIG and don't fit well on a regular ironing board, so this Quilter's Square by June Tailor really lets me lay out the whole block while I'm pressing. They're a little pricey at around $40.00, but trust me, you'll use it again and again.

Another tool I use a lot when making this block of the month is the Applique Pressing Sheet.  

 

This wonderful notion allows you to see your pattern through the sheet to use as a placement guide while you fuse your overlapping design together into one unit - BEFORE you fuse it onto your backing.  See my pattern underneath the pressing sheet???

 

 

Sooo...  you just press your fusible web backed pieces of fabric on top of the non-stick applique pressing cloth; following the outline of the pattern -much like matching pieces of a puzzle together.  After all the pattern pieces are in place and anchored with heat to the cloth, you peel the entire design from the cloth and fuse it to the background fabric. Pretty slick, huh?  And it's inexpensive, at around $16.00.

 

 

Oh, and on a side note, if you wanted to use Cosmos thread to stitch the embroidery on Merry Merry - remember we've got it now at the West Center Store!!  Give it a try... you're gonna love it!!

 

 

 

 

 

A new class, a new quilt...

Remember a week or two ago I showed you this picture??

 

And told ya I'd have a picture of our version of this quilt??  Well... here it is!

 

Isn't it lovely??!!  A little less Halloweeny and a little more fall than the original.  I think it's the perfect autumn quilt for a quilter!!  Sandy stitched this beauty up for us, using rich batiks throughout the quilt -- and if you think the quilt looks good in the picture - you need to see it in person! It's 100% better than the photo!  (It's at the Papillion shop, stop by and take a look!)

We've already started signing up gals for this BOM - at both the Papillion and West Center store - so stop by and sign up soon. Classes start in August and run through December, but don't delay --- they're filling up fast!

Busy women...

Man, I should have had a giveaway sooner!  It's soooo fun to hear what everyone's working on this month!

Here's what I've heard so far...

... it's the season for graduation quilts, several of you are finishing those up

... baby quilts are keeping a lot of people busy

... several gals are trying to finsh up their Country Sampler Quilt Club quilts

... more than a few of you are working on the Merry Merry Snowman BOM

... BUT... the biggest thing I learned was that most of us seem to work on multiple projects at once!  No big surprise there, huh??  (It does make me feel better about my gazillion projects in my sewing room, though.)

Thanks to everyone who has entered the drawing already... we still have over a week though, so if you haven't sent me a note to get your name in for the drawing for a free book - what are you waiting for??

Time for a GiveAway....

In celebration of the last day of April and the first of May ... I thought we'd do a little giveaway on the old blog.  

How 'bout a great new book??

 

 

Yup, it's Monique Dillard's new book, Traditional Fat Quarter Quilts, 11 great quilt projects you're gonna love!

All you have to do is drop me a quick email telling me what you're stitching on now.  Then, on May 12th, I'll pick a winner.  How easy peasy is that??!