Nostalgia!

We have a group that gets together once a month at Glad Creations. We just call it "Quilt Club". It includes our current staff as well as several former staff members – from as far back as 1984! It's fun to get together. We usually see some recently completed projects, sometimes we bring some quilting to work on, there's often a lesson or demo by one of the group members. Sometimes we just enjoy the companionship of long-time friends. 

So, a few months ago some of us started talking about foods that we remembered eating as children. For many of us that was 1950's and 60's. We had so much fun talking about it that we decided to have a 50's – 60's potluck for our holiday get-together. Just a note, some of us could remember those days and some had to do some internet research to come up with a recipe.

Our friend Georgia offered to host. Her south Minneapolis bungalow was all decked out for Christmas. Every room was filled with fun holiday decorations!

Here's the menu
 • Ham salad appetizer - with Ritz Crackers of course.
• Cheesy olive bites – green olives wrapped in a bit of dough (of course with lots of butter and cheese) and baked.
• Buttered popcorn
• Tater tot hot dish (2 types - tuna and ground beef) – of course Mary did due diligence and confirmed that tater tots were introduced in 1953!
• Wienie Wonders – not what you think – it involves hot dogs, hard cooked eggs, sweet pickles and a meat grinder. I think it was a girl scout recipe.
• Porcupine meatballs
• Chicken Tetrazzini
• Orange Jewel jello – complete with mandarin oranges and cream cheese balls.
• Red jello with fruit cocktail.
• And the highlight of the main course – fried Spam topped with fried pineapple and a maraschino cherry!

Desserts followed – Chiffon pie, banana pudding with vanilla wafers and "chocolate oops"!

Wow! What a meal. We should probably all just eat salads for the rest of the week.

We had some fun show and tell. Debbie brought the quilt she's finishing for our staff quilt show "Vintage Glad's Quilts". She used our Shady Grove pattern for her quilt. If you haven't heard about the upcoming show, here's the scoop. Staff members who wanted to participate selected a pattern from a list of the first 24 Glad Creations patterns and made an updated version of the quilt in current fabrics. The quilts will be on display at the shop January 1 – 11, 2013.  We're pretty excited to see all of these quilts hanging.  We'll be getting out the original versions of the quilts too.

Cheri brought her nearly completed Hopscotch quilt to show. She added some special appliqué butterflies. It's going to be a gift for a special friend. All it needs is binding.

Wishing you a wonderful holiday from all of us at Glad Creations!

Mystery Weekend #50 Show & Tell at Glad Creations

Wow! We've finished our 4th session of Mystery Weekend #50 here at the shop. We had about 75 participants in 4 sessions. We saw loads of fun show & tell - always a highlight of the weekend!  It's so fun to see all the wonderful designs and fabric selections. We snapped some photos so we can share it with you!

We saw quite a few quilts that were started in previous Mystery Weekends. I've labeled the names of quilts that were made using Glad Creations patterns. We also saw several versions of Glacier Star, a quilt designed by Judy Niemeyer, that were started in a class at the shop with instructor Julie Arrowood. We saw a couple Bali Wedding Star quilts too, also from a Judy Niemeyer design, started in class with Julie this past year.

So, sit back and enjoy the show!

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Fall Classes--What's new?

Now that the summer sale is over, it' s time to plan for our fall classes.  We're now in the midst of planning the fall class schedule. (this is hard when it's 100 degrees outside). Watch for it in your mailbox or on the website early in August.  We've got some fun new classes in the making.  Of course, we'll have the basic hand and machine classes offered as always but it's always fun to add some new ones.  Julie is coming up with a couple new Judy Neimeyer classes.  Dee is planning a handwork club and will again offer her Electric Quilt class.  Cheri will be teaching handquilting along with her color clubs.  Pat and Annemarie can get you started with good basic quilting classes.  Nancy and I are planning the next mystery weekend--and mystery by mail.  This will be number 50!  Can you believe it?  I'll also be teaching the North Star Quilt using the Spotlight tool.  Have you seen the sample at the shop?  First day to signup for classes will be Thursday, August 16.

We'll also be starting a new year of our Scrap Tamers Plus From Marti and Me Club.  This club will run for 9 months, once a month, and has been very popular.  Last year for the 1st time, we combined our Scrap Tamers with the From Marti and Me club.  Each month we focused on a different tool and members received a pattern using that tool.  Members learned a lot about using the Marti Michell tools and rulers.  We learned a lot too so we'll be combining the clubs again!

One of the favorite features of our club has been the scrappy mystery quilt. Each month, members received instructions to make a section of the quilt.  Many of the club members showed their finished tops at the last class.  It's always great fun to see the same quilt pattern in different fabric and color combinations.  We've included some photos from the last class.  Watch for this quilt to turn into a pattern!  We named it Hopscotch.  We're planning the next Scrap Tamers mystery quilt now and it's going to be fun. 
And of course we always show you all the new things that have arrived at the shop so you are among the first to know. First day to sign up for Scrap Tamers Plus From Marti and Me is Saturday, August 25. 

 Mark the dates for class signup and Scrap Tamers signup on your calendars!  And don't forget the Quilt Minnesota Shop hop runs from August 3 to August 19.  We're getting some samples made using the fun new fabrics designed especially for the hop.  Hope to see you then.

Sylvia's at the Show

We loved seeing the Sylvia's Bridal Sampler quilts on display at the Minnesota Quilters annual show. Did you miss the show?  We snapped some photos to share. 

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Minnesota Quilters Quilt Show & Conference

We're back from the Minnesota Quilters show in Rochester.  They did it again!  The Minnesota Quilters put on an excellent show.  Thank you to all of the volunteers who made this special event happen.  We can't even imagine all the work and preparation that must go into this event to make it run so smoothly.

The quilt display was wonderful with almost 300 quilts on display in the judged and non-judged categories.  In addition to those quilts, there were challenge quilts, special exhibits and the small quilt auction.  We were so pleased that there were 35 quilts in the Sylvia's Bridal Sampler Special Exhibit as a result of our club.  There was lots of interest in those quilts and we heard many wonderful comments.  Thanks to all of you who took the time to display your quilts in the exhibit.

We heard great comments about all of the classes and lectures.  Can't wait to see some of the projects that were started. 

Being vendors, we hardly had a chance to see everything.  The vendor area was busy with shoppers.  We were able to quickly walk through all the quilt exhibits during a couple breaks.  I took a photo of one of my favorites.  This quilt was called Letter Carriers and was made by Janet Stone.  She won a 1st place ribbon in the Mixed Technique, Small Quilt category.  Her baskets were woven and I loved the edge treatment.

We're already looking forward to the 35th Annual Show.  Mark your calendars for June 13-15, 2013.  The show will be in Duluth, which is always a wonderful place to visit.  It's already on our calendar!

Special Exhibit of Sylvia's Quilts

We are proud to be a part of the Special Exhibits at the Minnesota Quilt Show in Rochester.  The Sylvia's Bridal Sampler Quilts were from a 2-1/2 year club we had at the shop based on the book Sylvia's Bridal Sampler Quilts from Elm Creek Quilts by Jennifer Chiaverini. When this book arrived at the shop, Nancy and I thought it would be fun to make this quilt, but more fun with a group of quilters to share and motivate us.  140 six inch blocks seemed a little overwhelming.   Little did we know there would be about 100 quilters who would choose to join our club!  The plan from the beginning was to have a quilt exhibit in January of 2012 from anyone who finished their quilt.  Members could make as many of the blocks as they wanted and choose their own setting and fabrics.  What a variety of ideas those members came up with!  We ended up with 43 quilts and 2 special exhibits.  It was a great display!

35 of those quilts will be in the special exhibit in Rochester.  Thanks to all of you quilters and a special thanks to Patty Von Arx for putting this exhibit together.

Quilters have been delivering their quilts to the shop for their trip to Rochester.  Here's a sneak peek of the quilts so far.  What a stack!  We can hardly wait to see them on display.  Hope you can see them too!  If you won't be at the show, you can see the  slideshow of our exhibits on the blog that we wrote in January 2012.

Glad Creations will be vending at the show, so be sure to stop and say hi.  We'll be in the Taylor Arena area.  The quilts and displays will be in 3 different areas of the convention center--so be sure you don't miss anything!  Hope to see you there.

Oh, what to take?

We'll be vending at the Minnesota  Quilters show next week.  It's always a challenge to figure out what to take.  What will be special in our booth?  What will you find fun and exciting?  Some of the things we thought we would bring are the kid's apron patterns by Cotton Ginny.  There are 3 different patterns, each has instructions to make 3 different aprons.  Amy has been busy making samples for us and we have a number of kits made.  They are so cute--there must be a child you know who would love one of these.  I haven't decided if I like the chicken best or the pig!  Or maybe it's the frog.  And her newest sample is a cow! No photo yet--you'll have to come to the show or the shop to see it.

The Minnesota Quilters Show runs from June 14-16 at the Mayo Civic Center in Rochester.  It's always a great quilt show with lots of amazing quilts to see, tons of vendors to shop at and classes and lectures to take advantage of.   To get all the specifics about the show go to their website at www.mnquilt.org/mq2012.  Hope to see you there!

Deb Tucker's Spotlight

We love to visit the Studio 180 booth when we go to Quilt Market.  This time Deb had a new tool called the Spotlight.  It is a trim down ruler for making the unit that is consisted of a center beam and 2 side triangles.  Normally this is a tricky unit to make.  If you have used her tools before you know that this tool will make the unit easy and accurate to make.  The tool makes 11 different sizes ranging from 1" finished to 6" finished.  I'll be using this new tool to make her pattern called North Star!  Now, living in Minnesota, how could we not have chosen this pattern.

We'll also get a demo board ready and set up at the shop so you can easily see how it works.  If you will be heading to the Minnesota Quilt Show in Rochester on June 14-16, we'll be there demonstrating how to use this tool.  We'll also be showing some of our other favorite Tucker tools. 

Come see us at the shop or at the show.  We'd love to show you how it works.

Spring Cleaning

Spring Quilt Market was inspiring!  We brought back new patterns, tools, and loads of ideas for new samples to make.  So... it's good that we did some spring cleaning before we left town.  The staff set up a great display of samples that we're ready to sell.

So what's for sale?  Here's a sampling.  There's lots more so come in and check it out!

Fun kid's quilts:

 Pieced Wallhangings:

More fun wallhangings:

Lap quilts:

Tablerunners:

 

Large quilts:

Bags:

Who doesn't love a bargain?

Are you thinking about doing the Quilt Minnesota Shop Hop this year?  We have 11 shops in the Central East Section this year and we have a bargain for you.  We will have bus trips on the 1st weekend of the shop hop.  That's on August 3rd and 4th.  They will leave from 4 different locations.  These are 2 day trips with no overnight.  The cost of the 2 day bus trip is $99.  If you sign up before May 30, you get a Early Bird Signup price of $89.

Now there's more.  Everyone who rides the bus will get a $10 coupon from each of the 11 shops.  And guess what - you can even use the coupon on purchases during the hop!  If you use the coupons, it seems that we must be paying you to come.  And you save on gas, have fun with a group of quilters and leave the driving to us.  Plus you will be qualified for the Central East section prizes.  Now how can you beat that!

You can sign up at any of the 11 shops, but if you sign up at Glads and ride the bus from the Mall of America location, you will get our very own Cheri for your bus mom!  And you know how fun that will be.

So don't put this off! Save a little money, so you can buy more fabric, by signing up early.  We have all of the information at the shop.  Call or come in if you have questions.  Our phone number - 612-724-1079.

Tessellating Windmill

Be sure you visit the classroom during the Twin Cities Shop Hop.  We'll be demonstrating the newest tool by Marti Michell, the Tessellating Windmill.  This quilt may look familiar, but is made with a different technique than you may have used before.  Use it to make blocks in 8 sizes, ranging from 2" up to 9".   With this technique, you'll end up with straight of grain on the outside of your blocks.  And the tool has specially engineered corners to help you line up your pieces. You use a "leap frog" technique to lay out your blocks and then chain piece blocks and rows.  We'll be demonstrating both Thursday and Friday from 10:00-12:00 and from 1:00 to 3:00.  
And be sure to check out our Daisy Basket quilt made with the basket blocks you'll be collecting.
The shop hop is May 3-5.  Thursday and Friday, we'll be open from 9am - 9pm.  Saturday hours are 9am - 5pm.
Hope to see you there.
 

The mystery is revealed

Members of our Scrap Tamers Club have been working on a mystery quilt since September, getting a clue each month.  It's finally revealed.  Those who bring it to the last session of Scrap Tamers in May will be entered into a drawing for a gift certificate.  It will be great fun to see this quilt made up in many different fabric selections.  I have a feeling there will be lots of show and tell.

Men who quilt

We went to the Minnesota Quilters meeting on Saturday. The topic for both April meetings was "Men Who Quilt". One of the featured speakers was our very own Nathan Carter. He did a terrific job and showed at least 20 of his quilts accompanied by much applause. He has a great sense of color and showed some wonderful quilts, many of which were from Glad Creation patterns. I know everyone there enjoyed his presentation. We are very pleased that he is a member of our staff.

The other speaker was Doug Leko. He has been designing his own line of patterns for several years now, even though he is only 18 years old. He showed many of the quilts that he has designed, some from his newest book.

Thanks for a great presentation by both of these men. We and I'm sure the rest of the Minnesota Quilters enjoyed a fun and inspiring meeting.

2012 Twin Cities ShopHop

It's almost time for the 2012 Twin Cities Shop Hop. Dates are May 3-5. We're getting our kits packed, picking our $200 gift basket, finding some fun door prizes and getting new samples on display. It's always a fun shop hop with great prizes. Stop at each of the 9 shops and pick up a free pattern for a basket block. Each of the shops will have a quilt made using those basket blocks and will have their layout pattern and kits available for purchase. We picked a purple and green group of daisy fabrics called Simple Pleasures for our quilt. It has such a fresh spring time look. Get your card stamped at all 9 shops to be eligible for a drawing for some great prizes.
We'll also be doing some fun demos on both Thursday and Friday. We just got in the new Tessellating Windmill template by Marti Michell and have made a couple samples using it. It's really fun and pretty addicting! We will be demonstrating it from 10:00-12:00 and 1:00-3:00 both Thursday and Friday.
Hope to see you during the shop hop!

Mystery Weekend 49

We completed our final session of Mystery Weekend 49 last weekend with a fun group of veteran Mystery Quilters. We had such a fun series of Mystery Weekends - many folks who've come to Mystery Weekend over and over - and lots of new folks, too! It was inspiring to see so many wonderful fabric combinations as participants worked on their quilts!

One of the highlights of Mystery Weekend is always Show & Tell! We saw quite a few previous mysteries that have been completed and a lot of other fun projects too. There were several versions of the Mystery quilt from last fall - Quilted Gems. We'll be publishing this as a pattern later this spring.

We snapped some photos of the Show & Tell and put them together into a slide show. We've included names for the quilts that were previous Mystery Weekend quilts and are now Glad Creations patterns. Don't worry if you're working on Mystery by Mail 49 right now - we haven't included any photos of the current Mystery project.

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National Quilting Day

National Quilting Day is Saturday. We have the 7th Session of our Scrap Tamers + Marti and Me Club scheduled. There are 135 quilters who have been part of the club this year. We meet in 3 time-slots of 45 members each. We have had a Scrap Tamers club for several years and each year have run it a little differently. This year we combined it with the Marti & Me Club. I think everyone, including me, has learned a lot this year. Each month we have focused on a different tool designed by Marti Michell. Members also receive a free Marti Michell pattern that uses that tool. It's been great fun. One of my favorites was the Good Neighbors pattern using the Small House Template Set. (Nathan and Cheri will be running a summer school class on this quilt) This Saturday the pattern is the Carpenter's Wheel which uses the Marti Michell Set A, based on a 3" unit.

In the other classroom applique lovers will be learning from Pat Cox. We had enough applique lovers to fill both a morning and an afternoon class. They surely make some beautiful quilts.

What will you be doing for National Quilting Day? We know what we'll be doing.

Putting Together a Glad Creations' Kit

We've been busy at the shop assembling kits for Mystery #49. We have the kits all ready for our Mystery Weekend sessions and are now busy cutting fabric for the Mystery by Mail kits.

Have you ever wondered about the process we go through as we create a kit to go with one of our Glad Creations patterns? We start by selecting a group of fabrics to work with. Here we've selected a group of Civil War reproduction prints and a group of Batiks. These are the fabrics for Mystery 49. We'll have information up on the website next week with all the details for Mystery by Mail 49.


Then we spend a few days at the counter - cutting, cutting , cutting.


The final step is assembling the fabrics into a package that's ready for the quilter to take home.

Sometimes it's easy, we just roll them up and tie them into a bundle or fold them into a bag. Other times there's soooo much fabric in the kit that it takes a bit of muscle and some teamwork to get them into their completed form.

Amy was so amused watching Susan & Pat trying to bundle up the Mystery Weekend kits that she decided a video was in order.
If your sound is turned on, you'll hear a bit of giggling!

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Dakota County Star Quilters

Nancy and I will be the guest speakers at the Dakota County Star Quilters meetings on Tuesday, Feb. 14. This will be in conjunction with their quilt show at the Dakota County Historical Society in South St. Paul. You can go to their website at http://dakotacountystarquilters.org/quilt_show.htm to find out all of the details. We show about 30 quilts, some older, some newer and talk about the history of our shop. We also talk about how we design our quilts. We have around 80 quilts in our pattern line now. We're looking forward to meeting new quilters, seeing lots of friends, seeing their quilt exhibit and sharing our story.

A Quilting Retreat

Would you believe that Nancy and I have never gone on a quilt retreat? I know that many of you go on retreats--we've heard all of the fun stories. We know you go again and again, so it must be fun. Well, this is our first. We won't be teaching, just participating. Will we bring enough projects? What if we forget something important? I've been trying to organize my projects today. Of course that was after I finished my mystery quilt which I can't bring with me! I'm bringing parts to make a 7 sisters quilt using the Marti Michell templates, the next project for Scrap Tamers and some parts for the Scrap Tamers mystery quilt. I might get together some half-square triangle paper piecing for a quilt I've always wanted to make--one by From My Heart to Your Hands. Don't quite have it pulled together, but might get some of it organized. Is that enough? I might spend some time on a nature walk--I've heard that the Lanesborough area is beautiful. I've also heard you can get a massage. Now that would be fun. And I've got a new book I'm reading. Oh, and handwork on the binding for the Twin Cities Shop Hop Quilt--may pass it around for anyone wishing to put their feet up and do some handwork. Am I ready????? Did I forget anything???? I'll let you know how it went. Please respond with any tips you have.

Sylvia's Bridal Sampler Part 2

Wow! Another fantastic display of Sylvia's Bridal Sampler quilts. I am so impressed at all the effort that has gone into creating these quilts. They're just beautiful. We've had lots of folks through the shop to see the quilts and there have been many complements while trying to select a favorite. Such a fun variety of sets and fabric combinations.

This group of quilts will be on display through Saturday January 21. If you're planning a visit to see this group of quilts, keep in mind that we do have a few classes scheduled during this show. You're welcome to view the quilts while classes are in session but it may be a little harder to get up-close to all of them. Our volunteer group will be working on quilts in the classrooms during the day on Tuesday but they'll be glad to have folks in looking at the quilts. Some of them even have quilts hanging in this show. We'll be open Tuesday evening until 8:30 PM with no class scheduled in the evening so that would be a great time to stop in. The final day of the show, January 21 is also our Scrap Tamers day so one of our classrooms will be a bit crowded. If that's your day to see the show, stop in after 2:00 for the best viewing.

Enjoy the slide show. The first 2 quilts in this slide show are quilts that were in the first exhibit but we didn't have a good photo for the first slide show so we've included them here.

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Sylvia's Bridal Sampler

The first group of Sylvia's Bridal Sampler quilts are hanging at the shop and they look fantastic! If you've been following our blog, you'll know that this show is the culmination of 2-1/2 years of work by our Sylvia's Bridal Sampler club. So many members completed their quilts that we'll be displaying them in two groups.

Thanks so much to everyone who finished their quilt and brought it in to share with us. Our New Year's Day shoppers enjoyed the great variety of sets and fun fabric combinations. This group of quilts will be on display through January 10. On the 11th we'll switch everything around and hang a second group of quilts that will be on display January 12 - 21. Enjoy the slide show!

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