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!