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.

A free slideshow design by Smilebox

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!

This free slideshow design made with Smilebox