New Issue Of American Patchwork and Quilting Magazine!

Yesterday was a fun mail day, look what arrived:

This is the December 2010 issue of American Patchwork and Quilting magazine and it's packed with all kinds of quilting goodness.  There is a feature article on Jo Morton and shows pictures of her home and studio!  Congratulations Jo! Her log cabin quilt shown on the cover is gorgeous and is a big quilt all made from 1" strips.

2010 Steger Illinois Quilt Show

2010 Steger Illinois Quilt Guild Show

Above is the slideshow of the quilts that I took photographs of at the quilt show in Steger, Illinois that we vended at a couple of weeks ago. I love the shape of the name tags on each quilt - I thought they were so cute!

Below is the link to my webshots album if you would prefer to view the photos that way!

2010 Steger, IL Quilt Guild Show

2010 Heritage Quilters Guild Quilt Show

2010 Heritage Quilters Guild Quilt Show

Here are the photos from this past weekends, Heritage Quilters Guild Quilt Show!  Above is the slideshow and below is the link if you would like to go directly to my webshots photo album!

2010 Heritage Quilters Guild Quilt Show Photos

I'm just about caught up on pictures, I think!  I still need to upload the photos from the show in Steger, Illinois 2 weeks ago!

Annandale Fabric by Jo Morton

Well, Annandale this gorgeous collection by Jo Morton

Might be here by this coming Friday.  I knew this fabric was hitting the quilt shops yesterday after our phones and our email box were being filled with calls basically like this "Is Annandale there yet?"  People were so excited, wanting to know if we had gotten our goodies yet!

Well, by around 2 in the afternoon our UPS man had come and gone for the day. I was so sad, I even asked the poor man in brown to double check his truck because I should have about 4 more boxes.  But alas, no more were to be found.

I called Andover in a panic and was told there was a computer glitch.

Uh oh..

So this morning I spoke with my fabric rep and the owner of Andover.  And this is just how great Andover is - our Annandale line of fabric is shipping out today.  If we are lucky we could see it this Friday.  If not probably Monday.  I'll know more later if I can get the tracking number on the packages.

Computer glitches do happen - It's happened before and I'm sure it will happen again.  The important thing is (and this is why I love working with Andover so much) the problem was found and immediately fixed within minutes I knew the fabric would ship today - complete and not in pieces.

Now, the next dilemma we have.  Friday evening I leave to set up for a local quilt show.  If the fabric arrives in the afternoon I will cut fabric as quickly as possible and get everything ready to ship for pre-orders.  Saturday and Sunday I have the quilt show.  By some miracle, I can sit and fold and package everyone's pre-orders Friday afternoon before I leave and Saturday during the show.  What I cannot ship out of here by Saturday, I will leave for my helper to ship on Monday - because I leave Sunday directly from my local quilt show to start driving to Des Moines for the AQS quilt show!  See how crazy busy this is going to be!  If need be, I will take packages with me and ship them from my hotel.  I will get these pre-orders out!

Which brings me to this - if Annandale does not arrive on Friday, it will be here on Monday and I will be long gone for a complete week.  No help will be in our offices that can cut and package fabric orders, so the orders will have to wait to ship out until we arrive home on October 11th - which is postal holiday!  Mercy  - what else can hold this fabric up!

2008 Heritage Quilters Guild Quilt Show

2008 Heritage Quilters Guild Quilt Show

I was scanning through photos and realized - I have never shared the photos I took of the quilt on display at the 2008 Heritage Quilters Guild Show!

So here are those beauties!  Here is a link to my webshots album if you prefer to look at the quilts that way, if not above is the slideshow!  (I'm editing the photos of the 2010 Heritage Quilters Guild Show pictures today!  I'll upload those in a bit!)

2008 Heritage Quilters Guild Show Pictures

Grandma's Last Quilt

I ordered a really fun looking book last week and it came yesterday!  I love it!

This is Grandma's Last Quilt.  That is also the title of the book and it is from the editors of Traditional Quiltworks magazine.  You know how I've been going through a lot of my older quilt magazine - well this is how I found out about this book - an ad in one of them!  I was able to locate it through amazon.com

Here's the front cover of the book:

Here's a little info on it:

Traditional and Original Applique designs by Blanche Burkett White. (1895 - 1978)

Born near Cedarvale, Kansas, Blanche Burkett White was well-known locally for her exquisite workmanship. Now you can make a replica of Blanche's final, outstanding quilt. 

Full size patterns are included and the blocks finish at 17" square.

It's a beauty that's for sure!

And here's a neat link to a blog I just found where this blogger is talking about the same quilt!

Quilts - Vintage and Antique

The show this past weekend was a lot of fun.  I'm working on editing the photos I took and I'll upload those as soon as I work my way through them!

The Compass Rose Quilt

Kathie Holland of Inspired By Antique Quilts has done it again. She wrote another inspiring blog post earlier this week and had a lot of us drooling over oodles of red and green and baltimore quilts.  She is the queen of resources and deserves a crown.  Wow - be sure to check her blog out if you don't already! (And Kathie - I'm still eyeing your quilt book and pattern collections!)

The evening after I read her post, I was thumbing through old quilt magazines again - I'm on this kick lately.  I found this quilt and thought I would post it today, keeping with the red and green dream quilts that we all wish to make in out futures!

Here's a little info from this article that can be located in the Fall 1989 issue of Quilts Magazine....

Dream on , dream on, quilters everywhere. We all dream of making that once-in-a lifetime quilted heirloom...a wonderful quilt that that will challenge our abilities and show forth our very best efforts, The Compass Rose quilt is just this kind of challenge!

This beautiful antique heirloom quilt was made over a hundred years ago. The work of this unknown stitcher's hand is a beauty to behold. Twelve large applique blocks are centered with the well known Rose Of Sharon flower.  The compass points, swag edging and glittering red and gold stars contained within seem to be the product of the quilter's imagination. The border is a beautiful curving vine with large blossoms and leaves that complement and frame the quilt perfectly.

The pattern for this quilt is included in the magazine!

I'm off this morning to enjoy the first day of our local quilt guild show.  It was a long day setting up my booth yesterday for sure.

Congratulations also to Dave and Krista Darr - they welcomed Kali Sue Darr last night into the world and I became an Auntie again!

Heritage Quilters Guild Show

Just a quickie blog post to let you know where I'll be hiding out this weekend:

2010 Heritage Quilters Guild Quilt Show: 

September 25th and 26th, 2010

Liberty Junior High

151 Lenox Street

New Lenox, IL

Saturday:  10am - 5pm

   Sunday:  10am - 4pm

For those of you that live in my area, I'd love to see you!  The quilt show is very easy to get to - it's located right off of Interstate 80.  

The above pictured quilt is the raffle quilt for this year.

And if you are coming from a little bit of a distance and want to hit some other neat things, there are 2 other quilt shows around the area and a few really great quilt shops.  So here's links to that good stuff.

Roberts Sewing Center in Crest Hill/Joliet, IL

 

Thimbles Quilt Shop in Lockport, IL (no website, but here's the address)

 

The Quilt Merchant in Winfield, IL

Top Shelf Quilts in Frankfort, IL 

 

Gems Of The Prairie Quilt Show in Peoria, IL

Quiltmakers Quilt Guild Show in Kankakee, IL (no website, but here's a little info I found!)

and if you go down to the show in Kankakee, you might want to go on the Kankakee County Barn Quilt Block Trail - the first county in Illinois with a self guided barn quilt block tour!  (this is a you-tube video!)

That Poison Green Fabric

See this fabric above - we ran out of it last weekend - again.  Well, the nice Mr UPS man just brought us another bolt!

You can see it here:

Civil War Ladies Fabric Collection

Pennsylvania Sampler Quilt

Isn't this a gorgeous sampler quilt!!  I found this quilt in the 1999 issue of Sampler Quilts magazine produced by Quilt magazine.  The article states it is a century old sampler quilt that is still bright and cheery due to the fact that it had been stored away in an attic trunk for years before being discovered.  Oh how I wish I could have been the one to discover it!  It's gorgeous!  Look at those neat blocks and the cheddar fabric!

Speaking of cheddar fabric, we have ordered a new cheddar solid fabric to carry on our website as the cheddar solid we have carried in the past has been discontinued.  We will now have this one:

This is a Kona cotton and should arrive next week.  We have already uploaded it on our website and you can pre-order yardage if you would like here:

Cheddar Solid Fabric

Now, back to that quilt ---- here is one of the quilt blocks in the sampler quilt.  It's called Six Point Star Puzzle.

I will make this block in my lifetime.  I love it!  I really like the fabrics the quiltmaker used also - I could only dream of ever finding vintage fabrics like these at an auction or estate sale.  Look at it - is that not awesome!

 

And in other news, we have re-ordered the entire line of Reflections Of An Era Past by Paula Barnes of Bonnie Blue Quilts.  I just received word that all the bolts will ship out tomorrow, which means we will have all those gorgeous fabrics next week!  So - the entire fabric line is now available on our website again on Pre-Order. Your credit card will not be charged until the fabric has safely arrived here, cut and is on it's way to you!

If you would like to view each of these fabrics click on this link:

Reflections Of An Era Past

Also, our inventory on a few of the A Journey Through Time fabrics by Judie Rothermel are running low.  Particularly these 3 pieces

So, I have placed an order for more of those and a few of the other great pieces from this collection.

Those fabrics should be here the first week in October.  Each of the above 3 mentioned fabrics, we do have a little fabric remaining.  If you would like more yardage than what is available, you can pre-order that also.  Each of the fabrics on our web-site will tell you how much fabric is remaining if you care to have any of it now!  You can view this fabric here:

A Journey Through Time

And the much anticipated Annandale line from Jo Morton has not yet arrived, I'm sad too and really wanting this fabric to get here! 

We are expecting it any day now, I spoke with Andover last week and was told it was shipping the last week of September.  You can pre-order yardage or bundles of fabric now if you would like.  You can view that fabric line here:

Annandale

I'm off to finish packing the trailer for this weekends quilt show we are vending at.  It's very hot and humid here today and I keep putting it off, but it's not going to get any cooler!! 

The Cutting Edge Rulers

Have you seen these cool sounding new rulers?  I was on a notions chat the other day on my FaceBook page and I started researching a bunch of different notions, then I started seeing this information popping up all over blogland about these rulers!

It appears another cool Blog Hop will be going on, here's a list of the Blog's involved:

www.patsloan.typepad.com

ihaveanotion.blogspot.com

amyscreativeside.com

cvquiltworks.blogspot.com

www.jaybirdsquilts.com

crazymomquilts.blogspot.com

www.thehappyzombie.com

mrsschmenkmanquilts.wordpress.com

pamkittymorning.blogspot.com

lavieenrosie.typepad.com

naptimequilter.blogspot.com

quiltinggallery.com

http://minickandsimpson.blogspot.com

And if you would like more information on the new rulers you can visit here:

The Cutting Edge Rulers

So, what notions have you been searching for lately?  I'm thinking about expanding the amount and types of notions that we bring along to quilt shows and offer on our website!  Leave me a comment or email me!

Colonial Baskets Quilt

I think I really like this ladies quilts!  Last night, I was flipping through older quilt magazines again and came upon this quilt.

If you read my blog post yesterday, you will remember the name of the designer of yesterday's quilt was Carol Staehle.

Well this basket quilt is by her also. I think I'm in love with this woman's quilts! Here's the particulars on this pattern that can be found in Quilter's Newsletter magazine December 2003.

Inspiration for quilts comes from many places, and for Carol Staehle of Arlington, Texas, it came from an antique quilt shown in the book New Jersey Quilts 1777-1950 (published by American Quilter's Society, 1992). The pattern, known as Colonial Basket, was chosen for a block exchange by a group of Carol's friends, the Nineteenth Century Patchwork Divas.  A pattern for another of Carol's quilts appeared in a previous issue of QNM.

Dear Carol - I love your quilts!  I really like this Nineteenth Century Patchwork Diva's group too!  I viewed some of their amazing quilts at Quilt Fesitival in Houston last year!

Prairie Star Basket Quilt

Look at this little gem of a pattern I found this weekend:

I bought several older quilt magazines at the quilt show I did in Steger, Illinois a week ago.  This pattern can be found in Quilter's Newsletter magazine - the November 2003 issue.  It starts on page 74 and here is a little info on this quilt:

Inspired by a Prairie Star Basket block designed and published by Judy Martin (just love her stuff too!) in The Block Book (Crosley-Griffeth Publihing Co., Inc., 1998), Carol Staehle of Arlington, Texas, alternated plain blocks with pieced in a bold color scheme of golds and reds. The blocks were made for her by the members of the Nineteenth Century Patchwork Divas, a group of her quilting friends. Carol quilted it with perle cotton.

Oh this quilt is just so pretty.  It finishes at 83 7/8" x 100 7/8" and uses 12" blocks. I hope to one day make one just like it!

Newlsetter Sign Up!!!

Good Morning again!

I received an email earlier this week asking if I had some sort of email notification system that people could sign up for to be notified when new fabrics arrive (it was a nice little email and thank you very much for keeping me on my toes!)

We always have had an email newsletter sign up, granted over the years it's become buried on our home page amongst other things and as I looked at the page - I realized it was probably really hard to find!

So, we've moved the newsletter sign up area more toward the top of our home page. Right underneath this image of our most recent design that appeared in American Patchwork & Quilting Magazine!

We just sent out a newsletter this morning - if you didn't get it - well that means you are not on our list!  So here's a link to go sign up!

Sew Unique Creations

And I will admit, in the past I've not been one to send out many newsletters - maybe 2 a year at the most! So I'm going to do a little better with this now on top of blogging and FaceBooking - I'll send out notifications when new goodies arrive!!!!  And speaking of FaceBook - are you there?  If you "FaceBook" come find me here:

Sew Unique Creations on Facebook

(if the link to our FaceBook gives you trouble - just type in Sew Unique Creations in the search box located at the top of your FaceBook page!!)

And we hope you have a great weekend just like these cuties!

Cute New Pattern and Houston Quilt Festival Update

Well, just look at this cute little gem!  This little mug rug is a new design by Kathy Brown that is in the latest McCall's Quilting magazine issue (Nov/Dec) that should be hitting your mailboxes and newstands soon!  I just love cute little snowmen on quilts, pennyrugs and mug rugs - just not the real thing - in my yard!   I'm not ready for the white stuff to be coming and I just read on  another blog where the dreaded "white stuff" made an appearance yesterday! Ugggg

And in other exciting news:

Are you ready for this?  The International Quilt Festival in Houston, Texas is coming really soon!  Above is the George R Brown convention center where thousands of quilters will be flooding into November 4 - 7!  It's coming really quickly!  You can read more about it and all the shows info here:

International Quilt Festival

Would you just not love to come be an exciting part of the show and dig through everone's booth of quilting goodies!

We'll be there with bells on in the 2000 aisle - booths 2013 - 2019 to be exact.  And this year we have a new addition to our little workforce.

My husband Bob is coming with me!  Yeah Bob!  It's going to be so nice not making that long drive to Texas and back home by myself.  It'll be nice to spend 10 days together working at the quilt show, driving the hundreds of miles to get there and back home when it's over and unloading and re-loading the trailer together!

Be sure you stop by and say hi if you are going to the show!  And be gentle on dear Bob - we have to break him in gently - he's a newbie to helping out at the quilt shows!

Have a great weekend my quiltie friends!

A Journey Through Time fabric by Judie Rothermel

The day couldn't get any better than this!  Look what the nice Fed Ex man just dropped off:

Was that not the nicest present that man could have brought us? 

I think I know what I'll be doing for the rest of today after I've filled orders - yes, cutting more fabric!  That's a good thing!

You can view the entire collection and the bundles available at the following link:

A Journey Through Time Fabric

Heartspun quilts New Blog and a Contest!

Well a fellow pattern designer and friend has come to blog land!  Welcome Pam Buda - designer extraordinaire behind Heartspun Quilts! Check out her new blog - she's having a giveaway Contest, so rush on over and leave her a warm welcoming comment about your favorite quilt shop and where it's located and you could win this:

Is this not the cutest pincushion???  Made from an old Grandmother's Flower Garden Quilt!  Yum!

Check out her blog here:     Heartspun Quilts

Now, I've got to get back to work - that gorgeous UPS driver was just here and the new Miniatures 1860 - 1890 fabric collection by Julie Hendrickson has arrived!  Gorgeous, yummy fabric!

Miniatures 1860 - 1890 Fabric Collections

We just received great news!  The Miniatures 1860 -1890 fabric collection designed by Julie Hendrickson (owner of J.J. Stitches Quilt Shop in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin) has a new line of fabric and it's shipping out today!  We should have all 40 pieces shown above in stock by this weekend!  Isn't it pretty!

Above is the beautiful quilt Julie designed to go with the collection and you can download a copy of the pattern by clicking on this link ----- Miniatures Quilt Pattern

We have uploaded all the fabric to our website and you are welcome to pre-order it now.  We will not charge your card until the fabric has actually arrived and is ready to ship!  We are going to be cutting fat quarters, fat quarter bundles, 1/2 yard bundles, fat eighth bundles and charm packs as usual!  Here's a link:

Miniatures 1860 - 1890 Fabric Page

Poison Green & Chrome Yellow Civil War Ladies Fabric

See these 2 little fabric gems?  Well - we completely ran out of this awesome Poison Green this past weekend and the Chrome Yellow we only had a few yards left.  Well - I just place an order for more of both!  They both will be back in stock by the end of this week! Are they not gorgeous!

Also - we will be getting the following fabrics in soon and I'm going to be updating the website today so you can view swatches of each of the fabrics arriving!

Grace's Dowry Shirtings
Abigail
Charlotte
Early Elegance
Colonial Poison Green and Cheddar
Miniatures 1860 - 1890
Little Quilts - Shirtings Favorites and More

Gorgeous antique quilt!

Look at this beauty that was hanging in the antique quilts section of the quilt show I did this past weekend in Steger, Illinois!  Isn't it gorgeous!  I sure wish I could get my hands on some of that lovely cheddar and poison green fabric!  The quilting and applique work on the quilt was wonderful!