Tag Archives: Quilt store

Teaching at Running Stitch Fabrics in Kent

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A personal recommendation is always nice. One of my students from a class I taught at Quilted Strait talked me up to Alice Marshall the owner of Running Stitch Fabrics and I was delighted when Alice called to invite me to teach there in early June. The store is on 1st Avenue in the heart of downtown Kent.

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It was inviting and Alice gave me a warm welcome. There was a cozy area for looking at the books, plenty of fabric, and a long-arm machine available for rental and in use for much of the day.

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I taught Kaleidoscopic Pinwheels and the class was full with nine students. Here are some of my students cutting out their colorful fabrics. You’ll notice the fan. It was an unseasonably warm day for our area, over 80 degrees F! You can also see some of my class samples hanging on the walls.

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We began by cutting eight identical squares which are stacked into two piles of four and then cut into eight triangles. You get eight sets of eight identical triangles, enough to make eight pinwheel blocks. It’s fun to see the Kaleidoscope patterns emerge and you never know exactly how they will look until you lay them out. My technique differs from that of Bethany Reynold’s in that my Pinwheels float on the background. There is a margin of about 1″ between the pinwheel points and the edge of the block. The blocks may all be trimmed to exactly the same size and there is no loss of Pinwheel points. Here are some of the blocks my students produced. Everyone was successful and we had an enjoyable day.

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Western Washington Shop Hop

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June 19th to June 23rd is a crazy time for quilters in Western Washington. Many go on the annual Shop Hop and drive hundreds of miles to visit all or some of the participating 52 quilt shops. They travel from Vancouver, just across the river from Portland, OR, all the way up the I-5 corridor to Lynden which is practically in Canada, then out west as far as Port Angeles on the Olympic Peninsula. Each shop designs a special quilt block to give away with one piece of Shop Hop theme fabric, one coordinating fabric, and a fabric of the shop’s choosing.

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The poster shows a quilt containing all the quilt blocks created by the stores, with the theme fabric in the border. This colorful floral fabric was designed especially for the Shop Hop by In The Beginning Fabrics and the coordinating fabrics come from Clothworks Textiles.

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The left picture shows the coordinating prints, and the block with appliqued hexagons designed by Quilted Strait, Port Gamble. The palm tree block on the right was designed by Esther’s Fabrics, Bainbridge Island. I’ll be spending today, (Friday, 21st June), at Quilted Strait demonstrating my template-free Kaleidoscope and Bargello block techniques.  Quilted Strait, this wonderful store in a spacious red barn, is my home base for teaching and they hang several of my quilts in the store on a rotational basis, to promote classes and pattern sales. In these pictures you can see the Ohio Star Lattice – Harvest Stars, my Feathered Star quilt – Brideshead Radiance, and one of my Kaleidoscope Puzzle Quilt – Arctic Spring. 

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Visit to The Quilt Barn, Puyallup

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A few weeks ago when I was in the Tacoma area, I went to Puyallup and visited the wonderful quilt store, The Quilt Barn.

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The Quilt Barn used to be housed in a red barn, but moved to this larger 6,000 square foot facility a few years ago. Pam Hewitt, owner for 10 years, has a huge inventory of 10,000 bolts of fabric with rows arranged by color, a large section of batiks, and areas with novelty and seasonal prints. The fabric bolts are a colorful feast for the eyes, but in addition, there are many inspiring quilt samples hanging high on the walls where they are nice and visible.

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In the back there is a big classroom with more beautiful quilt samples hanging and Pam offers a wide variety of classes. She also has a long-arm Handi Quilter sewing machine which is available to rent after you’ve taken a training class. In another area, there is a comfortable book nook with couches and lamps so you can settle down for a few minutes to peruse the great selection books and patterns. I love this.

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If you are in the Puyallup area, or you go there for Sew Expo in early March, it’s worth taking some extra time to visit this awesome store.

Visit to Superior Threads, St. George, Utah

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While on vacation in Southern Utah, I stopped at the head quarters of Superior Threads in St. George and owner, Bob Purcell, graciously gave us a tour of the 25,000 square foot facility.

20130424_10285920130423_105254The store with a large selection of fabrics and, of course, plenty of thread is upstairs. Downstairs, there are shelves and shelves of thread, manufactured in Japan and distributed from here.

 

20130423_112834 20130423_105704They stock around 2 million spools of thread and ship orders to customers all over the world.

20130423_105107 20130423_105441Every day, they wind over 3,000 bobbins in a beautiful array of colors. The bobbin winding room is noisy with several machines winding multiple bobbins simultaneously. Once the thread is wound onto the bobbins, each bobbin has to capped with white cardboard top and bottom.

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A guy spends all day placing bobbins into a machine which does this a rate of about one per second. He removes a completed bobbin with his right hand and places the next one to be done with his left hand.

Seeing the array of wonderful threads, fabric and display quilts was inspiring. Do stop by for a visit. No appointment is necessary and the staff are extremely welcoming and friendly.

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Calico Threads – New Quilt Shop in Tacoma

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Last week I went to Tacoma to lecture at Quilters by the Bay. The guild member who hosted me, told me about a new quilt shop that opened about 6 months ago – Calico Threads, located at 2727 N Pearl Street. I had a delightful visit there and the window cleaner was at work when I snapped my photo of the outside of the store!

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Owners Donna Denman and Sandi Pickering were friendly and welcoming. Both have several years of experience working at Quality Sewing & Vacuum stores in the area and have a wealth of knowledge on sewing machines and quilting. They have a good inventory of fabric and notions.

Something I loved about the store was an area with several high quality sewing machines set up and ready for use. Donna and Sandi encourage customers to come and sew in the store, without having to lug machines in and out, and they have frequent “Sew-cials”. They enjoy being able to do some sewing too, if they have a quiet spell between customers.

Do visit the store if you are in the Tacoma area. They will be participating in the Western Washington Shop Hop In June.

Teaching at The Woodlands Area Quilt Guild, Houston

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This week I traveled to Houston to give a lecture and teach a workshop at The Woodlands Area Quilt Guild on the north side of Houston, not far from the airport. The quilters gave me a warm welcome and I thoroughly enjoyed my time with them. Around 120 quilters attended the meeting and before my lecture they installed their new officers and all the members pledged allegiance to the group. I always like the Show and Tell at guild meetings and was particularly impressed by the applique quilts that were shown. The following day, I taught the Bears Come Out at Night workshop, one of my variations on the Bear’s Paw block. Emphasis is on precision piecing and the small Sawtooth Star mini-blocks within the Bear’s Paw blocks can be a little challenging. My students all did well and we had an enjoyable day.

20130307_143253During the day of the lecture, the Program Chair, Carol Ayre took me out for a pleasant walk at the Mercer Botanical Gardens, then we went to Old Town Spring for lunch. Here’s a photo of the local quilt shop, GRS Creations & Fabrics, which they refer to as “The Hidden Fabric Shop”. From the outside it looks very small, but inside, the store extends back and includes several rooms with a large inventory of fabrics. If you are in the area, it’s worth a visit.

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Old Town Spring also boasts this supposedly haunted house which is over 100 years old. It has a colorful history as you’ll see from the sign – ranging from a hippy commune to a funeral home and for over 30 years, 200 insect eating bats lived in the attic! The tall screened-in section housed several cooing doves.

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As you can see, we had glorious sunny weather and the 70 degree sunshine felt wonderful after the 48 degrees in Seattle. It was a good time of year to visit.