Oh my, what a trip! We left mid-January for Road to California 2024. It was a great show.
Setting up and taking down the booth is a lot of hard work. We are getting it dialed in to where its not quite as bad as it used to be. This was our last 40' booth. I like the feel of a 30' booth much better. Its more intimate and although I can't display quite as much stuff, I just feel that it really serves the customer well and its not so overwhelming.
After Road, we took a day off and then headed to Phoenix for the Quilt, Craft, Sew Festival at the State Fairgrounds. We always really enjoy this show and have met some wonderful people there.
I got a new Square In A Square quilt started while doing demos in the booth. I also gave these blocks to people who attended my seminars.
These blocks are being made from a fat quarter bundle called Rainbow from Kaffe Fassett. I have one hanging in the booth but the fabrics are slightly different so thought it was a good excuse to make this one up. We have the bundles available on the website. The one bundle makes a quilt top (minus an optional border) 48" x 72" so if you add a border, it could make a great throw quilt. I purposely do not kit this for a quilt with border and binding because you could add so many different, wonderful Kaffe fabrics for borders and bindings and I didn't want people to have to all use the same fabric. This way, you can pull your favorite color from the blocks or if you have Kaffe fabrics in your stash, you can use that. Everyone's will be different. We also have bundles in greens (Meadow) and blues (Lake). All are gorgeous.
We were sold out of the small metal stands that I display my mini quilts on but got a shipment in last week. I am putting them on the website today so if you want one, better hurry because they go fast. I just put an order in for another shipment but it takes a couple of weeks to get them.
Orders got backed up while we were on this trip but I have been working like crazy getting them all out. The last of them should go out today, including anything that has/will come in by noon PST today. Thank you to all who have been patiently waiting for these. To alleviate this problem in the future, we are in the middle of setting up a second production facility that will be able to process the orders in a timely manner, regardless of our travel schedule. As a quilter, I know when I order something for quilting, I want it as soon as possible. Its bothered me to not be able to get these orders out right away when we are traveling so this will make me feel so much better and offer all of you much better service. The facility is not totally up and running yet but we hope to have it ready by the first of March. I think to celebrate, we will run some sort of a special deal for you so stay tuned.
Our schedule for the next few months includes Mid-Atlantic Quilt Show in Hampton, VA February 29th to March 3. I will be teaching two classes there. The first class on Thursday afternoon is Basic Foundation Piecing. We will be making Crazy Hearts in that class. Its designed to use fabrics from your stash to learn the technique using our leave-in foundations. The second class I will be teaching is an all day workshop for Advanced Foundation Piecing. We will be making the Ruby's Star Block. This is perfect as the center of a medallion quilt or you can leave it at its 48" x 48" size and use it as a table topper or piece of art. Check the website for these classes.
We will then go to Atlanta/Duluth for the Original Sewing and Quilt Festival March 7-9th. I will be teaching the Advanced class on Wednesday from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm and the Basic class on Saturday from 8:30 to 11:30 am.
And, now its February 23rd and we are on our way to Virginia. A bit of a hiccup on the way here. We had some trouble with the van and barely made it off of the Interstate before it totally died. We got towed to our hotel and then about noon yesterday, the tow truck came back and picked us up and brought us to the dealership to see if it can be fixed so we can get on our way. I don't even want to think about all the logistics of getting to Virginia if its going to take more than one day to fix it. We wanted to spend a few days with Donald and Laura as we are setting up a second production facility with them so we can be more efficient with our web orders.
We've expanded our social media presence as well; besides this blog and our website, we're on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, and Pinterest now, and working to figure out how Laura and I can post to all of these and make quilting more accessible and fun for everyone.
In the meantime, if you are in the Hampton Roads, Virginia, or Atlanta areas for either of these shows, we hope to see you there! Until next time, HAPPY QUILTING!