Stitchin’ Heaven Howdy

I’m really excited about this week’s challenge. Know why?….Ok, ok, I’ll tell you.

Week #2 Charm Pack Challenge is : Purses, totes & handbags!

Yep, make a cute little creation using charm packs! You do know that our charm packs are on sale this week; buy 6 get 6 free, right? Yeah, I know! You better go get some before they’re gone!

I found a bunch of inspiration for this challenge including the following from Moda Bake Shop (can you tell I love this source?)

Moda Bake Shop

Do you have a source you like to use? Please share it in the comments. 

I like to go to Google, as well! Google is awesome! Anything possible you want to know you can go to google to find.�
How did your challenges go last week?  I made a throw pillow using the challenge of half square triangles. You can see the start of it on Flickr. I’ll post the finished pillow later this weekend.  I didn’t find any bloggers or new pics to flickr, so I’ll be keeping my eye out so I can name a winner this week! We’ll have a winner each week, so be sure to let us know you’ve accepted the challenge by saying so as a comment to any of the Cha Cha Challenge posts and grab the button and post it to your blog. And….Don’t forget to share you projects on your blog and Flickr.  Check out the first Challenge, it’s not too late.

Good morning, and Welcome to our Monster Mash Mystery!

I’m so glad that you decided to join us, and I look forward to spending this “virtual” day with you.  My name is Niki (that’s me dressed as a witch!), and I will be here to help out.  You can contact me at nichole@stitchinheaven.com, or write a post, and I will get back with you just as soon as I can.

The Fun: We’ve got some really fun things planned for today – other than just the sewing – and you are invited to join, but you don’t have to.  If you’ve got a digital camera, you might want to grab it, and keep it handy.  We’ve got great sales planned throughout the day that you can take advantage of, so get those shopping carts warmed up and ready!  I would suggest that you fill your cart and submit 1 order at the end of the day since you may want to take advantage of several of these sales, and this would help to keep my confusion to a minimum.  By the way, not all the sale prices will appear correctly in your cart, so, please put “MONSTERMASH” in the comments section, and we will adjust the total to reflect the correct amount before billing.  On Monday, we’ll pull the orders and do our very best to get everything out to you as swiftly as possible.

The Quilt: There are 6 Steps, and we’ll be posting the first at 10:00am, then, another pattern every hour after until the last one posts at 3:00pm this afternoon. The quilt is designed by our very own, Debby Luttrell, and is a really great size quilt at 82″ square finished.  Our first ‘clue’ will be the cutting instructions, just in case someone missed them last week, and it will be posted shortly, at 10:00am.

Now, to get us started, and everyone introduced, if you would, please post a comment, give us your name, and maybe the state where you live, and a short “Hello.”  All in all, our goal today is to get to know each other a little bit, have some fun, get some great deals, and leave this afternoon with an exciting new quilt project well on it’s way to completion. Those are BIG aspirations, but we’re sure gonna try!

Oh, yeah…Happy Halloween!

Yep, that’s right! Debby Maddy prefers no diamonds or “Y” seams, that is…You didn’t really think she didn’t like diamonds, did you? )� What girl doesn’t like diamonds?….Well, I guess that all just depends…..When it comes to quilting, I prefer Debby’s technique. Her patterns make it too easy to do “faux” diamonds using 1/2 square triangles….For beginners or for a quick gorgeous projects her patterns are perfect!

Like many quilters, I have always loved fabric! I learned to sew when I was nine years old and began doing hand embroidery and needlework as a teenager. In 1982, I learned to quilt and it quickly became one of my favorite hobbies. Classes from nationally known teachers followed, and in 1993, I decided to share my enthusiasm for quilting with others through teaching. My greatest satisfaction comes from introducing new people to quilting. Soon I was designing my own patterns for quilts that look difficult to make but are really easy for beginners. In 2002, I named my business Calico Carriage Quilt Designs and began presenting lectures and workshops for quilt guilds and shops. I hope I have the opportunity to meet many of you in my travels. I’m a designer and a teacher, but I’m always a quilter first! I was absolutely thrilled when two of my quilts were juried into the 2004 International Quilt Association show at Quilt Festival in Houston. That same year, another of my quilts was accepted into the Hoffman Challenge, an annual traveling exhibit sponsored by Hoffman California Fabric. In 2005, I was invited to California to tape an episode of Simply Quilts for HGTV, and later that year, quilting became my full-time passion when I retired from a long career as a dental hygienist. It’s been a dream come true ever since.

You can visit Debby at her online quilt shop , Calico Carriage!

Not sure if you guys already knew, but we’re going on a cuise in February 2010 and you’re invited!! Yes, you’re invited!! You’ll have to check out the details on the website….Anywho,

Debby is going to be one of our guest teachers alondg with Trish Stuart whose new book Undercover Strip book has been a sensation here at the shop and online, and Sara Moe is a fiber and quilt artist, fabric designer, and the author of Spinning Pinwheels Quilts. It’s going to be a lot of fun and seriously, quilting and a cruise…to the Carribean….how can you pass that up!?

Don’t forget the giveaway! All comments placed on any of the posts for the month of April will be entered to win our Scottie Turns 20 Quilt!� So, go ahead and comment while you’re here!

Scottie Turns 20 Quilt!

April Giveaway!

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It is finally here! Our 4th Patchwork Party is scheduled to begin officially April 1st but I wanted to invite all of our very good friends at Stitchin’ Heaven to a “Sneak Peek” on Monday, March 31. You can view our page with all the details here.

Patchwork Party 2008 - Summer Edition is the original Party. You may see some programs out there that look like the Patchwork Party but they are copies of this idea. I originated the Party after doing a similar program called “Hop Around Houston” during the years of having a booth at the International Quilt Festival in Houston. Many of you may have seen similar programs at large shows. The idea is that you are provided a passport with the names of the 12 participating booths. As you travel around the show (which would be similar to a shop hop except that it is all under one roof), you stop by each booth, get your passport stamped, and you can pick up the featured block for the shop. Most of the shops have the 12 blocks put together in some kind of quilt design with a finishing package for sale.

This is also the idea behind the Patchwork Party – on a bigger scale. We still have 12 participating shops but we have many more opportunities to share the fun since our Party is primarily executed on the Internet. Each of the participating shops has a finishing kit so you can collect all 12 blocks by purchasing them from each shop’s website and then choose the design you like the best for your quilt. Our quilt is titled Stars on the Prairie and features a Feathered Star Medallion surrounded with Ohio Star blocks.

All of the blocks and finished quilts in this Patchwork Party are made with the new fabric collection from Moda Prairie Paisley. This beautiful fabric line was designed my Minick and Simpson and features beautiful flowers with a unique paisley. Also used are Perfect Patchwork Template Sets A and C from Marti Michell. It is recommended that you use these acrylic templates with these blocks as they are quite complex and the templates will help you be more successful in making them. Paper templates are provided in each pattern, however. I have included Tips from Marti on the main Patchwork Party 2008 website. Please read these tips prior to starting with the cutting of your blocks. You will be glad you did!

Just one more thing to point out, some of you might want to do some fussy cutting with the fabrics to insure there is a floral motif in the center of the blocks. If you do, you will need to purchase 3 extra fat quarters of fabrics C-14573-13 blue floral, H-14573-11 red floal and B-14570-11 red with paisley. On the Stitchin’ Heaven Patchwork Party page you will find these fat quarters available in a Fussy Cut Party Pack.
Over and over I get comments from my friends of how much they enjoy this event. We host a Party twice each year. This one will end on June 30 and blocks will not be for sale once the Party is over so get your blocks now.

Until we meet again, may your days be pieceful!

deb

website: www.stitchinheaven.com

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Fat Tuesday! …or in French you would say “Mardi Gras”! Mardi Gras celebrations are held each year in Louisiana, Italy, Brazil…and now in Quitman, Texas! Today we are hosting our very first Mardi Gras Carnival at Stitchin’ Heaven. Nearly 100 loyal Stitchin’ Heaven customers and friends have called to say “We’ll be there!” and will be sure to have a good time. Featured on this day of celebration will be a buffet of Cajun cuisine including gumbo, pralines, jambalaya, dirty rice, and much more.

King Cake will also be served. Do you know about King Cake? A traditional King Cake is traditionally an oblong or oval shaped cinnamon dough cake, glazed with frosting and sprinkled with colored sugar. What colors you ask? Purple, Green, and Gold, of course! But unlike other ordinary cakes the fun with a King Cake isn’t simply limited to its taste. Hidden on the underside (after baking) of each King Cake is a small plastic figurine in the shape of a baby. Whoever finds the baby is officially the King or Queen of the party and gets the honor of supplying the next King Cake or throwing the next Mardi Gras Party. In New Orleans slang, it is referred to as “Who got da baby?”

All of the food at today’s festivities is furnished by the staff of Stitchin’ Heaven.

There will be specials in the store, feathered masks, tiaras, chocolate, coins, and just a great time together having fun. Lunch will be served at noon and at 2PM we will have our big Mardi Gras Giveaway where everyone in attendance will win!

For those of you who are not in driving distance we have a special gift – in every order that is placed today you will receive one of our Mardi Gras duckies free! (They are just too cute!) It is just a fun touch that we will include to help you celebrate. These vinyl rubber duckies are dressed and ready for the Mardi Gras festival! Some are masked for a masquerade party while others are ready to show their faces at the Stitchin’ Heaven Carnival!

We are anxious to see those of you who have made a reservation for lunch today and hope to hear from you if you must resign to only visiting on the website. If you have something on your list to order, visit our site and do it today so we can include one of the duckies in your order!

Until we meet again, may your days be pieceful!

deb

Visit our online store here!
Stitchin’ Heaven Quilting and Sewing Center
Quitman, TX

Everyone get ready…The Stitchin’ Heaven 11th Anniversary Celebration is almost here! Everything is about 11! We have some really great things planned and this is your sneak peek:

#1 Biggie: We are rolling out our new website design. After over 10 years on the web we decided it is time for a face lift. We have a new logo (shown) and a brand new look. You’ll love our fresh and crisp design with the fun look of our “Quilt Saloon”. Our new site is easier to navigate and offers you more information than ever before. So, take a few minutes and look around. Don’t miss the “Quilter’s Fun Stuff” where we put all kinds of stuff we find that we want to share with you including some great clips from You Tube. We have a “Refer a Friend” feature so that you can send our site to all of your friends. We would love to know what you think.

#2 Biggie: Just for our 11th Anniversary Celebration Deb has designed a great original quilt for all of us – The 11th Anniversary Quilt! It is beautiful and features 11 sampler blocks that will be yours absolutely free. All you need to do is find the boots hidden around the site. When you click on the boot you will be directed to a .pdf file that you can print. Collect all 11 blocks and you will get the 12th block as a bonus. Each block is named after one of the employees on the Stitchin’ Heaven staff. The alternate block is appropriately titled “Deb’s Starring Staff”. We want you to have a good opportunity to learn all that is on the new site while you have fun looking for the boots and collecting the blocks. We call this game the Stitchin’ Heaven Round Up and if you want to play you can start on Thursday, October 11 and continue through Sunday, October 14. Once you collect all 11 blocks (these are free) by finding the boots you can purchase the fabric kit to make the project (optional) for only $111.11. In the kit you will be provided the alternate block as well as all of the fabrics for the top including the borders and binding. The quilt is made from 1930’s reproduction fabrics and measures 80″ x 92″.
#3 Biggie: Thursday, October 11 – the first day of our celebration and also Clay’s (Deb’s son) birthday. Remember…it is all about celebrating 11 years of serving you for us so we are going to have some deals that will be sure to make you smile:

• First, for the first 111 customers with an $11 minimum purchase, you will qualify to buy one of the cool new quick-change rotary cutters from Olfa for $11 (reg. $32.95) PLUS a 5-ct package of 45mm rotary blades (reg. $29.95) for $11
• Buy 11 fat quarters and get 11 free
• Buy 11 books and/or patterns and get 11 free (no duplicates please)
• Buy 11 yards of fringe and get 11 free

#4 Biggie: Friday, October 12 – you’ll want to visit again although we will only be offering one thing. Buy 11 yards of fabric and get 11 yards free! ’nuff said.

#5 Biggie: Saturday, October 13 – at 3:00 PM we will give away 11 finished quilts! These will be our really nice ones too. Many of you have been collecting your tickets for this event for weeks now and have a big circle marked on your calendar. The way this works is that for every $10 you spend you get a ticket that will be put in the drawing for the quilts. You can continue to collect your tickets right up until 3:00 PM. You must be present to win so if you have been thinking about taking a trip to east Texas, this would be a good day. If you are buying from us over the Internet, just put in comments that you plan to attend the drawing for the quilts and request your tickets to be held for you to pick up when you arrive.

Whew! As you can image we are working really hard to get all of this ready for you. We want you all to have a good time and we would love to see you if you live close enough to drive to Quitman. If not, please visit us in cyberspace on our new website! Let me know if you have questions or need more information. You can reach me through email at deb@stitchinheaven.com

Until we meet again, may your days be pieceful!

deb

Visit our website!

This is a press release for our Patchwork Party that says it all:

Internet quilting party attracts thousands of quilters. This isn’t your grandmother’s quilting bee, where a dozen gray-haired ladies gathered around a quilting frame to stitch and chat. In this day of the world wide web, quilter’s are Internet savvy, surfing the web to find quilt shops, block patterns and fabric.

In 2006 Debby Luttrell, owner of Stitchin’ Heaven in Quitman, Texas, envisioned 12 online quilt shops getting together for a new and exciting quilting event. Each shop would sell a different sampler quilt block kit then take the 12 different blocks and come up with a unique design for completing a quilt. That would give the customer 12 different options for completing her own quilt. Luttrell, researched the Internet for the best online shops to include in this project and chose well known designer Marti Michell to design the quilt blocks. Maywood Studio’s Willowberry Winter fabric was chosen and the first Patchwork Party was launched in August of 2006.

After an overwhelming success , quilters were clamoring for more. Patchwork Party 2007 – Spring edition followed using the Sanctuary fabric collection from Moda. Each Patchwork Party edition is only offered for a limited time.The next Patchwork Party begins August 15, 2007. This party will feature:

• Home for the Holidays, a beautiful floral fabric, designed by Fay Burgos for Marcus Brothers.
• 12 Incredible online quilt shops
• 12 newly designed blocks from Marti Michell
• 12 completely different finished quilts.

Everyone is invited to join the next Party. Visit www.patchworkparty2007.com

That pretty much tells you all about our Patchwork Party and we want you to join in on the fun! This is the quilt that I designed for the Fall Edition. It was named “A Tisket, A Tasket…” by my friend Deane from Amsterdam. It features basket motifs that can either be machine or hand embroidered (the digitized designs are included in our finishing kit as well as the line drawings for hand embroidery). This is a Deb Luttrell original design and I would be so honored if you decide this one is your favorite. However, visit the Patchwork Party 2007 website and make sure you choose the one you like best. There are some incredible quilts this Edition!

©2006 – 2007 Patchwork Party by Deb Luttrell

Hey everyone! I just wanted to stop a few minutes and update you on some neat things going on at Stitchin’ Heaven. First of all I wanted to let you know how hard the gals at Stitchin’ Heaven work to bring you a really great selection of some of the finest items in the quilting industry. You might be amazed to know that in the past 30 days some 900 items have been added to our website! That’s right…amazing. When you are on our homepage be sure and check out the “Newest Additions” page. That’s where we show what has been added in the past 30 days. We have had a push this month to get as much fabric on-line for you as we can so Donna, our good friend, stopped by for a few weeks to focus on just this task. She did a great job before she left to see her grandsons in Ohio. Donna will be finishing up nursing school this fall – go Donna!

Another thing that I want to let you know about is our Big BOM Sale that is coming up on Friday. For a couple of weeks if you join a BOM program and join the 2nd for free (a $25 value). At Stitchin’ Heaven we love BOM programs. The ones we offer are beautiful because we never offer something we would not love to do ourselves and many of our employees actually do the BOM along with you. Trish, our webgirl, has been working particularly hard to be sure all of our upcoming programs for the next 6 months are so are available for you during this sale. Here are some of the ones you won’t want to miss:

Botanika begins in August. This is a beautiful program designed by Robyn Pandolph. The Stitchin’ Heaven version will be on a much lighter background fabric (shown at right), however so don’t let this dark homespun look keep you from this quilt. The blocks are very romantic and the pieces are huge so it will be great for both hand needle turn as well as machine appliqué of any kind.

In September we have a wonderful Baltimore album style quilt “Not Anywhere Near Baltimore: A Prairie Version”. This great quilt we discovered at Quilt Market last fall in Houston and the designer was just finishing up on it saying all she needed to offer it to us was to finish the borders. It is ready to go now and we love it.

There are three BOM programs beginning in October. Atlantis is a beautiful art-type quilt made from batik fabrics. When you look at it be sure and look at all of the different blocks that are on display. They use a form of curved piecing that gives a unique look to the quilt. This quilt has no appliqué – everything here is pieced and it is very gorgeous. Equally beautiful is a new design we found called Celebration Sampler based on the Friendship/Album Presentation quilts, so popular in the mid-nineteenth century. It features 25 beautiful sampler blocks. And, finally you can start the project “Pumpkin Hill” which is a great applique quilt featuring all sorts of great animals busy getting ready for autumn.

In November you batik lovers won’t want to miss Diamonds Are… as well as a wonderful house quilt called Rosebud Lane. With Rosebud Lane there will be an accessory fabric packet that will have a pre-printed fabric with all of the little cute things in the windows of the houses. It is very unique.

On the website we have all the upcoming BOM’s listed so why don’t you head on over there and check them out early. Then, you can be ready to make your selections on Friday when our sale begins. Also, check out why we are the best in the industry at this sort of thing. We have worked very hard to make it good for you with extras like a fabric key in each packet so you don’t have to guess at where the fabric goes, a set date to bill and mail out the packets on, and a tremendous amount of effort to select just the right fabrics. See what our Happy Customers are saying about us as well.

BOM programs are great for three basic reasons:

1. You only get a small part of a big quilt every month so it is easier to complete the project and not be overwhelmed. Get it from your mailbox, do the block, and before you know it you have it all ready to put together
2. Generally we don’t have the variety of fabric in our stashes to make these quilts and the fabric choices are critical to the success of the project. This is what we are best at so take advantage of us!
3. You get to pay it out over time without interest! So, instead of having to pay a huge chunk of money up front, we let you pay it out at $19.95 per month. Too easy! The payments are automatically drafted from your account and you don’t have to hassle with it every month.

So, get yourself another cup of coffee and spend some time deciding which programs you would like to join in on with us. Then, on Friday place your order and get ready for some fun!

Until we meet again, may your days be pieceful!

deb

I feel like such a star! Last night I was the “featured guest” in the chat room of The Quilt Show and I am going to have to admit to you that I was a bit nervous! First of all, the time was set at “9:00 Eastern and 6:00 Pacific”. That meant I had to figure out what time the chat was scheduled for in my time zone, Central. I figured it out very quickly but there was this nagging in the back of my brain “What if you are wrong???” How embarrassing it would be to miss my own featured guest chat session!

Fortunately I did not miss it and I had a blast talking to some 25 guests about owning and running a quilt shop. These people were so, so neat. They showered me with compliments about Stitchin’ Heaven and asked some really darn good questions. Some of these included things like:

• So Deb, tell us how you came to own your shop?
• Is it something you should do because you love quilting or business?
• Can you make a decent living owing a shop? and how long might it take until you can pay yourself?
• Deb, on your website, it says something about “reserving the cabin” ? Tell me.
• Can you give us an idea of how much capital you need to open a shop?
• Is the $50 to start, or goal? I’ve heard start with $30 and work up to $50
• Deb, do you know what is the avg. sales/square foot for an indep. quilt shop? I have figures for chains like Joann & Hancock, but it’s hard to pin down for a LQS
• So how do you do your income projections for your business plan?
• Do you have a philosophy about how you choose what to stock it seems like some lqs follow a type of quilting style in their product line and you seem to have a wide variety?
• Do you find patterns to promote the sale of the fabric you want to get rid of?
• How is the internet for adding to the sale of store fabrics?
• Do you offer classes at your shop as well?
  
  

…and many other very good questions. The chat lasted an hour and at the end I told everyone how much I enjoyed visiting with them and gave each of them a coupon for $15 in merchandise from the store.

It was a real treat. If you have not yet heard about The Quilt Show you should check it out. Alex Anderson and Ricky Timms have joined together to bring us television on the Internet with some darn good quilting shows. There is a membership fee if you want to be able to view the episodes of only $24.95 per series (a series lasts several months). It is well worth it.

Until we meet again, may your days be pieceful!

deb

Monday, June 11 through Sunday, June 17 a most unusual sale will take place at Stitchin’ Heaven. We will have our kits on sale. We don’t do this very often due in part to the amount of time it takes to coordinate and assemble a quilt kit. But, we thought it would be fun to offer a treat to our very good customers. So, we’re doing it. With this event the more you buy, the more you save. If you buy one kit we’re going to give you 25% off. If you purchase two, you will get 35% off both. And, if you buy three kits…45% off all three! Also, don’t forget your backing fabric because we will give you 15% off if you purchase the backing with the kit!

Selection is wonderful on our website and in our shop for quilt kits. We have about 80 options in our “Simply Gorgeous Quilt Kit” category and then about 20 more “Novelty” kits. There are also “Western” kits and “Clothing and Accessories“. Don’t forget to look at QuiltFlix! either as these kits are available individually or you might decide to register as a QuiltFlix! member and we will send your quilt and movie automatically each month with a 20% discount.

With the quilt kits from Stitchin’ Heaven you will receive the quality you have come to expect from us. Each kit is packaged beautifully in a wicker basket with shrinkwrap. Most of the projects have the pattern included but some do not so be careful to look for this when you are buying. All of our kits include the binding so all you need to do is to get busy!

As always, we offer you our 100% satisfaction guarantee. If for any reason you are not pleased with your purchase you can return it for a full refund, no questions asked. We hope you enjoy this fun sale. It is just one more way for us to say “Thank you for shopping at Stitchin’ Heaven”.

Oh yes…if you have friends that would benefit from knowing about our little sale be sure and tell them about it!