Improv Bag Class: Finished Totes!

Recently we held a class in the store to learn how to make the Improv Tote. We loved seeing the colors each of the talented women chose! Each has such personality to it!  Having the chance to come together, learn something new, visit, laugh, eat, sew, and then go home with a completed project DONE BY YOU is so fun and exciting. Thank you so much to these wonderful ladies for attending the class and letting us share their beautiful work!

Barbara McLain

Lawanna Beem

Sherelle Wilkerson

Mary Ellen Udero

Sandy Raines

Dresden Plate

I finished a project this past week that has been on my bucket list for a while. I've wanted to learn how to make dresden plates for a few years now, but they looked hard so I chickened out. I participate in a bi weekly crafting challenge called Iron Craft. When the theme "D is for..." came up for our Iron Craft challenge I knew it was finally time to face my fears and do it!

I went through and found a pin I had saved on Pinterest that had a tutorial that looked fairly straight-forward and simple. That was the one to try. To kill multiple birds with one stone I also decided that I'd make this project work with the Monthly Pinstrosity Challenge of "Use it Up" where all the supplies for the project had to be things I already owned.  My stash is quickly becoming flooded with fabrics I've found at Aunt Judy's Attic. Sometimes I just can't resist buying some of the fabrics I see, even though I don't have a project in mind right away. They just wrap their fibrous fingers around my heart and beg to go home with me. How can I say now to that?! I found that I still have some of the beautiful dragonfly fabric from a few years ago, and then found 3 other fabrics (all from the store!) that went along perfectly. 

The whole process was so much less of a headache than I imagined it would be. Dresden plates are surprisingly not hard at all, at least with this pattern! My fears had been unfounded. It was fun to put this together and I love how it turned out! Now I want to make a quilt all of Dresden plates! 

Customer Quilt Featured in McCall's Quilting Magazine

For any of you who get the McCall's Quilting magazine, you'll get to see the beautiful work of a store customer, Louise Payne, in the March/April 2015 issue. 

Emilee Goutcher, Louise's youngest daughter, was so sweet to send us these photos and the back story. "My grandmother, Margaret L. Windham, made wedding quilts for each of her grandchildren except for me. She passed before I met Chip. My mom really wanted us to have a 'Gramsy Quilt' for our wedding and painstakingly took her time to pick a quilt pattern, and fabric etc. I talked her into using some black, which she had never used before in a quilt and she ended up winning the Blue Ribbon, 1st Place,& Best in Show Award for this quilt at the 2014 Hildalgo County Fair. The back of the quilt has a little block that says 'For Emilee and Chip Goutcher, the "Wedding Ring Quilt", made by Louise E. W. Payne, Gramsy approved'." We love seeing all the hard work you all put into your incredible creations. Thank you so much Emilee and Louise for sharing this fun magazine feature with us!