Baby Boy Blue in a Box and My First Favorite Notion

I'm going to share with you two of my favorite things--my favorite baby and my favorite notion. Here is my favorite baby! His grandma, Nancy, popped him in this cardboard box lined with a quilt that matched his outfit! He was very content (as long as grandma kept moving) while grandma carried him through the store to say a big hello to everyone. Kian is Nancy's youngest daughter, Laura's newest boy. He has two big brothers who absolutely adore him. It's a treat for us all when Laura stops in to visit or to work. Thanks, Kian, for letting me get a quick photo!

Now, on to my favorite notions. One of my very favorite's (could not live without) is an Applique Pressing Sheet. This double-sided sheet is made from an ultra high temperature fabric that is coated with non-stick Polylon. We carry it in two sizes--13 x 17" and 18 x 20". The sheet has many uses. It can be used as a craft and painting surface. Paint and glue peel off easily when dry. It can also be used in the oven to bake shrink-art, clay, and salt dough projects. MY FAVORITE USE, though, is for fusing applique pieces together. The transparent construction allows me to see my pattern through the sheet to use as a placement guide while I fuse overlapping pieces together into one unit. Fused fabrics peel right off the sheet. I also use it to protect my ironing board cover when I am fusing fabric. I have both sizes and I've also cut a second large one into two smaller pieces.

Call the store, or check our website for pricing and availability. If we don't have them in stock, leave a request because we order both sizes often.

If there is a notion you would like to recommend or to learn about, please leave me a comment. All of the notions that I will be showing you will be great to have if you join me for the Alphabet Quilt Blog of the Month.

Happy Stitching,

Lynda

Quiltmaker's 100 Block Blog Tour part 2

Welcome to the Great American Quilt Factory/Possibilities Blog! We are so honored to have been selected to design a block for Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks from today's top designers, volume 2.


We are giving you a Sneak Peek at this incredible Collector's Edition. Each day this week, you have an opportunity to go to about 12 different designer's blogs to learn a little about what inspired them and/or get free patterns. The Blog Tour started Monday and continues through Friday, Nov 12th. Make sure that you visit all of the sites for prizes and free patterns, including ours!

We have designed a beautiful table runner that incorporates two of our Spring Flowers Blocks, #111 on page 27. The table runner is approx. 18 x 54". This is a free download for you to enjoy--click here.

Please leave a comment on our blog for a chance to win one of 3 prizes. We have two copies of Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks to give away, as well as a special prize--a variety of Possibilities books and patterns. Make sure you leave a way for us to contact you, should you win. Winners will be chosen at random.

Be sure to check out Quiltmaker's website for the schedule of daily bloggers and to enter to win the Grand Prize!

Best of luck to you and thank you again for visiting!

Happy stitching,

Lynda and Nancy



P.S. We are going to be listing our favorite notions on our blog in the next few days. You can suscribe by clicking on the RSS feed on the sidebar and we would love to know what notion is your favorite, too!

Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks Blog Tour

Tomorrow starts the Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks Blog Tour Sneak Peek. Every day through Nov. 12th, you can check in with approximately a dozen designers to hear their thoughts about the design process and/or to get a free pattern that uses their original block. AND lots of prizes will be given away by the folks at Quiltmaker as well as by the block designers.

Our blog day is Thursday the 11th and ... did I mention that lots of prizes will be given away? I am designing a tablerunner pattern that you can download for free that uses our Spring Flowers applique block.

These magazines are truly Collector's Editions and feature today's top designers as well as up and coming newbies. Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks will be on the newstand November 16th, but until then enjoy the sneak peeks.

Back to designing,

Lynda

My Alphabet Quilt Blog of the Month

We returned from International Quilt Market on Sunday. We had a wonderful time, but I was afraid that I wasn't going to be able to attend, because I had re-injured my left foot and knew that I absolutely couldn't walk the entire market. Then I checked in to renting an electric scooter and found out that I could take it back to my room and virtually anywhere downtown that I would want to go. Hooray!!!!! I would have been so disappointed since I have attended every Quilt Market except for 1981 when my daughter was born. The scooter was wonderful and I only came close to demolishing one jewelry booth--no empathy shown by that woman at all. : (

One product that we got really excited about is Amy Bradley's My Alphabet Quilt pattern and book.

Amy's daughter Ashley Heryer, wrote the story for her daughter, and Amy illustrated it with quilt blocks. I am going to present it as a Blog of the Month like I did with Amy's Happy Halloween pattern. It will be an 8 month program. Each month, for seven months I will present 4 blocks and give you hints, techniques, and notions that will help you complete the alphabet blocks and then month 8 will be set aside for borders, quilting, and binding. To get a general idea of how it works, click on the Happy Halloween icon on the sidebar. Below is a close-up of block B.

I'm still working out the details but will let you know ASAP! I'd love for you to join me!

Happy Stitching,

Lynda

Judy's birthday flowers and a favorite little Autumn quilt!

Well, we have finally had a little bit of Autumn here in the Denver area. It was cool and rainy for a few days last week. The trees are still turning and have plenty of leaves still on them. We might have our first snowfall on Tuesday--so my agenda tomorrow is to get the patio furniture put away, the planters cleaned out, and locate my snowbrush to put back in the car.

Judy's birthday is October 17th and her son in Atlanta always sends a bouquet to her at the store, so we get to enjoy it also. It comes from my favorite florist-Happy Canyon Flowers. Every year we think that they can't beat last years, but they always do. Maybe it's because I love fall colors and fall flowers (achoo, achoo). Here are two pictures of this years bouquet. I think you will agree that it is absolutely goooorgeous!

I took this picture from overhead so that you could see the variety of flowers. I think my fav might be that green spider mum. Hmmm-I think I might make this my new desktop pic.
And now, onto a little quilting. This is one of my favorite little Autumn quilts. It isn't very big but it certainly depicts the season. We used it for inspiration to make our current Saturday Sampler wallhanging. The pattern for this quilt is in our book Home for the Harvest.

I hope you all have a beautiful Autumn weekend. I'm off to finish making Judy's present--a CD of all of her favorite Glee songs. Thank you Judy for sharing your beautiful flowers with all of us!

Happy Stitching,

Lynda

Halloween and Home For the Harvest

One of my favorite books that we have published is Home For the Harvest! It is filled with wonderful Autumn and Halloween projects. This is one of my favorites with Dracula, a blue-faced Witch, Frankenstein, and a Princess. We show this in the book as a long, narrow wallhanging and also as separate placemats. What fun!

I sent my son an advertisement for an iPhone app from Pottery Barn Kids. You take a photo of your child (in his case, 5 year old twins) and then try on different Halloween costumes and send them out for friends and relatives to see. Hello Patrick and Lori--we are waiting for the pics!

The weather is absolutely gorgeous here. If you have been reading our blog for awhile, you might remember my post of I Love Orange. We have a bush in our backyard that starts out kind of red in the Spring and then turns to green for the Summer and then totally shines in orange for Fall. I am going to try to take pics of it everyday for the next couple of weeks to show you just how beautiful it becomes.

Today has been my day at the computer. I started out with my Quilt University homework for EQ6, worked on my EQ7 Bee homework, did a little blog hopping, tweeted a bit, and am now blogging. Be sure to check out our website for a Halloween Scavenger Hunt--some really great prizes will be awarded.

Busy, busy weekend, but I hope to actually sew some tomorrow. Until next time,
Happy stitching!

Lynda

Another Patchwork Lottery Winner

Ginny Grimes, from Morrison, CO, won the Patchwork Lottery blocks in January this year. The block was a split 9-patch and one side was to be light and medium light blues and the other side, darks and medium dark blues. Ginny put it together in a Barn Raising setting.

The quilt is beautiful and Ginny got to pick the Possibilities book of her choice for bringing it in and sharing it with us and she chose Home for the Harvest.

Thanks Ginny!

Lynda and Nancy

Patchwork Lottery

Here at the store we do a Patchwork Lottery every month. We post a pattern on our website (or you can pick up a free pattern in the store). Anyone who wants to participate makes at least one block and returns it to us. For each block you make you get an entry to win all of the blocks. On the last day of the month a winner is chosen.

Bess Lantz from Beatrice, NB won 29 blocks in the May Patchwork Lottery. She made one extra block and set the quilt together with yellow sashing and a dark blue border. The block is named Prairie Queen. We think the quilt is lovely and we thank her for sharing the picture with us. And, by the way, if you do make a quilt and send us the picture you get your choice of an autographed Possibilities book--nice prize!


If you are interested in participating in our Patchwork Lottery click here to go to the link on our homepage. September's block is a pretty red apple with blue sashing and we have already received several blocks.

Thank you Bess for sharing your quilt!
Happy stitching,
Lynda and Nancym

Projects our customers shared!

It is always fun when our customers share their projects with us. This week I will share two of their projects with you. Debbie Due, from Centennial, CO, was in the store last Saturday during the Rocky Mountain Quilt Fever Shop Hop and was lucky enough to win a door prize--a charm pack from Moda fabrics. Well, Tuesday she brought in this wonderful little quilt top. We thought it was so cute and loved the pattern. I love the tiny sashing. The pattern is from an Art to Heart book and we are researching which book it is from. It is a great pattern for a quick present or for a charity quilt. Thanks Debbie for sharing your quilt with us.

The other quilt we have to share was made by Carolyn Green's 8-year old grandaughter Emily. Emily made this charming Halloween quilt all by herself and won 2nd place at the Firehouse Quilt Show in July. She even free motioned some original Halloween motifs in the border. Very nice, and congratulations Emily! Thank you, too, for sharing.

Thank you both for sharing your creative endeavors!

Lynda and Nancy

Good listens or reads!

It's been awhile since I listed the books that I've been listening to on my way to and from work. It seems like I got into a more serious reading mood as you will see.

House Rules is by Jodi Picoult. I enjoy Jodi' books and they always seem to have a surprise ending and this one is no exception. House Rules is about a boy named Jacob, his mother, and brother. Jacob has a high functioning form of autism called Asperger's syndrome. I did not know anything about Asperger's--how it affects the person who has it as well as the family, and found it to be very interesting. Jacob is a forensic science wizard which gets him in trouble with the law. He has trouble communicating with the lawyers and the judge showing how our legal system does not always work well for people who can't communicate 'normally'. It is narrated by several people and is about 20 hours.

My next listen was My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor. Jill is a neuroscientist who had a stroke at age 37. She articulates the actual shutdown of her brain. The book is divided into sections. The first part gives a greater understanding of how the brain functions. In the second part, Jill articulates having the stroke, defining to herself that it really is a stroke, and then describing the actual shutting down of her brain. In the third part, Jill describes the methods and therapies that she used to get her brain functioning normally again, a process of about 8 years. For the most part, I enjoyed it. It got a little tedious at some points, but I highly recommend it to someone who has had a stroke and/or to their caregivers. It has some very valuable information about how to work with a stroke victim to help them regain their skills. The book is narrated by the author.

And then I got an iPad and actually read a book. : ) Still Alice was recommended to my by my friend Judy. It is a fictional story about a 50 year old Linguistics Professor at Harvard who develops early onset Alzheimer's. I found it to be very insightful and helped me understand a little more about such a horrible disease, and how it affects the victim as well as the family. I thought at first that it might be very depressing, and it was a little, but it was also a tender love story.
OK! Now for a recommendation on a happy and fun book. Finger Lickin Fifteen is another novel in the Stephanie Plum series. I find these books to be delightful getaways. I haven't listened to them all, so I'm not tired of the series nor the characters as some other reviewers have said. The first time my daughter listened to one of them with me she just rolled her eyes and complained. A couple of months later I found her reading the next one and she has already read Sizzling Sixteen and I didn't even know it was out. If you start reading this series, be ready to fall in love with Joe Morelli or Ranger or better yet, both.

Last, but not least, I re-listened to The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo on a trip to Aspen a few weeks ago. My husband was interested in it and I wanted to hear it again before I watched the movie--especially since it is in Swedish with sub-titles. Loved it all over again!

Well, that's all for now. If you've read anything that you would like to recommend, please comment. Until next time,

Happy listening and/or reading,

Lynda

PS My next listen might be Eat, Pray, Love again before I go to see the movie>

It's finally here, Rocky Mountain Shop Hop 2010!!!!!!!!!!

We have 7 shops in our Rocky Mountain Quilt Fever Shop Hop. The Hop lasts for 3 days-- Friday, August 6th through Sunday, August 8th, 2010.

This year each shop chose a patchwork block and made two of them. We also chose two reproduction fabrics in the same colorway--one medium and one dark. In our case we colored our block in two different ways. One of our blocks is in the upper right hand corner. See if you can find it's match. We were then free to design an exclusive setting for our quilt. As you can see from the picture, we have more than 14 blocks. We chose one of the blocks and made 3 more for the setting blocks in the corners. All of the light fabric in the blocks and border of our quilt is the light combination of the exclusive toile fabric. It made for a very nice background for the patchwork as well as the applique.


Hoppers go to each store, buy a kit to make two blocks (or get the pattern for free) and choose their favorite quilt setting. I've seen most of the settings and they are all unique, but guess which one I feel is the prettiest?

We will have some great demos going on and lots of new product. Nancy is especially excited about a new ruler called Leaves Galore. She has put together a wonderful storyboard showing some of the great things this ruler can do. Several of us want the set of 3, but we will wait until Shop Hop is over to see if there are any left.

We hope to see many of you during the next few days and if you can't come, check back here and we will let you know how it turned out.

Happy Hopping,

Lynda

P.S. Check the blog below for close-up pictures of the exclusive Toile fabric from RJR and our website for close-ups of the blocks. http://www.greatamericanquilt.com/

Rocky Mountain Quilt Fever, Shop Hop 2010, part 1

Yay! Shop Hop 2010 is finally here!!!! All of the shops work all year (and I'm not kidding-our first meeting for 2011 is the Wednesday after the shop hop) to make a unique and wonderful experience for our faithful and wonderful customers for next year.

Last year and this year, the Rocky Mountain Shop Hop shops, designed a special fabric exclusive to the shops in the hop. This year it's an incredible toile that we helped design with RJR Fabrics. It features Colorado landmarks and symbols. We think it is absolutely fabulous and anyone with a tie to Colorado should have at least a yard to keep for prosperity. Many of you are buying 6 yards for a very special backing, as I will be, plus a yard for fussy cutting. (See some of the images on the blogpost below) We have already placed a reorder because of the feedback we have received from posting the fabric online and in the shop, but, it will most likely not be reordered again. So, call us and place your order early--we will take phone orders and online orders starting Friday, August 6th at 9:00am. First come, first served. Ask to speak to Ashley or Lynda to place your order.

Happy hopping!!!!
Lynda and Nancy

Rocky Mountain Quilt Fever Shop Hop 2010

It's almost time for the Rocky Mountain Quilt Fever, Colorado Memories Shop Hop. It's August 6, 7, and 8th. Yikes, it's almost August--where has the summer gone?

Last year for the Shop Hop we designed a beautiful batik. This year, we designed a beautiful toile fabric with RJR. The toile showcases many Colorado landmarks and symbols, including Grand Mesa, the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, the "Sleeper House", the State Capital, the and many others. If you have ever lived in Colorado, visited Colorado, or want to make a quilt for someone that has lived in Colorado, then you need at least a yard of this exclusive fabric. Six yards would make a beautiful backing for any quilt that has a Colorado connection. Here are a few of the images on the fabric.

All of the shops have designed an exclusive quilt that showcases the main fabric or the secondary fabric (the same design, but not as much of a contrast). We expect that this exclusive fabric will sell fast, so order ASAP!!

Happy Hopping!

Lynda and Nancy

Christmas in July

Merry Christmas everyone! Christmas in July at Great American Quilt Factory, starts this Sunday, July 18th and goes through Saturday, July 24th. Customers in the store and online will enjoy 20% savings off of anything Christmas. What a great time to start your Christmas sewing.

Just in time for Christmas in July is our newest pattern No Peeking. This delightful wallhanging/banner is approx. 14 x 40".

No Peeking's bright colors and simple patchwork and applique make this a perfect gift.

We have a ton of Christmas fabric and Nancy and the design team have stitched up lots and lots of stitching friendly panel quilts. See some of them on the website http://www.greatamericanquilt.com/.

Also on display in the store are several of the models from our newest C&T book Christmas with Possibilities.
Christmas with Possibilities is truly a lovely book filled with 16 holiday projects--some old fav's from out of print books and some wonderful new projects! If you can make it into the store, I'm sure you will enjoy seeing the actual quilts and projects.

Last, but not least, become a fan of Great American Quilt Factory on Facebook for a chance to win a $25 gift certificate. We have already given away 2 and are giving away at least one more when we reach our 1000th fan. Go to Great American Quilt Factory and click on "Like" at the top of the page next to our name. Good Luck!

Happy stitching,

Lynda

Happy Fourth of July

Happy Fourth of July friends,

It is a beauty of a holiday weekend here in Denver--a little barbequing, a little partying, and lots of friends. The quilt above is 1776 from our Seasonal Delights book. I thought it was very appropiate for this weekend.

We have a very special tradition in our neighborhood. For a reasonable price a couple of boy scouts put up a large flag on everyone's lawn for all patriotic days. The street looks lovely with all the flags flying. They put them up at dawn and take them down just before dusk. I can't wait to see them tomorrow.

Have a wonderful weekend and maybe get in a little stitching.

Lynda