Sewing Furniture Event In The Lobby

We have sewing furniture! Well ok, we've always had sewing furniture on display but this time we've taken over the lobby - yes, the bed is gone for the moment - and put five pieces of Koala Sewing Furniture on display.

The cabinets are made in the USA just outside of Chicago and I have to say, they are GORGEOUS. Peg came in today and remarked on the Cadillac sewing furniture in the lobby!

One of the nice things about Koala is you decide what you want - they have 8 different finishes, all different sizes of cabinets and you decide if you just want the base, or add side wings, or a back that folds down? Drawers? Shelves? YOU decide.

Stop in & see for yourself! The holidays are coming, it's time to get rid of the computer table that works, but not quite, the door over two filing cabinets that's bowing in the middle, the kitchen table . . . .

Koala has made these beautiful cabinets & we're proud to bring them to you. Stop in & see for yourself!

A Day With The Lady In The Harbor

The National Park Service opened up the crown of the Statue of Liberty July 4th this year. Sara & Brian wanted to go, so Jim & I went with them. Brian had never been, Sara & Jim had never been into the crown & I was 8 the last time I went into the crown. Closed since September 11, 2001, renovations were done while she was closed. We ordered tickets in July and today was the day!

Our tickets were for the 10 o'clock time slot so we left at 7am & drove to Liberty State Park to leave from New Jersey. The weather was gorgeous! We couldn't have asked for a nicer day, not too hot, not too cold - perfect. We took the ferry the Miss New Jersey out to the statue.


Going to the Statue of Liberty now entails two security screenings, one before you get on the ferry and the next before they let you into the monument. No bags, no coats - nothing but cameras, your watch & your wallet can go into the monument. No pictures in security either - big signs everywhere! - or else I would have been taking pictures of Sara being wanded BOTH times.

First stop on the ferry is Ellis Island. We were running close to our time for the crown so we stayed on board & stopped on the way back.


















From the ferry as it docked, an unusual view of the lady herself. I'd forgotten how many trees are actually on the island.

















You go through security & then you start climbing. These are the "big" stairs to the observation deck. All 192 of them.














These are the stairs above the observation deck & to the tower - all 162 of them (it felt like a thousand!) 354 steps in all. My legs were not happy about 3/4s of the way up! YIKES!

This is Sara going down. This is definitely not for the claustrophobic!




The crown itself is MUCH smaller than I remember from when I was small - yes I was only 8 but I thought the landing was bigger. The four of us fit comfortably & were happy we had the crown to ourselves - anyone else up there with us would have been one too many. Here are some of the views from the crown.




Looking towards Brooklyn. The windows themselves, 25 of them, are about the size of the windows on airplanes.

The view of Manhattan. The green triangle is the bottom of the book the lady is holding.

Looking out at the bottom of the torch

The ladder leads up into the torch. Only maintenance workers are allowed into the torch.

An inside view of the lady's nose & mouth

Looking up towards the crown from the observation deck level. The tube is the staircases going up to the crown.

The four of us on the observation deck with a Manhattan view. (Don't we look like typical tourists????)

The NY skyline heading back to Libery State Park.

And this building is the train depot at Liberty State Park. The building has been restored & the state is working on the ferry slips. Hopefully the trainyard is next!

It was a wonderful day and a real treat to visit an American treasure right in my own backyard.

Halloween Crazy Quilt Pillow

I love crazy quilting - probably because there are no rules & whatever you want, goes! While at Baby Lock Tech last week, I saw a CQ Pillow done with a Halloween theme & decided I was going to make one. I forced myself to put the borders on the Peppermint Quilt by bribing myself that as soon as I finished that & designed the baby quilt from the "mistake" blocks, I could start the CQ pillow.

I finished the Peppermint Quilts (sorry it's at the store and the camera is here - photos coming soon) & designed the baby quilt early Sunday morning. Judy has the kit & is testing the pattern. Photos of that soon too. I pressed that quilt off, folded it up & dived into crazy quilting.

Half the fun of crazy quilting is collecting the "stuff" that you are going to embellish with. I love the "garish" colors of Halloween - the oranges, the bright purples & the lime greens, set off with black. I have to control myself when buying Halloween fabrics - one year we ended up with 60 bolts! Yesterday morning, I gathered the fabrics I'd brought home from the shop the night before and I pieced the CQ block.

Since I still had time before we opened the shop, I did three machine embroidered appliques too! They're from the Halloween Fun multi format CD we have on the web page.

The block looks ok, but it will look better when all the embellishments are on! Dang it, it was time to go to the shop & I had to stop playing & be responsible!

This morning the fun started - I pulled out my embellishing tub and discovered it was a tangled mess from some classes I'd taught. I ignored the mess, pulled a few things I wanted & put the tub on the floor - out of sight! (Ok, I admit, I later dumped the tub out onto the floor, sorted through all the yarns, threads & ribbons, sorted them by color into plastic bags & then even color coordinated my beads! WAHOO!)

I started out with Bobbinwork where you wind a thicker thread into your bobbin & sew on the wrong side on the fabric. Very cool! Bobbinwork gives you a "soft" version of the stitch. This is a rounded zig zag with a 5 weight thread.

I love to couch, this is where you take a ribbon or ric rac or a thicker thread, lay it along the seam & stitch it down with a decorative thread. I had the shiny ribbon like thread for awhile, just waiting for the perfect project!

When I went to quilt shows many years ago, there used to be a couple who had a booth full of charms. Of course they were too tempting to pass up and I have little bags filled with all kinds of them - patiently waiting. The quarter moon fits perfectly on the tip of the hat.

Candy corn is my absolute favorite! We have these buttons at the shop & they just had to go on my pillow. The purple bobbinwork is a multistep ziz zag stitch & the shiny ribbon is couched down with a feather stitch & metallic thread.

I used jumbo ric rac around the edge of my pillow to give it some flair.

TA DAH! It's done and I love it!

More pictures from Baby Lock Tech

Needless to say, the arch is huge! This is me at the northern base.

Inside the hotel were all of these gorgeous displays. I see a Crazy Quilt Halloween pillow in my future!

I immediately thought of our Judy when I saw this cookbook cover. It's from the Domestic Goddess Amazing Designs collection.

Simple funky pillows made an eye catching display with embroidery, couching & ruffles.

I love this fish quilt!

A close up of the new sergers. Push the lever from serging to threading, turn the hand wheel till it clicks, put the looper threads in the threading ports & push the button - all loopers thread at the same time!

Miss N from the Sashiko machine factory in Japan demonstrated for us while Missy translated. I don't know who made the jacket, but it was gorgeous with the Sashiko stitching in the ditch.

Jim took a Jewel class and this was the view out the classroom window. I wouldn't have gotten anything done, I'd have been looking out the window at the people and the river the whole time. Talk about distracting!

A good time was had by all at Baby Lock Tech. Thank you to all of the staff at Tacony & Baby Lock for treating the dealers like kings and queens for our time there. It was hard to come home to no 10 am chocolate breaks & no 3pm ice cream breaks!

Watch the shop email as all the new products start to arrive!

Baby Lock Tech

I'm at the Baby Lock dealer convention in St. Louis - this is the veiw of the arch from our hotel window. The arch is a National Park with a great museaum underground that stretches from one base to the other. If you're ever in St. Louis - go up in the Arch!

Here are some pictures from the past couple of days.

This is the new Sashiko machine - very cool. Here are a couple of samples the educators have done with it.

A pretty top for a little girl's dress!

And a cute top for a play suit. Sashiko is everywhere here!

There are also new sergers where you thread ALL of the looper threads, push ONE button and all the loopers thread at once! I have that class tonight.

Jim took the class for the new Jewell software - VERY neat.

Today I took a class Eileen Roche - the editor of Creative Embroidery Magazine - did you know she grew up in Wildwood? I'm trying to talk her into a visit east to see the family and teach for us. Stay tuned! Here's my project from class today - stipple & applique in the Magna Quilt Hoop - all in one step!

Debbie

What's On Your Design Wall?

I was reading my friend Karen Montgomery's blog yesterday & laughed when I saw her "messy" sewing space - she should come here & see mine! Karen has more than a couple of projects going on & the state of her design wall reflects that - just like mine. I think creative people get borded easily & that's why we always have at least two, maybe three & possibly many more projects in various stages strewn all over our sewing areas. I am telling you here & now, I won't admit to how many I have going on at any given point in time.




This is what my design wall looks like today. The red & white quilt is coming along while I work out the pattern. I bought three bolts of the white print & two bolts of the red print to do another project & then of course, didn't do it . . . Now what to do with the five bolts of fabric giving me the guilts everytime I walk by them in the back room? I'm calling this Necessary Peppermints - because it was necessary to do SOMETHING WITH THE FIVE BOLTS OF FABRIC IN THE BACK ROOM. I am sure everyone of my staff will wrinkle their noses at that name & it will be shortened to just Peppermints. It will be a lap quilt for Chrismas.

See the blocks to the right? That's what happens when you don't pay attention to what you're doing & you not only cut the pieces opposite of what they're supposed to be, but you sew them together wrong. I haven't come up with a name yet for the quilt I'm able to make out of those "mistakes"! I do however, see a baby quilt from that setting in the near future - stay tuned.










The baby quilt on the right is a pattern my friend Kris from Cozy Cottage told me about. We're over run with baby flannels & I needed a new sample. It was easy & came out cute! We're cutting kits so look for it on the website in a couple of days - I still have to quilt it & do the dreaded binding.















The bargello on the bottom left in the first picture is one of those things that seemed like it was going to be great when it was in my head, then I read the size in the pattern & thought, I don't want a lap quilt, I want a wallhanging! Now of course it doesn't look like I thought it would - 1/3 of it is folded under but I'm still not happy with it. I'm thinking it needs lots of embellishing . . . . Don't look for a kit soon! :0)

So what's on your design wall?

More On The Wacky World of Retail

It's August. It's August at the Jersey Shore and it's HOT! Very normal here for this time of year. (The wind shears, wind storms and almost tornadoes are not so normal & I really hope they go away soon!) So what I am sewing and thinking about? Beachy themed samples and displays? Nope, those are about to come down! I've moved onto Fall, Halloween and CHRISTMAS samples and displays!

Let's face it, summer clothes are on sale in all the stores and winter coats are coming out. That to me is a little ridiculous - do I really want to think about a winter coat when it's 95 degrees outside? Now if I need a pair of shorts to go to a barbecue next weekend, am I going to be able to find any? NO! I should have thought of what I wanted to wear to this barbecue in APRIL when they had shorts for sale and planned accordingly - not that I knew anything about this barbecue back then mind you . . .

In the quilt shop world and in the quilter's world - if we want something for Halloween, we have to start thinking about it in August because it just might take us that long to make it. Therefore - Halloween displays are going up in quilt shops all over the country now and not in October. (I wish someone in clothing retail would really sit down and think about when we need a winter coat and adjust their marketing schedule accordingly!)

So, I'm sewing fall samples & thinking about Christmas displays. (I can't actually bring myself to SET UP the Christmas display yet, but I'm thinking about it!) I'm sewing fall samples and admit to having already sewn a couple of Christmas samples. I keep telling myself that sewing projects for cooler weather tricks the mind into actually thinking it's cooler outside - not working yet, but I'm still testing the theory.