Friday, December 5, 2014

My favorite season begins!
Remember that you can click on any photo to enlarge it for detail. :)
Temperatures here in northeast Massachusetts have been yo-yo-ing this past week, from below freezing to warm sixties. We've had a few dustings of snow, never more than 2 - 3 inches, which is about right for early December. The weather forecasters make "much ado about nothing" and when we don't have enough to satiate them, they spend a great deal of time talking about the weather elsewhere in the country and beyond.
winter fabrics in blues
My favorite season is winter - partly because I was a school teacher and the occasional cancelled school days did give me extra hours at home to catch up on correcting, scoring and reporting. But I'm also enamored of the elimination of things like mosquitoes, and the clean look of snow-covered autumn debris. The slowing of traffic is balanced by the quickened pace of walkers, and the world seems purposeful, and centered.

When the snow covers the dying grass
and reaches to the bottom of the windowsill,
all will be right with this scene.
Many suffer from the loss of sunlight in winter's darkened days, but I had chosen to avoid the sun decades ago, due to heat intolerance of multiple sclerosis then un-diagnosed but clearly present; the more recent diagnosis of melanoma confirmed my decision to avoid the sun's rays as much as possible, and so winter doesn't have the same effect on me as on others. I'm happy when I'm inside, with doors closed until opened to welcome friends and customers.

Our Sugar Plum Fairy
This is a month of celebratory get-togethers: this week I vended at our Essex County Needlecraft Guild on Wednesday, and then participated in a notions swap at our Merrimack Valley Quilt Guild on Thursday. Good food and good company in both of those settings. And between events,  the change of seasons has seen Rick and I moving things around in our shops, getting ready for our next holiday event: on Saturday December 13th, we'll be participating in Georgetown's Holiday Shop-Hop, treating customers to sales and light refreshments, Christmas music and Season's Greetings.  And then the following day I'll go to the theatre and watch my niece dance once again as the Sugar Plum Fairy in the Nutcracker Ballet. I'll be working later this winter on a quilt made of her costumes through the years of ballet recitals.

dark background,
metallic accents
Many Christmas fabrics!
Our new Christmas fabrics are in stock and are beautiful. In bolts of Hoffman's and Timeless Treasures, red cardinals and green firs on a gold-metallic-trimmed black fabric, with white snow covering off-white birch branches on another cardinal print... a small print of poinsettia  blossoms and another of blue jays.
Pillowcase kits and pattern

Soft flannel prints of green and blue backgrounds are sporting prints of snowmen wrapped in brightly-colored scarves (duly printed with the warning that they are not intended for children's sleepwear.) I'm offering a $3.00 pillowcase pattern free when the flannel kits are purchased.

Tea Cozies made from my
pattern and kits
 I also have patterns for tea-cozies for sale, which come free when a kit of quilt-quality fabrics are purchased to make your own lovely tea-cozy. Or you can buy one ready-made by me!

We have another fabric artist sharing remnants of her beautiful choices: we're calling her collection
Barb's Yards
"Barb's Yards" and show-casing them in the antique black bureau of our shop. Barb Harrold makes sculpted fabric characters and creatures of the most amazingly eclectic fabrics!

We've collected an abundance of rulers, needles, pins, cutters, mats and other notions and arranged them in an area we call the Quilters' Toolbox.

Quilter's Toolbox


A tree full of notions!
Come and see the special collection which includes a Tucker's Trimmer, Dear Jane's triangle and square, Olfa's rotating 15" cutting mat and so many more. We've even found an ergonomically correct cutting wheel from Martinelli's that is for left handed quilters! We got one for the right handed, too.


Come visit us any Wednesday, Thursday, Friday or Saturday from 11 am to 7 pm. We'd love to see you and share our first full year of collecting fabrics and tools for you.



Vintage Machines 
We always have tea and cocoa along with quality products and reasonable prices to warm you. And on the thirteenth of December, we'll have those light refreshments as well! And sales! And a raffle ticket drawing at check-out for total sale discounts!


Green blenders with a mellow birch fabric
Christmas novelty prints that kids love!
Another vintage machine


As always, if you are reading this update in your email, thank you for signing up for the newsletter. We usually publish it about twice a month, but in between editions, we also update the various pages that comprise this blog. Recent additions are the Massachusetts Women Artists' page,  and progress on current quilts at Terry's Quilting Journal 2014 page.  Come visit us at the blog and see what else is happening at Quilters' Quarters

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Terry, web page TerryCrawfordPalardy.com, email: needlesandpens@comcast.net

Rick, web page WoodenToyandGift.net, email: woodentoyandgift@comcast.net
Rick's blog: WTandGNews.blogspot.com







Fabric Christmas book and more panels


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