Over Sixty Inches in Sixteen Days

Yes, winter has caught up with us here in North East Massachusetts; it's nearly the middle of February, and spring is less than forty days away. Rick has been kept busy every day for the past three weeks blowing snow from the driveway, the pathways, the sidewalk ... and shoveling the steps and the fire hydrant near our home.





While I've been comfortable inside the house, kept company by the pretty plants that weather over in our attached greenhouse, I've been staying busy planning and drawing quilt designs and figuring out which fusible interfacing is right for a  T-Shirt quilt. I finally called Pellon and asked if the bolt that I'd bought (lightweight) would be enough for the job, as it didn't match the sku (stock keeping unit) number that I'd read in other Facebookers' posts would be perfect for the job. With relief I heard that yes, I had the right alternative. The one praised on the web was only available to Joann's Fabric Store. But the one I had was as good.

My 2015 quilt journal is beginning to grow, and I'm happy to add each project to the page as the year progresses.  Do you keep a journal of projects begun and finished? It's a very satisfying task, takes only a few minutes now and then to update,  and is a good record of the work that I've done. I encourage you to keep a journal, too.

I'm looking into a new thread supplier: Superior threads is one recently  recommended by quilters that I trust.  I'll try to order from their wholesale pages to get the best prices for Quilters' Quarters' customers. I read that lint in the sewing machine is a non-event with this brand, and that breakage is rare. It's worth giving it a try, if we can afford it - it's more expensive than the other top of the line threads that we stock. The colors are vibrant and the variety of weights offer many choices to hand and machine quilters.

A beautiful shipment of pre-cut strips has arrived at the shop, ordered last fall from Quilting Treasures.

  Some are warm, some are cool, and some are in the design of the Lola fabrics.  A box of earth tone fat quarters in many colors also arrived (and joined the abundant collection of fat quarters that we always have on hand, courtesy of our quilt artist Ann Lainhart.)

We also have plenty of checked flannel prints on hand. And we're planning another trip soon to New England Quilt Supply where we will be able to look at quilt quality fabrics for spring and summer projects.

Please remember, our winter hours are 2 to 7pm Wednesdays through Saturdays; we can always accommodate different hours on request.

I'll be in the shop for Sit 'n Sew drop in sessions on Friday Evenings (6:30 - 9:00) and Saturday afternoons.  Bring a friend, bring a project, bring a question, bring a snack if you want.  I'll be out there working on something  and will be happy to answer questions that I can, or research what we need to know.

I'll be sharing my vintage sewing machines with you in the shop - I'm doing my best to learn all that I can to maintain and restore these old beauties.  I'll be happy to share what I learn with you. Maybe you have one in your attic that you'd like to be using, too.  I hear they are fabulous for piecing and quilting - who knew?!  Read what I've begun learning about these precious beauties at my new page, Vintage and Antique Sewing Machines. 

Don't forget our Valentine's Day contest - we've extended the deadline to February 28th, due to the statewide emergency/driving bans this month. We have only one entry so far, and two drawings planned, so you have an excellent chance of winning!

Thanks, again, for following our blog. If you haven't signed up yet, it's easy - just enter an email in the top of the right margin, and you'll receive our semi-monthly newsletters.  We're planning a bi-monthly fabric contest this year, too, and you don't want to miss the heads-up that will be in the newsletters.

The park bench under the most
beautiful red maple tree out front
is buried beneath the snow,
but in time it will emerge!

Please share this blog with your friends to let them know that we're here and we want to be helpful to them.  We can't beat big box stores like Joann's with large discount coupons now and then, but we want to be predictable and stable for our customers.  Come visit and let us know what you want to find in a community quilt shop!


Meanwhile, here are the links where you can learn more about what we have to offer.

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

We're expecting more snow this coming weekend, but we'll keep the light and heat on for you!

A Brand New Happy Quilter at Quilters' Quarters!

Update: August 20, 2014
 Linus panels are on sale this week at Quilters' Quarters!  25% off.  Now only $7.50, this panel makes a quick gift or charity quilt. With a yard of muslin and a half yard of colorful fabric for a binding, and a crib-size piece of batting, this can be completed for about $20.00!  Watch for the panel's addition to our web store: http://www.terrycrawfordpalardy.com/apps/webstore/.  People who want to donate the finished quilt to Project Linus can come into the shop for more details.

August 24th: Row by Row summer quilt shop hop FREE PATTERN GIVEAWAY ends in one more week And then, it's time to make those quilts and return to a shop ~ if you're the first to do so, you win 25 fat quarters~ and a bonus prize at Quilters' Quarters if the quilt also contains our Beyond Winter Windows Row! October 31 is the deadline for finished quilts and prizes.

~ Fiona's Story ~

I taught for thirty years in public schools. I had that old "golden ticket" of Kindergarten through 8th grade certification, and a Master's degree Nursery through 9th grade for moderate special education. In time, I taught all grades from 1 through 8, both in general and in special education classrooms, and loved each one of them. Whenever I told someone I loved my job as a teacher, they would most always ask, "What do you teach?"  And my answer, always, was "Children." All content areas were included in my certification, and I had the opportunity, in those many years, to teach every one of them at one grade or another.

After retirement, I missed the classrooms, the students, my wonderful colleagues ... I wrote about it and published books. I then turned to coaching other authors through the self-publishing process of today. But I missed the little ones.

I decided, shortly after opening Quilters' Quarters, to return to teaching things that I love to the people that I love best - children. My first thought was to tutor middle school students preparing for high school, as that is the most recent age I'd taught in public schools. But my recall of facts, of names especially, and of dates had lessened following retirement. I didn't want tutoring to be a challenge to me - I wanted to be able to share something that I could do comfortably, and happily.

I decided to offer lessons in sewing. And that's when I met Fiona.

Fiona in July, threading the machine

This little bundle of energy, curiosity and enthusiasm was a bright spark of light in my life. She came for an hour or two each week, and was focused on filling her dream of making her own quilt. Not for a doll, not for a wall ... one for herself. And so we began.

Fiona, just recently seven, chose her fabric, planned her design, decided on a block size, learned to measure for cutting, calculated the number of squares needed by adding inches and counting fabric blocks that we'd cut. She, very much like I, would talk aloud to herself, remembering the steps of beginning to sew on the machine ... I would hear her say each week "Presser foot down, needle down, turn the machine on ... "  Within a week she had learned to machine-sew a really decent 1/4" seam, joining first block to block, alternating her Bugs Bunny fabric with her Tweety fabric. And as she worked, she talked: "End of the line. Presser foot up, needle up, pull the fabric to the back, and SNIP the thread close to the fabric. Then pull the thread to the back left." She had the steps already embedded in her memory, and followed them beautifully, week after week. 

Then she learned to sew one row to another, and how to back up if her line of stitching went too close to the edge. " Stop, and pull out the pin. Put it in the pin cup, not on the table."  If I was taking a turn starting to join two rows, she would 'ping' the little brass bell when she saw me getting near the next pin, reminding me to stop and take it out. And she would giggle - and I would laugh. We were  happy quilters together. We most often played the Chipmunks Christmas album while we worked ... high enough in volume to hear in the next room, over the sound of the sewing machine.

Beautiful fabric, beautiful thread,
beautiful smiles and happy giggles!

I showed her how to pin her quilt top to her batting (after choosing the fluffiest one in the shop) and then chose a third fabric, one of "What's Up, Doc" Bugs Bunny, for the backing and binding. We pinned all of the Bugs Bunny squares, and left the Tweety squares open for diagonal quilting lines. 

She helped with the quilting, and easily remembered the name of the "walking foot," I would start a line of quilting, and she would finish it. We then pulled out all of the pins and went in a criss-cross diagonal line through all the Bugs Bunny blocks, and admired the quilted squares that had emerged on the back of the quilt. She then let me put the binding on for her.

She learned how to set the machine for a straight stitch, a zig zag stitch, and when and why to use a reverse stitch. As we didn't have a quarter-inch foot for the machine we were using, I taped a small sticky-note pad at the quarter-inch line, showing her how to line the edge of the fabric up with that. And in six weeks' time, she had finished her quilt. 

Awesome quilter, she is!  Congratulations, Fiona, on your very first quilt! The only thing we didn't do this last week was print a label, which is VERY important;  we'll do that when we meet again!

I sent her home with a Happy Quilter T-Shirt and told her she can now proudly wear that, knowing she has the skills that it proclaims to the world.

Fiona, Bugs Bunny, Tweety and me-
Happy Quilters!
 August 15, 2014