June!

Visit our own Row by Row page, or see other shops in Massachusetts
 on the MA Row by Row page.

Quilters' Quarters has been working diligently on getting things ready in the shop for new visitors. Our participation in the national and international Row by Row 2014 summer-long shop hop is a promising endeavor designed to bring our shop wider visibility.

To that end, so far we have: 

• purchased a special line of fabric from Timeless Treasures
• created a display of the Row by Row shop hop's contest guidelines and dates
• developed a brochure that includes relevant links for the contest rules and for finding the many shops participating
•  sewn and hung a large fabric license plate with our motto, "Happy Quilter" 
• purchased a shipment of smaller fabric license plates for quilters who are collecting them at each shop that they visit
• designed a unique "Sew a Season" row to represent our shop
• made a model of that row, called "Beyond Winter Windows"
• prepared kits of the fabric pieces needed to make that row
• written the FREE PATTERN directions for making the row, including pictures of how the fabric is to be put together for best results
• posted photos on Facebook's Massachusetts Row by Row page
• purchased Sew a Season fabrics for spring, summer, and autumn rows to help quilters who are looking for blenders for other shops' rows as well as our own winter row

July 1 is the official beginning of the Row by Row experience, and is when the FREE PATTERNs for shop rows will be available to visitors. But you can begin viewing the rows of shops near you, or near where you will be traveling this summer. Each participating area has a list of shops at www.rowbyrow.com. I'm told they are working on a map for each state showing where the shops are located. 

Here are some recent photos of our preparations for this exciting summer-long shop hop:

A kit for making our row: Beyond Winter Windows

Kits will be sold for our row in the shop: $7.50.

Everything you need for this contest is together
and ready to go in our shop.

These are the Sew a Season fabric strips for 
spring, summer and autumn.

One single 9.25" block from our row

Here is our completed row, 
with additional option sashing.

These are the fabrics included in the kit: enough
to create the four blocks for the row.

The fabric license plates are offered for $3.50. I hear that
many quilters enjoy collecting these along their way.

We're ready for you.  All that's missing is the FREE PATTERN
and that will be available after June 30. Come and get it!

As always, if you are reading this update in your email, thank you for signing up for the newsletter. We publish it about twice a month, but in between editions, we also update the various pages that comprise this blog. Recent additions are the Machine Quilting Classes page,  and progress on the tie quilt at the Terry's QuiltingJournal 2014 page. 

Feel free to share this email or blog link with your friends and families, and encourage the quilters among you to check out the Row by Row page of the blog as well as the website itself. 

We're in for a great experience this summer ~ jump in and join us!

Row by Row "Sew a Season" fabrics have arrived!

Rick and I rode down to the New England Quilt Supply today and picked up the special order of the fabrics that the developers of the summer long Row by Row shop hop have chosen for the quilts.

Each quilt shop had to choose one of the four seasons, and Quilters' Quarters has chosen Winter.  In addition to the program fabrics, I picked up a few new bolts of blenders. I have many more in the shop's inventory that will also complement rows that feature spring, summer and fall as well, and quilters are encouraged to look through our shop to see what might work for their other rows, as well as ours.

The beautiful souvenir custom-designed license plate fabric has also arrived, and will be available for purchases by quilters as of June 1st, when Quilters' Quarters winter row of blocks pattern is ready for FREE distribution. The plates were designed by artist Debra Gabel; visit her website to see what other creative projects she has designed.  Shop owners chose their own slogans,  and Debra carefully fit their messages into their state license plates' own formats. 

What quilters do with the license plate souvenir could involve another contest and prize. I'm looking forward to picking them up at other quilt shop during my travels along the Row by Row trail. Not sure yet what I might do with them, but I'm sure I'll make new friends along the way, and maybe get some creative ideas from them.

Here are the important Row by Row dates for 2014:
June 1: each participating shop will have a free pattern available, and optional fabric kits to suit the chosen season. 

July 1 and onward: Quilters who have been busy in July might be ready and can begin bringing their finished quilts back to any of the eight (or more) shops they have incorporated patterns into for their quilt. First one back with a completed quilt that uses that shop's pattern will be awarded 25 fat quarters. Contest and prizes expire  September 2.

Start planning your summer travels. No one said you are limited to eight quilt shops: there are more than a thousand signed up to participate!  But while you're waiting, enjoy another look at these fabrics at the Row by Row website, and here at Quilters' Quarters.  They are luscious to look at and lovely to touch! Come in to see them.

As always, if you are reading this update in your email, thank you for signing up for the newsletter. We publish it about twice a month, but in between editions, we also update the various pages that comprise this blog. Recent additions are the Machine Quilting Classes page,  and progress on the tie quilt at the Terry's Quilting Journal 2014 page. 

Feel free to share this email or blog link with your friends and families, and encourage the quilters among you to check out the Row by Row page of the blog as well as the website itself. 

We're in for a great experience this summer ~ jump in and join us!

More New Items to Share with Happy Quilters

It is with a big smile that I greet Spring's belated arrival this week! As this is May Day, I gathered daffodils from my front yard and greeted the little ones heading home from school this afternoon with a daffodil for each child who walks with their parents by the front of our house.  Their smiles are a welcome, warming sight!

My sympathy to those who are or have loved ones living in states dealing with horrific rainfall and winds this week. Here in New England, our air temperatures have remained above freezing, though the persistent drizzle and cold winds have kept most from planting and spring cleaning outside. 

Inside at Quilters' Quarters, though, material continues to arrive ... some in big brown trucks labeled UPS, some in small electric USPS mail trucks, and some in car trunks brought by quilters themselves. That's what I'll write about here today.

When Rick built the cabinets to hold all of the bolts of fabric that we have been acquiring from fabric salespeople, wholesalers and shops, we were able to empty his mother's sea chest of those plastic-wrapped bundles of fabric that seemed untouchable and so remained unsalable. We tucked the big chest under a table in the wooden toy room and wondered what we might do with it later. 

Later took all of about three days to arrive, as two friends separately came to me to ask if I could offer a space in the shop to collections that they were willing to part with.  



One is a drapery artist who designs and makes window treatments for new and old homes. Her mother had been a quilter for many years, and when she passed away, Gwen took on the task of closing the home. She found boxes and bags of partially-cut cotton fabrics that she knew could have value in the right hands. She asked me to show them to people who would use them. When I asked her if she had a price in mind (the perennial question to which there is no right answer,) she said that I could let the people who were interested in the fabrics to offer whatever they felt was right. 

Shortly afterward, another friend arrived to ask whether it was true that I was accepting 'orphan fabrics' in the shop. She is a creative needle-worker who has ranged from quilting to knitting to felting to constructing with fabric, and her 'stash' is eclectic and larger than she can continue to store. She, too, had a similar answer to the question of how to price remnants of this, that, and the other thing. 

A third friend arrived with a stack of quilted squares, about 16 x 16 inches in size ... similarly patterned but differently colored and pieced by an apparent group of quilters who each had their own style of piecing. She said the squares had been found unused in a church closet, and wondered if I might show them to customers. She said that any money offered for them could be given to the church. 

And last evening,  another friend came in to see what new things I had in the shop. I showed her the new bolts that we had brought home from the warehouse in Pembroke, and then I showed her the sea chest half-filled with remnants that I had measured and labeled with sizes but no prices. She was delighted to rummage through the stash and commented that, only in a small shop like ours could one find someone else's treasures ... something unusual for that special touch in a quilt or in a tote ... something truly unique. She left happily with a small bundle, generously leaving some behind for another friend who would be by later to purchase such remnants as these.

 And yes, there was a young woman who stopped in at about 6:30 pm the other day, looking for a spool of bluish-gray thread and dreading the rainy ride down the dark highway to the large fabric shop there. She had seen our sign and stopped in, delighted to look through the shop and, as luck would have it, to find the color gray that she needed to finish her project that night. 

These are the moments I knew would hold the happiness that came with owning a small, local quilt shop. I look forward to more co-operative fabric-sharing in the shop. Please take a ride to visit us, and find a treasure of your own among the new and the old here at Quilters' Quarters. 

*If you're reading this in your email, thank you for signing up for these newsletters. Please forward this to your friends and family members who might also like to know about this new venture of ours ... quilters, needle-workers, stitchers in general ... we have some crewel kits as well as embroidery, and painted silk pieces, and old thimbles ... threads of all colors, a lending library of quilting books and magazines ... and of course, my own books.  

This newsletter is generated only when I update the main page of the blog. There are always other updates here at the other pages ... my 2014 quilting journal currently featuring two ongoing projects as different as night and day ... our quilt of valor page ... the page that features my books and Helen and Henry's ongoing saga ... and more. Click on the links at the top of the right margin to find what's been added to those parts of the Quilters' Quarters story. And be well, all!

~ Terry and Rick
Woodentoyandgift.net
WTandGNews.blogspot.com
TerryCrawfordPalardy.com
AtQuiltersQuarters.blogspot.com

Encouraging (politely forcing) Spring to Warm Things Up

I usually enjoy winter. I like the cool to cold temperatures, the sound of snow crunching under foot, the holidays it brings, the sweaters and hats and gloves that keep us warm and brighten our days ... I like to hear the newscasters say school is cancelled and sledding is underway. And then it ends, and Spring arrives with beauty and fragrance and warmth.

This winter, though, has tried our patience. Schools closed due to icy roads. Multi-car accidents due to darkness and fog.  Late blooming plants this spring were unexpectedly re-buried in last night's mid-April measurable snowfall.

We had a year, a few years ago, where Spring was fleeting ... late winter snow followed almost immediately by oppressive summer heat that extended long into fall before a nearly snow-less but frigid winter. The cycle of seasons has been erratic this past decade, and I long for the days when I could look at a calendar and rely on the pages turning predictably.

So I'll tempt you to believe in Spring again, by sharing photos of the fabrics we selected for this season.

seashells and ocean currents, buoys and lighthouses

sailboats and sea breezes

Spring and summer colors

Fairies, bunnies, silly birds, hearts flowers and dragonflies

bright happy colors

all ready to blend together into something cheerful

old friends to make you smile

Bugs and Tweety, flowers and more

dogs, butterflies, baseball and blues

Beautiful complementary colors in silk and quilt squares

  All of these and more can be seen in our shop at 59 North Street, "Just two doors North of Perley School" as we say.  Come visit us Wednesday through Saturday, between 11 am and 7 pm. The evenings are growing lighter even though the temperatures continue to tease us. If dark clouds hover, we'll keep the lights on for you. Our lantern out front is blue for Autism Awareness month.

You might like to go to the blog to see the progress I am making on the tie quilt for my friend who is a retiring principal. I really like the way the blocks are coming together. Four down, and nine to go. (yes, there is an extra block in this calendar wall hanging ... it will be a surprise.) I update my Journal page when I finish a block.

You can see more new purchases for the shop online at our new Facebook page, or here At Quilters' Quarters. If your schedule would be better accommodated at hours outside of ours, just call or email us to schedule a visit at another time. We want to be your local, convenient shop for fabrics, notions, needles, threads, ribbons, batting, backings and friendly greetings.

By the way, we need five more likes at our Quilters' Quarters Facebook page.  Can you like the page so that we can see stats for it? Please and Thank you?

Please share this site with your friends and families, and invite them to join us on the web or in the shop.

Happy (whatever season this is today)~ I'm going to go out and get some forsythia branches to bring in and encourage them to open~

Be well, keep stitching and creating more beauty in our world.

~ Terry and Rick

More New Cabinets Hold More New Fabric!

Spring will come, I promise.  Today's temperatures reached 55 here, and the air outside of the shop was warmer than inside. Rick and I spent yesterday at our favorite warehouse, New England Quilt Supply in Pembroke, Massachusetts.  We were able to buy several bolts of fabrics that sing Spring and Summer!

When we came home, we unwrapped the bolts and  placed the fabrics into the new cabinets that Rick has been adding to our shop.  His design, his work ... well, each picture is worth a thousand words!

One beautiful wall of cabinets

Gingham and seersucker in  pink, green, lilac, blue and yellow

light teal and lilac, with flowers, Tweety and Bugs Bunny 

beautiful pinks, floral, birds, butterlies, fairies and compliments 

kid prints with Linus, Baseball, Dalmatians, Mutts, flowers and dots

nautical fabrics with lighthouses, sailboats, shells, ocean currents, buoys

red white and blues for Quilts of Valor and more

blossoms, bids, berries and blenders in bold bright colors 

Remember, if you're reading this in your email, Thank You for signing on to follow Quilters' Quarters. 

Please share this with your friends and families and help our new venture grow.  We have an exciting summer project ahead.  We'll post more information about an inter-state contest that we've joined, called Row by Row 2014.  

Watch for our brand-new Facebook Page for quick messages about Row by Row 2014 and other surprises ahead.  

Keep smiling, keep shining, and keep stitching!

                           ~Terry and Rick

Sharing a Few of our Favorite Things!

The little packages keep coming in the mail, and Rick keeps slitting open the envelopes and leaving them for me to find.  I bring them out to the shop, then, and price them and leave them for customers to come and find. I am having such a good time with this new adventure in my life.

Some of you might remember that I am in a "mind-mapping" group of artists with Rick; led by a wonderful facilitator, Marci August. We sit together and share our goals and dreams and come up with valid, purposeful plans and strategies for achieving what we have dreamed. A few months ago, before we opened the quilt shop, the group focused on helping me realize what the center of my business plan was. What was in the center of the map we had formulated from my activities and efforts? A single phrase: BE HAPPY. That is the desired result that all of my goals are pointing toward. That is the focus of my wishes, my newest goal. It is achievable. It is a truth in my life.Is it a valid business plan's desired result? You bet it is!

Here are some more items that have arrived or are on their way to Quilters' Quarters, gradually filling the beautiful cabinets Rick has added to our shop::

Eight yards of Timeless Treasures: "Lighthouses"

One yard of Fabric Visions: "Curious"

We also have a new supply of fat quarters from our friend Ann Lainhart. In addition to those individual, beautiful 9" x 44" pieces of fabric, Ann has put together bundles of "eight fat eighths" ... fabric cuts in a color family, each of which  measure 9" x 22", and so total to a full yard of coordinating fabrics.

Fat Quarters from Ann Lainhart

Ann's quarters and bundles of eight fat eighths in color families

Ann has wonderful fabrics to share!

a yard of 44" fabric with 12 blue printed blocks
 of animals in Dresden Plates

2.5"strips and pre-cut squares; some 4", 5" 6" and 10"

2 yards of soft white cotton with pink floral splash

Embroidered linen tablecloth ready for finishing

We look forward to seeing you and sharing these wonderful finds with you.  Next week, we will be adding more bolts of fabric to the cabinets Rick has built for the shop. Take a look at what we have in store for you!

Remember, if you are reading this in your email, you can forward it to your friends and family and invite them to enjoy our retirement adventure with us. They can find us here At Quilters' Quarters, or drop into the shop Wednesdays through Saturdays between 11 am and 7 pm. We'll do our best to find and stock what you are looking for. We'll be at the fabric warehouse this week, so check out New England Quilt Supply's catalog and let us know what you see that you would like us to purchase and have in stock.

 You can call (978 352 2676) or email (needlesandpens@comcast.net) and we'll be happy to talk with you about fabrics and notions!

We appreciate your advice~
Happy sewing, be well, and don't be a stranger!