Favorite Products: October

 Today I am going to share with you some of our favorite products at the moment. 

Esther is loving the Creative Grids Cutting Mats in the various sizes, the LDH Cutting Blades for rotary cutters, and her Fiskars Rotary Cutter. The Creative Grids Mats are a great color and they have really great markings.  The mat is double sided and one side of the mat has detailed markings for precise cutting, while the other which can be nice when you are using the lines on your rulers to cut instead. It is important to replace your blades, rulers and mats to keep your cutting accurate and avoid extra wear and tear on each item individually. For a video Esther did with more information on this topic on this click this link. I will also put it into writing as an upcoming blog post in the next week or two. 

Fiskars actually has a new limited edition rotary cutter out right now that I used in my video on Tuesday. It is pink and sparkly and the moment I seen it on the wall I just had to have it. 

  

The shop ordered a new longarm and it arrived today so Carrie chose that as her favorite product. It is an APQS Freddie and when I left the shop at lunch time she had already enlisted help to get it down the stairs and start setting it up. We will have long arm rentals available in the new year so watch for more details on that. 

I am loving a couple different books right now. The first is the Labor of Love book by Sherri McConnell of A Quilting Life. I mentioned this book back in August when I had made my first quilt from it, but I have made a couple more from the book now and there is also a sampler quilt along happening with the book. The patterns are fantastic and they are all so different from each other. 

Sherri is running the Labor of Love QAL on her blog (visit it here) and I am sewing along. Each week we make one block using the patterns from the book and in the end we will have 12 blocks to assemble into a large lap sized sampler quilt. Block 4 released today and I can't wait to get to my machine to sew it up. 

    

The other book that has been moved to the top of my favorites is the Charming Baby Book by Melisa Cory. This book is full of great patterns to make baby quilts, or if you don't need  to make any baby quilts you could use them as wall hangings or table toppers instead. I am working on one called Ring Around the Rosie, and have several more picked out. We are sold out of this book at the moment but there are more on order and they should be here this week or next.

 

Have a great weekend! 

Kayla 

Bionic Gear Bag Recap

We hosted our Bionic bag Workshop these past couple days in our shop, although it turned more into a fun little retreat than an actual structured workshop. 

Esther, myself and an additional 8 ladies have spent the last two days, laughing, learning from each other and best of all sewing. The Chrysalis Cafe made snacks, coffee and lunch for us both days and delivered it to us, so we sewed to our hearts content, and when food arrived on our tables we ate, than kept sewing. 

Each of us made a Bionic Gear Bag, and all of them turned out so great. Most of us still need to finish binding the edges, but we decided to do that at home and make the couple bonus projects that Esther had planned for us. 

We had a fun pouch tutorial from Anna Graham of Noodlehead Designs that we modified a little by making it even smaller and it works great for holding Wonder Clips. 

Esther also designed a neat little machine needle holder that has space for needle boxes, lightly used needles, as well as a description for what each needle is to be used for. It rolls up and neatly fits into our gear bags to keep everything together. 

As is usual when you get 10 ladies sewing together there were some mistakes made. This cute little corner was dubbed the "Comfort Corner." Because if you have to pick something out, you may as well do it in a fun, comfortable chair. 

Everyone walked away with a nifty notion or pattern as a prize, and it seemed that every time we drew a name, the winner was not even paying attention to what was going on and we needed to call the name a couple times along with "winner" before they would clue in. 

Thank you again to all the Ladies who joined us, Esther and I had great time, and we hope you did as well. This was a great ending to a season of making bags together, and once we get the plans finalized for next years bag club we will post the details, and the sign up information. 

As a side note my nails matched my fabric so well that I just had to take a picture.
 Kayla
Scroll down to see more pictures of us working hard.

Christmas Part 3

his evening's post is the final in our 3 part Christmas Series. Today I want to give you some ideas of what to buy for your quilty friends, or give you some ideas of what to put on your own list. Some of these gifts are useful notions and some are just fun.

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First up useful notions. I have put these all to the test and I highly recommend them all. The stash and store is a perfect organization tool to hold all those small things that always get lost under our piles, think scissors, marking pencils and the seam ripper, we have two colors in stock right now, but there are a few more colors on order. The ruler pad holds those small trimming rulers and cutting mats, getting them off your table but still easily accessible. We also got a new shipment of the Ruler Roundups today. I have one on my cutting table and it conveniently holds all the rulers I use everyday. These always sell out quick so if you want one come in store soon. The Alphabitties and Wonderclips make a great team, use them to keep your pieces organized and together throughout the cutting and sewing process. 

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The Moda Clipboards are great for planning projects and making lists, in addition to the board itself they come with a large pad of grid paper, six pencils and six binder clips. Esther is on her second as my sister-in-law adopted the first one a couple weeks ago, she loves it and she is not even a quilter. 

Esther ordered in these super fun Advent Calendar which contains 24 different notions. I think this is such a fun idea and they are priced at only $36, and I can guarantee that the gifts inside are of a much higher value than that. 

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Speaking of Calendars we also got the newest Inspiring Stitches Desk Calendar in today. Not only is a super cute calendar, it is also a block of the month, what a great two for one deal!

So aside from useful gifts that we don't usually buy for ourselves we also have the super fun treat ideas. 

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You know we carry socks which are always a big hit, but we also ordered in some more fun things with Christmas in mind. Everyone drinks some kind of beverage whether it be coffee, tea, hot chocolate, wine or water, and the new mugs and glasses that have come in will make those drinks seem a lot better. 

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These Riley Blake Bandages are perfect to prevent blood from getting on any of your projects, plus they are super adorable, and I have it on good authority that they stay on really well. 

If you are still stumped we also sell gift cards. 

I must say that December is one of my favorite months to work, and even though it is a full month away I am looking forward to it already. We have so many husbands, and non-quilters come in the store saying they are looking for something for so and so. I love helping them find something to suit you. And I love knowing what you are getting for Christmas. 

If you would love something from this list or anything else specific in our store, but when you start talking quilting and your families eyes glaze over, make a wish list at our store and leave it with us and just tell your family that you are registered at Chicken Feed and we will help with the rest. 

Tomorrow is our Saturday PhD Club session, yesterday we had three ladies pay the $10 fee for not completing their homework (one of them was me, oops), but we also had a couple that finished their goals which is so awesome. During yesterday's session I finished up one of my Be My Neighbor Quilt Tops and I hope to finish the second one tomorrow. The final post for that will be on Tuesday, so it is time to start planning our next Quilt Along. I picked some out today and will do a poll on our Facebook Page sometime in the next week to see where your interest lies. So far I have a quilt pattern, a row quilt that can be done as individual projects or combined into one quilt and a book of minis picked out, so think about what you would like to do and be sure to vote when the poll comes up. 

Next week is Quilt Market, we are missing this year for a couple of reasons. Esther leaves this Monday for her vacation so she can't make it, and my sons 7th birthday is next week, and though I love working at the quilt store and everything that goes along with it, my family still comes first and I cannot skip out on his birthday.  

Kayla