Buying Fabric for an Entire Store

 Have you ever wondered how a shop owner buys fabric for her shop? It's a question I get asked often so I made a little video to give you an overview of the process and how I do it.

Buying fabric, notions, books, patterns and all the stuff I have in my shop for customers to buy is a big job. I hope the video gives you an idea of what it is like to buy fabric for a shop. If you would like to check out my shop click the following link: Alamosa Quilt Company

Recent Shopping

I laid off buying fabric for a few months. Not because I was on a fabric diet or couldn't afford it. I just didn't see anything I felt I really needed or wanted. All that ended recently.

My LQS got in some Modern Backgrounds. I got some yardage of the Paper line and two charm packs each of the Paper line and the Ink line.

Then I got some fat quarters of the new For You line by Zen Chic for Moda.

I love the colors and the geometric prints!

Finally I picked up a few prints from the Nocturne line. Again another Moda line.

It's nice to be able to purchase some modern style fabrics locally! It pays (or it's very expensive) to let your local shop owner know what you like. 

Recent Shopping

Have you heard of Moda's new precut - Frivols? They are 7" squares. A few months ago The Fat Quarter Shop had these available for pre-order and I signed up. I'll get one a month for the next year. The first one came this week. Here is what is inside.

The fabric for this month is the Hello Darling line. I assume there are 42 7" squares, but I didn't count. In addition there are two patterns. One is a full pattern (on the left in the photo above) and the other is just a block pattern. Lastly there is some ribbon that says "handmade" and also "made with love" (this section is not shown in the photo above). 

But for me, the tin all this goodness comes in is the real prize and the reason I signed up.

I could have done a better job of shutting the lid in the above photo. Oh well!

The lid even has a window. It measures 4.75" by 7.5" by 2.5" tall. I think these will be great tins for storing small projects in progress.

Also arriving this week, some ribbons to use as the spine of the needle books I've been making. Click here to see a recent one.

I bought a yard of each from Hawthorne Threads. Each book only needs 5" of ribbon so this will make quite a few needle books.

New Bulb for Featherweight

I've had my Featherweight for a few years now and I still love it. I take it to classes and retreats. When I need to get my BERNINA serviced I pull out my Featherweight and sew with it while the BERNINA is serviced. Being without my main machine for a week or so doesn't bother me since I got my Featherweight.

The thing I don't like about my Featherweight is the light bulb. It's dim and gets dang hot. After burning myself for the umpteenth time at the last retreat I commented how I wished someone would come out with an brighter, cooler bulb for these machines. So I started looking around online. Some one has and I finally got around to ordering one last week. It came yesterday.

New bulb on left, old bulb on right

I popped that baby in my machine and voila - I can see and it doesn't get hot!

My Featherweight with the new bulb installed

Oh my! I love it! If you want to order one for yourself, click this link. The link will take you directly to the page on the Stitch All The Things website where you can order yourself a bulb. I have no affiliation with them. I'm just a satisfied customer. I think the price is reasonable for an LED bulb. The customer service was great and the shipping was fast. You do have to submit your order and then wait for him to send you an invoice via PayPal, but it didn't take very long for the invoice to arrive in my inbox.

Stash Shopping

It has been a while since I have purchased any fabric "just because." When I saw this Charley Harper line on the Fabricworm Facebook page, I purchased the half yard bundle within minutes. It was also on sale when I bought it, 25% off! Double score!

I love Charley Harper's style and art work. I have no idea what I will do with these fabrics other than pet them. This was a "I just have to have some of that" purchase.

P.S. While finding the link for the fabric line on the Fabricworm website I noticed that these fabrics also come in flannel, canvas and knits. I'm not tempted by the knits. Flannel would be nice but the cotton will work just fine for most things I will make with it. However, CANVAS - I might not be strong enough to resist getting some canvas to make myself a bag.

Back Home

We are back home after being gone for 12 days. We put 4200 miles on our car and had a great time visiting with family.

I made it to one quilt store on this trip which is one more than I expected to be able to visit. I went to Quilting by the Bay in Panama City, FL. It is a very nice shop. If you are ever in the area it is definitely worth a stop.

I bought five wool bundles.

I will use these in my upcoming class with Sue Spargo and the rest will be used for my Bird Dance quilt I'm planning to start.

New Toy

After using the Accuquilt Studio cutter we have at my LQS for over a year I decided that I needed one at my house.

I got a great deal on the cutter and the dies were also on sale.

I got the circle die on the right because I'm planning to do a quilt that requires 99 circles for  just the border. I haven't counted how many circles the blocks require. I'm not sure I want to know at this point. My Sue Spargo BOM also requires a lot of circles so I'm hoping this will help me with that project too. I got the flower dies on the left mainly because of the small circles on the die.

The half square triangle die will be used for cutting scraps. I love to use HST units in my scrap quilts but I really don't like trimming them down. I'm not an accurate enough seamstress to sew them correctly without trimming, unless I have them cut perfectly to begin with. I've made a few store samples using the die cut HST pieces and they have all gone together so nicely.

I could just use the cutter at the store and I have. But sometimes I'd like to be able to cut on my off days and if I go in to the store I always get sucked into doing something in addition to the project I went in there to work on. I'd also like to be able to cut in the evenings. Now I can!

This and That

I did a little "functional" sewing last week. I hemmed a pair of pants for my husband. These are Boy Scout pants, the kind where the legs zip off so they can be worn as both pants or shorts. Being able to zip off the legs made this a bit easier.

Not a very exciting project, but he was very happy with them. I haven't hemmed a pair of pants in a while. It took a lot longer than I expected. The measuring and pinning took the most time. The sewing part went quick.

Last weekend was the annual Sewing & Quilting Expo in Pueblo, Colorado. I didn't get to go last year and was hoping to go this year. It didn't work out though. Instead, I ordered some fabric from Hawthorne Threads online. Some Mad Mend I've had my eye on for a few weeks.

Spooky absolutely insisted on being the picture! I took several and some part of her was in every one. At least you can see the fabric in this one.

I just love the scissor prints so I bought some of every color way. The thimbles also caught my eye. Instead of stashing all of this I'm trying to come up with a project to use at least some of this right away. We'll see how that goes.

Weekend Sewing Report

I got quite a bit accomplished during my free weekend.

On Friday I quilted two charity quilts, got the labels made and the binding sewn to the front. I only took a picture of one though.

The other is the same pattern using different fabrics. I pieced both tops at my last guild retreat in February. I got the binding already sewn to the back on the other one.

On Saturday night and Sunday morning, I made lots of units for my Scrap Jar Star quilt.

I didn't do any sewing on Saturday because I was out with friends all day. We drove up to Buena Vista, CO for a luncheon. It was the Spring Luncheon for the P.E.O. chapters in our area. After the wonderful luncheon, we went to a yarn store in Buena Vista, Serendipity Yarn, and then over to Salida, CO to a relatively new quilt store, Fringe. It is a fairly small store but loaded with style and modern fabrics.

I purchased this hilarious print.

The name on the selvedge says "We Come In Peace" and it is a Michael Miller print. I have no idea what I will do with this fabric. I bought a yard of it.

This store had modern fabrics! Some of the designers names I recall are Tula Pink, Kaffe Fassett, Valorie Wells, Jennifer Paganelli, and Sweetwater, but I'm sure there were more I don't remember. They also had a small selection of some of the modern style Moda fabrics, some batiks, solids and kid prints. In addition, they had some nice yarn and gift items. If you are ever in the Salida, CO area, I recommend making a stop at this store. It is located in downtown Salida. The block it is on has several other really nice shops.

The yarn store in Buena Vista is also worth a stop. They had a large selection of beautiful yarns and gift items. I got a small skein of some silk yarn that I plan to couch onto something. I'm not sure exactly what but some kind of art project type something.

I always feel like I didn't get as much done as I should have, but I had a great time which is more important. Spooky also behaved. The weather has been pretty nice so she has been spending more time outside than in lately. She did hang out with me in the sewing room some, but she mostly slept.

New Tools

I've been having a hard time getting my Bohemian Stripe quilted, mainly because I don't have a good way to mark on dark fabric. My usual method is a sliver of Ivory soap, which works great, but rubs off easily. So I can only mark two or three lines at a time. It is frustrating to have to stop and take the quilt back to my basting tables (so I don't have to crawl around on the floor) and mark the next few lines. Everything else I have either rubs off too easily, doesn't mark well enough on an already basted quilt or won't show up on the dark brown fabrics.

So I'm trying a new-to-me white marking pen.

At one time these pens were the most returned item at my LQS. Why? Because when you first mark with it you can not see what you have just drawn. You have to wait one or two minutes for the "ink" to dry before it will show up. I put "ink" in quotation marks because I have no idea what chemical substance is actually in this pen. I didn't take a picture with the cap off, but it does look like a ball point pen.

I wrote my name on the little scrap of solid black fabric. You may have to click on the picture to enlarge it so you can see it. The lines are hard to photograph, but I will have no trouble seeing them well enough to quilt them. Yay! I think this is the solution for me and this Bohemian Stripe quilt. I hope to get the rest of the lines marked soon then I will be able to just quilt.

By the way, the packaging says that the "ink" will disappear with heat (that is, iron over it) or when washed. I haven't tested the washing part, but my name did vanish immediately once I hit it with a hot iron and did not return once the fabric cooled. I have not tried putting it in the freezer to see if that will make it come back. I plan to wash this quilt once it is finished so hopefully that will remove all traces of this "ink" from the quilt.

Edited to add later this morning: I just tried to continue marking and now the pen is not working. I have waited 5 minutes and the marks are not showing up. I am trying the recommendations that came with the packaging. So far, no luck. Do not rush out and buy one of these pens just yet! I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

I also decided it was time for a new pair of machine quilting gloves. My preferred brand is Machingers.

Believe it or not, the old ones were just washed and they still look really grubby next to the new ones.

New Iron & Bad Kitten

I got a new iron yesterday.

Someone brought one of these to retreat. Several of us commented on how nice it was to use and asked where she got it. She ordered it from The Vermont Country Store! Click this link to go directly to the iron. About 9 of us decided that we liked it so much we wanted one for ourselves. So we got online, figured out how much it would be to order 9 irons plus shipping, and paid our money to one person so she could place the order.

This iron is heavy compared to some irons, but I don't like a super lightweight iron. I feel like I have to push down so hard with it to get it to do a good job if it is too light. This iron weighs about the same as my 17 year old Black & Decker ProXpress iron which I like very much but is starting to show its age. I bought this one because I know my B & D iron is on it's last leg, so to speak.

It is a dry iron, so no steam. But this also means no holes in the bottom of the iron that may leave marks on your project. I've quit using steam anyway because putting water in irons these days seems to shorten the life of the iron in my experience. I have a spray bottle with water in it for any times I feel the need for steam. No holes in the bottom is also better for fusing and adhering freezer paper to fabric, in my opinion. With my old iron I had to make sure to move it around so that the holes didn't stay in the same place when fusing.

It has no fancy features like auto shut-off and no light that changes color or goes off once it is hot. This is just a basic iron that gets hot, nice and hot, fairly quickly, about a minute after turning it on. Granted, I've only owned this iron one day, but I did use one for the whole weekend at retreat. It stayed on pretty much all day for three days straight and never complained once. I'll try to remember to give you an update in a couple of months on this iron. Hopefully I will still love it as much as I do today.

Full Disclosure: I have no affiliation with The Vermont Country Store other than I get their catalog occasionally. I paid for the iron with my own money plus shipping and am not being reimbursed in any way for this review. Unless they do a search for their company name, The Vermont Country Store doesn't even know I'm reviewing their iron.

While setting up the photo shoot for my iron, Spooky decided to check out my fabric baskets. I heard some clawing noises behind me and turned around to see this.

When she realized that there is only fabric in this basket she started looking around for something else to get into.

I should mention that this basket is on the second shelf, about 30" above the ground. She had to climb up the outside of the baskets in order to crawl inside. About 2 minutes after this picture was taken she got kicked out of the sewing room for trying to climb the design wall.

Patriotic Double Slice

I finished up the quilt Spooky "helped" me quilt the feathers on.

It will be a Quilt of Valor. And here is the back.

It was a little breezy this morning and I just gave up trying to get a picture of the full back. Getting the full front was hard enough!

Spooky also "helped" with the binding and did an excellent job of testing the quilt for comfort.

It is being washed right now since (1) the QOV Foundation requests that you wash the quilt before sending it off and (2) I always wash a quilt after it is has been cat tested.

The details:

The finished size is approximately 64" by 73". The pattern is called Double Slice Layer Cake Quilt and I used this tutorial by Missouri Star Quilt Company to make the center. I copied the border from one of the quilts shown in the video even though instructions for the border were not provided in the tutorial. I quilted it myself on my Handiquilter Sweet 16. I used 100% cotton Signature thread, the color is called Sand Dollar (an off white). The batting is Hobbs Heirloom 80/20. I didn't have a layer cake so I cut my own 10" squares of red, white and blue fabrics from my stash which allowed me to make it a little larger. I think most layer cakes have 40 squares, I used 42. This allowed me to layout the blocks in a 6 block by 7 block grid instead of a 5 block by 8 block grid.

I've been having my annual doctor appointments this week and had my yearly mammogram this morning. I pre-ordered my reward for these appointments and it came earlier this week.

A stack of half yard cuts of Bella plus coordinating solids. If you want some of these fabrics I suggest you snap them up soon! I ordered these from The Intrepid Thread but there are other places you can find these fabrics too. You can see all the prints I purchased if you go here. I even have a plan for some of these!!! More on that later.

Now I'm going to take some Advil and go sew. I had planned to do some errands this afternoon, but changed my mind after my doctor called to tell me she got me in for a mammo. this morning. One super yuck thing per day is my quota! I need to balance things out with something just for me this afternoon.

Shopping

I will be making another laptop carrier soon. This one will be for me. I'm going to use this as my main fabric.

It's a recent purchase from The Intrepid Thread. I purchased a couple coordinating prints to use for the binding and lining. I'm not sure why I didn't photograph them though. Um ...

I also did some shopping recently at my LQS. This is Cosmopolitan by Northcott.

And this one is Floral Whimsy by Northcott.

One of the benefits of working at my LQS is that I get to see the new fabric every week!

I taught a class on Saturday and my student used some of the Floral Whimsy main print for her project.

The class she took is the Color Theory for Quilters class I'm teaching this quarter. She did a great job!