So Many Trunk Shows, So Little Time....

This must be the season for Trunk Shows!  We've got 3 fabulous trunk shows going on now at the store.  We hope you can stop by and see these great things in person; and if you're visiting our blog from far away, enjoy the pictures and project ideas!

VINTAGE CHRISTMAS by Wagon West Designs

"Wish You Were Here" was inspired by the author's grandmother's kisses at the bototm of her cards and letters.  What a perfect quilt to make for that special someone you wish you could be with over the holidays!  This quilt measures 86"x86".  The book, Vintage Christmas, is for sale at the store for $25 and has tons of other great projects!

"Wish You Were Here" in pinks and browns

ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT

Itty Bitty Quilts

The 3 itty bitty quilts in this pattern were made using the "Woolies" line of flannels by Bonnie Sullivan and Maywood Studio.  They are adorable and come in 3 different itty bitty sizes.  Flower Baskets 10 1/2 x 12 1/2, Cherries 10 x 11 1/2 and Bars & Vines 9 3/4 x 11.  The pattern is available for $9.50 and includes includes directions for making all 3 of these adorable itty bitty quilts.

Also from ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT

Needle Keeper (left) & Silhouette Pincushion (right)

These adorable patterns also from All Through the Night include directions for making these cute needle keeper and pincushion; perfect to keep by your machine so you always have a needle or pin when you need it!  The needle keeper measures 4" x 5" and it's the perfect gift for your stitching friends. Can be made from wool scraps and embellished with simple embroidery stitches.  The Silhouette Pincushion is 4" x 6" and is perfect to make from wool and homespun. Fill with crushed walnut shells to keep your needles sharp.

BAREROOTS

Candle Mats
Bareroots shares with us their mini votive candle mats that finish about 10" x 10". Make these with your wool scraps but we'll also have kits available for them.  These also make the perfect gift for friends. Easy to fuse and buttonhole stitch or tack stitch with wool floss or embroidery floss.

As you can see, we've got lots of great thinks to see and hopefully inspire you for the upcoming holiday season!  After all, the holidays are right around the corner.....

Fundraiser Quilt from Srapbasket Quilts

This quilts was made using a pattern in the book, Scrapbasket Quilts.  It was miade using 2 1/2inch strips.  Linda Wirtz made this musically themed quilt for a fundraiser at her son's school.  The lucky winner was a band parent!

Josephine's Sampler with Tanyard Creek

What a great pattern designed by Laurie Smith from My Heart To Your hands.  This model was made by Linda Rice using the Tanyard Creek line by Little Quilts.  We have kits available to purchase.

Flag Day Farm Quilt

This Flag Day Farm Quilt was made by our friend Colette for her 10 year old granddaughter for Christmas. It's so much fun when customers bring in their quilts or projects for Show & Tell. We love seeing them and sharing them with all of you. It's from a pattern from Minnick and Simpson whose trunk show we have through this weekend with quilts from their Wiscasset line for Moda.

October Alternate blocks from Second Saturday Sampler

I Spy Quilt

This cute I Spy quilt was made by customer Janice Schaag for her sons Ethan and Jason. The quilt was hand pieced and hand quilted. Janice finished it just in time for the cold weather and the boys are already having fun cuddling up in it and playing I Spy! If you'd like to make an I Spy quilt, we have a bag full of perfect fabric scraps at $.10 each.

Visitors at Little Quilts

Bobbie Mosher, from Almond, North Carolina, visited Little Quilts today. Her Show and Tell, shown below, is a 25th anniversary quilt that she made for her daughter Kathy and son-in-law Bob Lemen of Marietta. Bobbie, a member of the Cherohala Quilt Guild in Robbinsville, North Carolina, won a blue ribbon for this quilt at the Stecoah, North Carolina Fall Festival.

Mary Ellen is going to visit the Cherohala Quilt Guild in June, 2010, to give a lecture and class.

Applique with Amy Butler

Joey Helmke is one of our customers who is fairly new at quilting. She loves the Amy Butler fabrics. This is her first applique quilt called "Big Birdie Blocks". She came to pick out her backing and binding and to leave it here for our longarm quilter. Good job, Joey!

Tanyard Creek Line in "Josephine's Sampler" Quilt

Little Quilts staff member, Linda Rice, has made Lori Smith's (From My Heart to Your Hands) "Josephine's Sampler" quilt using "Tanyard Creek" fabrics -- which is Little Quilts' newest fabric line.  Isn't it gorgeous?  Tanyard Creek is a wonderful reproduction line, with good saturated colors and shirtings; cheerful and versatile.

The quilt is 59" x 74"; kits are available for $78.95:

Happy Birthday Little Quilts

Dear friends,


We have made it another year! Thanks to all of you we have enjoyed celebrating our 11th anniversary of the store's opening. It has been fun seeing everyone - both old and new friends of Little Quilts this past weekend and Monday and Tuesday. A special thank you to Chris Ison one of our customers who remembers the anniversary each year with a special Fall arrangement. We appreciate your business and encouragement and plan to continue to offer the neatest fabrics for all interests, great classes and the best service in the years ahead.

The Staff at Little Quilts

Birthday Girls at Little Quilts

This group of ladies came in today to celebrate three birthdays. From left to right: Sarah Rhodes, Kathleen Hartz, Anne Kreamer,Lisa Spears,Diane Prible, and Marianne Ellis. Anne, Lisa and Diane were the ones with the birthdays. After visiting us they were off to have lunch.

Come celebrate your birthday with us and receive a 25% discount off any one item. Could be loads of fun!!

Christmas Tree Skirts

Mary Ann Eubanks did these tree skirts from a pattern by Silver Thimble, "Slice of Christmas". You have the option of two tree skirts when you use this method. Mary Ann donated one to The Trinity School in Cartersville and our longarm quilter donated her time for the quilting and the binding.

Girl Gang

These four ladies got together to do a project and this is the results. They used a pattern from Threads That Bind called "Stitch 'N Stuff Cat".Pictured from left to right: Fran House, Nancy Perkins, Mary Anne Jernigan, and Paula Wexler.They all said that it was loads of fun. They are also in a class here that meets once a month and are known as the Girl Gang. Fran House is their teacher.

Special Visitor to the store! Who could it be?

Mary Todd Lincoln showed up at Little Quilts this morning

and will be here again this evening for a class.

There is still space available in tonight's class. The costume is fabulous. You really need to see this one. Muriel does an excellent job making her outfits for these classes. She also gives a little history lesson along with great tips for making the quilt and she includes treats with recipes from the past. If you miss this one it will be repeated after the first of the year.

Need a project for all those fabric scraps?

We all have more scraps laying around than we know what to do with right?  Well now you can use them to turn an ordinary strand of twinkle lights into a festive piece of garland you can hang year round!

Supplies

Strips of scrap (cut 2 1/2 inches wide x 6-8 inches long)

1 strand of holiday lights

strips of ribbon, lace, ric-rac (optional)

All you do is tie the strips around the strand wires in between each bulb.  We tied 3 strips in between each bulb to make the garland in these pictures.  We used all the new Tanyard Creek by Little Quilts fabrics for this strand.  This was such a fun and easy project to do and would make any mantle smile!  You can even make these as last minute holiday gifts for your friends or neighbors!

We also used scraps of ribbon, lace and ric-rac that we had in our stash pile; we thought it added a little something extra to the lights twinkling through.

Mary Ellen has a new helper at the store

Mary Ellen's grandson, Liam (age 7), was so excited he had a day off from 1st grade!  Mary Ellen's daughter, Laura, brought him to work with her today and the boss put him right to work!  Liam was busy preparing Circuit Rider Blocks of the Month. 

Liam worked very hard for about 15 minutes and then asked "Nana" if he could take a break and get a piece of chocolate!

Coming Soon.....

Blog Give Away + "Tanyard Creek" by Little Quilts = One Very Happy Blogger

Check back soon.... you never know when we may be having another giveaway!!!

NEW LITTLE QUILTS FABRIC JUST IN!!!

We are proud to present the newest fabric designed by Little Quilts ~ "Tanyard Creek"

Rich colors of green, bronze, red, blue and gold. Shirtings too! This is the first in a series of fabrics branded under the title of "Reflections of the South". (Great! That means there will be more.)


Tanyard Creek - designed to represent a deep southern tradition of connecting with the past remembrances of treasured historical events and family history.

Free quilt patterns available at Henry Glass Fabrics Wish there were kits? Guess what?! We have kits!

Hospitality ~ Pineapple applique wall hanging.

The pineapple is a symbol of hospitality and a warm welcome for visiting guests.

All fabrics, kits & bundles are available in the shop and on the website.

Tanyard Creek ~ a clever use of the stripe fabric in the sashing.

A Clever twist on The "Hospitality" Pattern

Look, the Pineapple is made out of wool and embellished with a feathered embroidery stitch. Then it is finished into a pillow with a flange. Cute!

New Fabric "Wiscasset" by Polly Minick & Laurie Simpson for Moda

These are classics.There are so many fabrics we had to split them into two megabundles A and B. $55.50 each.


If you look closely, you can see charm packs and jelly rolls too. We love this fabric and you will too.

Entire line is here! AND a four quilt trunk show.

Kits available while fabric lasts..for the Stars and Poppies Quilt. 52" X 60". $74.95, includes binding. Pattern sold separately.

A unique version of Les Fleurs du Jardin

A different version of  Les Fleurs du Jardin done by Judy Gray in her colors.
Wanda started teaching this year long class last month.  If you have experience in applique, you can still join.  They meet the 2nd Sunday of each month.  We'll help you pick your fabrics.  The pattern is available for $55.00 for you out of towners.

So Many Baskets... What's the Madder"

A story of a neat quilt. This quilt was started by Jenny Michael, a long arm quilter from California in 1997 for a P & B Madder Challenge using their fabrics. She got tired of making 4" baskets, so put the project away. She remembers commenting 4 more, 4 more, 4 more! She missed the deadline for the contest. She finished parts of the top. Jenny showed the blocks to her friend Robyn Thornton who loved it and asked to see it everytime they visited. Robyn wanted to "just take it home and enjoy it". The quilt top went back and for the between the two homes for 10 years. The final quilt had not been sewn yet. Two years ago Jenny gave Robyn the top and leftover fabrics for her birthday and said "Figure out the pattern and make your own!". Robyn was talking to another friend Cathy Skarshaug, and she thought Robyn would not be able to figure it out so they contacted another quilting friend and teacher Kathleen Crittenden. Robyn says Kathleen brought her 25 pages of instructions that looked like a doctoral dissertation. Jenny and Kathleen helped Robyn with the central feathered star. Roby contacted Mary Ellen at Little Quilts to help provide the perfect dark chocolate fabric to finish it. Robyn says the quilt is now 'back home with Jenny to stay'! It's grand how quilters stick together and support each other's projects. It's a beatiful top soon to be a beautiful quilt!

And the Winner is....................

Congratulations Meredith!  You have won the Bundle of Shirtings AND Autographed copy of "Little Memories."

Meredith's favorite fabric style to work with was anything Moda!  I'm not surprised that many of you commented that you loved to work with the Reproductions.  I know my mom loves those as well.  Little Quilts has a new line of fabric coming very soon called TANYARD CREEK.  You can view swatches at Henry Glass Fabrics. Scroll down to Littel Quilts and you'll see it.

Congratulations again to Meredith!  Happy Quilting everyone!

While the cat's away, the mice will play!

Hello bloggers!  It's Laura, Mary Ellen's daughter.  Mom left today for Quilt Market in Houston.  While she was gone, I decided to sneak up to the computer and post another Give Away!  Shhh, don't tell!  I bet she didn't think when she hired me that I'd be sneaking around giving things away while she was gone!  Shhhh, it'll be our little secret!

Since the Little Quilts Shirtings are so popular and versatile, I figured we'll give away another

BUNDLE OF 6 FAT QUARTERS & an

AUOGRAPHED COPY OF THE BOOK

"LITTLE MEMORIES" By Little Quilts

(Don't worry, if she catches me I'll just talk my way out of it like I did when I was a teenager!)

Here's your give away question:

What is your favorite style of fabric to work with?

Your name will be entered in the drawing when you post your answer.  Drawing ends Saturday, October 10th at 6pm.  I'll post the winner Saturday night.

Anonymous comments not eligible ~ International winners will pay shipping ~ One entry per blogger

Show & Tell from a Little Quilts Customer

Little Quilts gets visitors from all around!  Linda Brimigion, from Lakeland Florida, loves wool so she shared with us her wallhanging, "Bud Garden" from Primitive Gatherings; a great combination of wool and Jo Morton fabrics!  Linda works at Quilts on Plum Lane in Dade City, Florida and she made this sample.  Thanks so much to Linda for sharing this beautiful wallhanging!  Mary Ellen is off to Quilt Market so we're sure she'll order the pattern so we can all make our own "Bud Garden."

Linda also shared with us her sample from the book, "It's a Wrap" from Martingale.  A fun technique wrapping strips of fabric around clothesline rope.  She also embellished it with buttons. This is another great way to use your stash of leftover strips!

October Saturday Sampler Alternate Blocks

Alternate "Forest Path" blocks for October in

Asian, Feedsack, and Blue & Yellow

East Cobb Quilt Show

We must show a few highlights from this past September's East Cobb Quilt Show.  Here is an original design by Lynn Rinehart called "Multiply", that was inspired by a Koi pond at a Kauai, Hawaii, hotel.  Isn't it beautiful?  Lynn entered four quilts in the show this year.

Here is one of Sylvia Johnson's quilt, "Maddie's Quilt", made for her first grandchild, Madeleine Rose.  It is quilted by hand.  The four center blocks as you see are vintage embroidered blocks and are so perfect for a baby's first quilt:

This simply stunning miniature is only about 15" square, can you believe that?  It was made by Mary Kay Mouton and shows incredible paper piecing and quilting skills.  This won the First Place ribbon for the Miniature category:

And the winner is...............

Results of the Giveaway are in!

Sue Cahill has won the bundle of Little Quilts Shirtings. It was fun to hear from everyone and it appears that the LogCabin block got the most votes. The Nine Patch also did well and Sunbonnet Sue and the Ohio Star tied for 3rd!

Country Cabin Quilt

25 in x 25 in

My personal favorite is the Log Cabin as there are sooo many settings you can use and it's great for using up scraps from your stash. I like to cut 1 1/2" strips and 1 1/4" strips from fabric left on the cutting table and store each size in a cute basket. Then when I am looking for something to sew, I'll sew a few blocks with the 1 1/2" strips and a 3 1/2" center square, with 3 rounds around the center. This is my favorite size for throw or bed size quilts. I use the 1 1/4" size strips and 1 1/4" centers for table runners or table topper quilts like the one shown on the cover of Little Quilts All Through the House.

Check back soon... you never know when I'll wake up ready to give away more free stuff!

Happy Quilting,

Mary Ellen

We're in the mood to GIVEAWAY!

Mary Ellen woke up this morning and said, "Today is a GREAT day to give away some fabric!

"FRIDAY GIVE AWAY"

The lovely ladies at Little Quilts would like to know:

What is your favorite quilt block?

Each comment on this post will be entered to WIN a

BUNDLE OF 6 FAT QUARTERS

OF LITTLE QUILT SHIRTINGS!

Enter TODAY, Wednesday, September 30th

til NOON on Friday, October 2nd.

(Winner Selected At Random ~ One Entry Per Blog Reader ~ Anonymous Comments Not Eligible.

International Winner Will Pay Shipping)

Mary Ellen's Sponsor's Choice - East Cobb Show

Here is the Little Quilts Sponsor's Choice for the East Cobb Quilters' Guild Show, a hand-quilted, beautifully scrappy quilt made by Carol Matthews. The pattern is called Prairie Vine, from the Fall/Winter 2007 Quilt Sampler magazine.

Mary Ellen

Little Quilts' Vendor Booth at the East Cobb Quilt Guild Show

Little Quilts was delighted to be among the vendors at last week-end's East Cobb Quilters' Guild Show; Mary Ellen included the Simple Comforts trunk show, as you see below (click on photo to enlarge):

Scouts Fabric at Little Quilts

Just arrived…. the new Girl Scouts® fabric collection celebrates the spirit of the treasured organization with a mix of fun and colorful patterns. Designs include floral prints with inspirational phrases—like the Girl Scouts’ “Courage, Confidence, Character—and “green” expressions—like “Plant a Tree” and “Girl Scouts Think Green”—as well as smaller, coordinate prints of dots and swirls.The Boy Scout and Cub Scout fabrics are also here. Perfect for quilts and pillowcases.

Gorgeous Weeks Dye Works Wool in the Shop

There is a new item in the store: wool fat quarters from Weeks Dye Works ($15.95
each):

Show and Tell: Vintage Postcards on Fabric

Pat Deacon brought in this quilt made from postcard pictures already printed on fabric that she purchased at Yellowstone National Park. According to Pat, these are available for all the National Parks. Since Yellowstone Park is right next to Cody, Wyoming, she purchased the Buffalo Bill Cody fabric from us here at Little Quilts to make her borders. What a cute quilt and a great way to remember a memorable trip and a beautiful park:

Show and Tell: Union Square

Barbara Stevens made this wonderful quilt while on a quilting retreat with
friends. The pattern is an old favorite called "Union Square". She brought the
quilt in and found just the right fabric for the border. We love show and
tell from our customers so stop in any time with your projects.

September Alternate Blocks - Second Saturday Sampler

The Oriental, blue and white, feedsack, and the six inch version of the main colorway:

Clothesline Gallery Showing to Coincide with East Cobb Quilt Guild Show

Recently, The Repro Divas - a group at Little Quilts studying reproduction quilts - were issued a challenge by the ‘head’ repro diva Kathy Niemann to make a quilt using blocks she had purchased at a quilt show. The block, as shown here, is an Eight Pointed Star with a cheddar background: Gals in the group accepted the challenged and made the small quilts shown. Some took the blocks apart while others incorporated them as a block into a small quilt. There’s a daytime and an evening group and their quilts are shown here. We hope you’ll stop in the store and see them hanging on the clothes line.
The group has been so popular – we are starting an afternoon session – spaces still available!

Challenges done by the Morning Group:
and the Evening Group:

Les Fleurs du Jardin

This quilt was made by one of our customers, Carol York, from the pattern "Les Fleurs du Jardin" by Lisa Schiller. Carol stopped in the store for advice on the border. We have a year-long class using the Les Fleurs pattern starting in October. One session will be the second Thursday of the month, in the morning, and a second session will meet on the second Sunday of the month in the afternoon. The pattern is available so sign up now. This should help you to use your own spin to create this quilt.