RedWork Christmas Tree

My youngest daughter Renee and her husband Grant live with us. She is all about Christmas. It is her favorite holiday. Last year they lived in a one room apartment and Renee had just about every corner of the place decorated. By the middle of December she had Grant excited about it too.

When they moved in with us all of the decorations came too. We got all of the decorations out of the attic on Friday. The decorating started that day and we're still not quite done. The "main" tree will go up this weekend. I believe at last count we have 7 or 8 artificial trees in various sizes and shapes.

Since there's an extra tree, I decided to decorate it with some RedWork Ornaments that I made for the show in Phoenix earlier this month. I used the Santa RedWork Ornament Set and the ornaments from the Heartfelt Angel Stocking pattern. We had the same tree on display at the show. I liked it so much in our booth that I wanted to do the same thing at home. It is on the landing of our staircase.

I'm almost done with the Winter Partners Pillows. I just have to do the Running Stitch "quilting" and then stuff them. I'll post a picture of them when I'm done.

Happy Stitching and Quilting,
Carol

New Bolts of Fabric

It has been awhile since I have had a chance to go "bolt" shopping. While we were on the way to Puyallup, WA for the Northwest Quilt, Craft & Sewing Festival this weekend, we stopped at the EE Schenck warehouse. This was my first trip to that facility, and it definitely won't be my last. It is 80,000 square feet of fabric, notions, batting, books, and patterns. All I was interested in was fabric, and believe me that was overwhelming in itself. I'm glad that was all I had to worry about.

EE Schenck Warehouse in Portland, OR

I was looking for some fabric to finish up a couple models for our booth. I wanted some to have on hand to use in future samples and some just to sell as 1 yard cuts.

I knew I would have limited time, both because I needed to get to Puyallup and because Alan has a limited amount of patience for things like this. He doesn't get as excited being around all those gorgeous fabrics as the rest of us do. So I went online before we got there. Found the fabrics I was interested in  and made a list. Once I got there I found out that it doesn't really work that way. That just means they carry those fabrics. They might not be in stock. So my great plan went out the window. With rows and rows of fabric to now look at I was BRIEFLY overwhelmed. Then I took a couple deep breaths and started walking the aisles.

I found things that I knew were perfect right away. I grabbed those. Made notes of things that I thought would work. Things that I added to a "Wish List"for later. 

I also had to audition fabrics to finish up my Friendships Garden Quilt. Here are a couple pictures of that process. I think I finally got the winning combination but I was so busy writing down the SKUs and other information that I forgot to take a picture. 

Option 1

Option 2

I'm still thinking about it though. At first I thought the red was overpowering, now I'm not so sure. There is red in the blocks and it is just going to be in some of the cornerstones of the sashing. So maybe it isn't as out of place as I originally thought. What do you think? Leave me your suggestions in a comment.

I'll finalize the fabrics for Friendships Garden this weekend. Then I'll order them after Thanksgiving. I'll get to work on them right away so I can get the quilt finished during my break between Thanksgiving and the second week of January. Fortunately the blocks are all done. All I have to do is assemble the quilt top, quilt and bind it.

Here are the fabrics that I came away with yesterday.

I'll cut some of these up tonight and they will be for sale in the booth tomorrow. I'll put them on the website after the show.

Happy Quilting,

Carol