Grieving With Gratitude

This is the end of the road for the "TEXT IT!" blog hop.

Sherri Noel has included such fun projects. The other bloggers made such  wonderful interpretations.  I chose to make the sewing machine pad. Below is the photo from the book.

It was perfect for this adorable new fabric that I had just bought at Stitch Central..

I had to widen the sewing pad a little to fit the panel, but it came out so cute.  

It's the most adorable fabric.   It's also available with cats. I just love the flower bouquets in their hair.

Do you want some of this fabric and live too far away from Stitch Central in PA, you can call them or  here's the selvage if you want to search on line.

So what would a blog hop be without a giveaway? Leave a comment sharing whether you prefer adding words to your quilts using applique or piecing it?  If you haven't done it yet, this book will be a real inspiration for you, so tell me which one you'll use first.  The winner will receive the book, TEXT IT! from Martingale and 2 spools of thread from Aurifil.  The final day to enter is Sunday 3/17.  I'll pick a winner at midnight.

For the wrap up of the hop, head to Sherri Noel's blog tomorrow for the final giveaway.

I'll spare you from talking about my grief journey in this post.  Let's just work on winning this giveaway!

We Have A Winner and My Key West Home

I have received many inquiries about our home in Key West and I appreciate every body's concern. There have been bits of news coming out of the island, but there is no cell service  (nor water or power) and information is scarce.  It appears that Key West did not suffer the devastation that some of the other keys experienced.

From NOAA  we have been able to see satellite imagery of our courtyard.  It looks like the roofs are in tact.  That's good news.  Now we are anxious to hear if there has been any water damage.  I imagine it will be several more days or maybe a week, before someone actually checks our place.  

Key West has been the inspiration for much of my fiber art.

I am trying to keep myself busy while waiting for news.

On to happier news.  The giveaway for my Island Batik blog hop is over.  

And the winner is:

Sylvia Jackson

Congrats Sylvia.  The stack of batiks will be on the way to your fabric stash as soon as I get your address.  Many people commented and it was so fun to hear your back to school excitement.  By far, most of us looked forward to new clothes and that beautiful, big box of crayons!  

Thanks to all those that entered,   

Back To School Blog Hop & A Giveaway

The summer seems to get shorter and shorter the older I get.  School has started for almost everyone already.  Since I no longer have children in school, it is not as stressful/joyful for me as it used to be. "Back in the day" I used to look forward to family dinners when school started, since during the summer we hardly ate dinner together with every one's active schedule.  It was great to hear what transpired during every one's day. Do you have a favorite Back To School Memory?

As an Island Batik Ambassador, I'm participating in a blog tour to celebrate Back to School and to showcase their new lines of fabric that will be arriving in the local quilt shops any day.  I was given "Country Dozen".  As soon as I opened my box filled with these wonderful batik fabrics, I thought of my DIL. She has a bunch of chickens and loves to cook their eggs.

The Country Dozen fabric comes in several colorways and the prints feature roosters, eggs, chicken wire, lemons and kitchen utensils.  Perfect for my DIL who also loves to be in the kitchen.Ask for it at your LQS.

 With that in mind, I thought I would get a jump on the holiday season and make a gift for my DIL. Shhhh - don't tell.  What would she get a lots of use from? Something for entertaining!  I created a tabletopper and a bunch of napkins for entertaining.

 The napkins were like potato  chips, I couldn't stop at just one.  They were so much fun to make.

I dug deep into my old blog posts for a technique that I used a while ago.  It was perfect for this. Click HERE for details to make the self-binding napkins.  I love how the miters come out in the corners:

I also enjoy napkin folding, so I've played with these:

Or just a plain fold

If you want to impress your guests with some fancy napkin folding, head to YouTube.

As part of this blog tour, I am having a giveaway of lots of the Country Road batiks. Island Batik has been so generous and I'd like to share that generosity.  Here's the stack:

It's a bunch of very generous fat quarters and assorted pieces of the Country Dozen fabric line.  The giveaway is open to anyone in the Continental US.  To enter the giveaway, leave a comment here about your favorite Back To School memory and for more chances head over and follow me on IG @CherylLynchQuilts and for even another chance, like my FB page @CherylLynchFiberArts. The winner will be chosen next Tuesday, Sept 12.
MY GIVEAWAY IS OVER

The blog tour has just begun.  There are lots of other blogs, fabric lines and GIVEAWAYS!!!    Here are the dates and links:

WEEK 1

Monday, September 4 – Beaujolais
Quilting Affection Designs • FunThreads Designs

Tuesday, September 5 – Country Dozen
Cheryl Lynch Quilts • Inspired Layers

Wednesday, September 6 – Bonsai
Little Bunny Quilts

Thursday, September 7 – Sakura
Masterpiece Quilting

Friday, September 8 – Empress Garden
Dessert Bloom Quilting • Slice of Pi Quilts

WEEK 2

Monday, September 11 – Fresh Pick’ins
KISSed Quilts

Tuesday, September 12 – Lotus Blooms
Kathys Kwilts and More

Wednesday, September 13 – Olivera
Joan Kawano • Vicki’s Crafts and Quilting

Thursday, September 14 – Rise & Shine
Den Syende Himmel • Sally’s Quilting Corner

Friday, September 15 – Diner Days
Ark Angel Creations • Karen Overton

WEEK 3

Monday, September 18 – Seas the Day
KISSed Quilts • Whispers of Yore

Tuesday, September 19 – Vineyard
The Inquiring Quilter • Inchworm Fabrics

Wednesday, September 20 – Abalone
PamelaQuilts • Yellow Cat Quilts

Thursday, September 21 – Batiks Go Retro
Adventures in Applique and Quilting

Friday, September 22 – Captain’s Anchor
Purrfect Spots Designs • Beaquilter

WEEK 4

Monday, September 25 – Cherry Berry
Freemotion by the River • Mary Mack Made Mine

Tuesday, September 26 – Lobster Bake
Seams to be Sew

Wednesday, September 27 – Solstice
Bejeweled Quilts • heARTs Creations

Thursday, September 28 – Sour Apple
Seams Like a Dream • Kauffman Designs

Friday, September 29 – Zen
Lizard Creek Quilting • Quilt’n Party

The Results

So many of you have been following my blog or FB posts as I experienced Quilt Market. I've hear that you enjoyed the behind the scenes tour and many of you have cheered me on. I appreciate all of the support. It really means so much to me.

First I want to share 3 quilts that were on exhibit that made me think of Curvalicious. One is old:

One was from Japan

And one was contemporary

Now about Market:

Friday was Schoolhouse and Sample Spree. Market officially started on Saturday and ran through Monday. There were lots of fabric company booths, pattern companies, sewing machine companies, notion companies, distributors, jewelry and clothing booths and die cut companies. I know I'm missing some. Pins and candy were abundant. It was easy to walk down an aisle and snag one or the other. Lots of attendees wore the collected pins on their lanyards.

It was such a happy feeling walking the floor, as they say. Seeing all the new fabric and quilting supplies and feeling the excitement and energy was wonderful. The biggest trend that I noticed was the amount of young women, both vending as designers and shopping. They are our future and it's great to see that quilting will not only survive, but it will thrive.

Lots of quilting celebrities were there too. Some of them I have met before, but I was star struck. I chatted with Pat Sloan who had visited our guild in July. I'll be on her radio show on Monday. It was booked a while ago. It airs live at 4:00 EST. Here's the LINK. Also Victoria Findley Wolfe, who will be visiting my guild on Wednesday, stopped at my booth to watch a demo!

So how did I do? Market exceeded even my wildest dreams. Curvalicious and patterns are on their way to Austria, shops in France and lots more shops in the States, even Hawaii. My quilts will be heading to Louisiana, Florida and California at the beginning of 2017.

I learned about distributors. They are companies that sell quilting supplies to shops. They have a huge variety of items and it's one stop shopping for shops, instead of having to contact many individual companies. 95% of the shops that stopped by my booth, asked if I sold through a distributor. The issue with being represented by a distributor is that they take a cut out of my pocket. I have come to learn that many designers/manufacturers price their items to take into account this deduction! Who knew?

It became evident to me that I needed to consider this option. The good news is that I was approached by a whole bunch of distributors, both stateside, Canada, England, Australia and South Africa. How cool is that? It's expensive to ship a single Curvalicious to a customer outside of the US, so a foreign distributor would be a good thing. I'm still considering my options. There are lots of "pros" and that one major "con".

There were offers of video/reviews/ interviews about Curvalicious, both here and abroad.

And finally, merchandise! Several fabric companies offered me fabric! All I have to do is send an email with which fabric I want and how much. The fabric at the show is not yet available in the shops. Most of it will arrive in a few months. There is a limited amount available to make samples. Since I'll be doing retail quilt shows, if they have enough, it's mine. The same with thread and I was handed a roll of the newest paper backed fusible web to try.

To celebrate my awesome fortune, I'm doing a giveaway, open to everyone. It's some of my goodies and I want to share. There's a foldaway tote bag, lots of pins magnets, Tula Pink hexagons, Grunge squares, Crimson Tate sticker and a few other things. Leave a comment either on my blog or like my Facebook page AND sign up for my monthly newsletter HERE. The more you do, the more entries you'll have. If you share my FB post, I'll give you another chance. That would be 3 all together. I'll choose the winner on Wednesday, after VFW's lecture at my guild. (www.CalicoCutters.com)

There is another giveaway on Instagram. To participate, visit: @oyveyquilts

And there is yet another exciting quilty bit of news that was publicized at the show. IQA is doing a fundraising cruise after Quilt Festival in 2017. I am one if the teachers! Click on this link for more info. This would be a perfect excuse to go to Festival and then come cruise and quilt with me!

 

Posted with Blogsy

UPDATE!!!! 2 Giveaways From 2 Friends

Make that 3 giveaways!  I have an update to my giveaway.  

Hawthorne Threads has joined the giveaway.  Read on.

I met Janellea at a quilting presenters networking event. She is of the younger generation (haha) and approaches the quilting world in a non- traditional way, although you would say her quilts are traditional. You can see from the cover of her book that she creates scrap quilts from a stash. Most times her stash is an inheritance of sorts. When quilters die, they leave behind a huge collection of fabrics, threads, books and other crap, er supplies. Who wants all their stuff? Most times, it is not their kids. Janellea is often the recipient of this stash and puts it to good use.
So how is she non-traditional? You won't be able to find her book on the bookshelf in a store. It's something called "print on demand". You head to www.CreateSpace.com" and order her book. They print a copy and send it to you. This results in no excess inventory and conserves the authors budget!

Janellea was generous and gave me a couple of copies. I thought I would share one as a giveaway. To qualify to win a copy, you must have a US mailing address and leave a comment here about what is the predominant color of your scraps. If you don't have any scraps (Wow!), fess up. When you head to her Website and click on Giveaway, you'll see that she is offering a giveaway of Curvalicious and 2 patterns! Isn't friendship grand?

On another digital topic:

I was so surprised this week when I opened a package that I ordered from Hawthorne Threads. They sell fabric on line and recently have started designing their own. I fell in love with this zebra print.
I ordered 1 yard of it plus 1 yard of two other fabrics to make a Curvalicious quilt. I opened the package and this is what was in it.

It was one long piece. Hmmmmm. I scratched my head. I didn't order a kit. I measured the sections and each of them was equivalent to 1 yard of fabric. How would they know that I picked those 3 fabrics? Then it dawned on me. They are also printing on demand. How clever and modern is that? What a great way to control inventory.

 You can check out Hawthorne Threads at www.hawthornethreads.com. They have very current fabrics, both theirs and other manufacturers.

And don't forget to enter both  all the giveaways.
The UPDATE is that Hawthorne Threads has joined the giveaway.  Here's the deal.  Head to their site, check out theirfabric line, Zebra Hills, and in your comment below, include your favorite color of the zebra fabric.  The winner will not only win the book, they will also win a yard of the color that they have chosen!

So to win both the Scraptashtic book and one yard of Zebra Hills fabric:

1.  Leave a comment here about the predominant color in your scrap stash

2.  Visit the Hawthorne Threads website and in your comment here, let me know which is your favorite color of their adorable zebra fabric

AND

If you want to win a Cuvalicious giveaway, head to Janellea's website and sign up for her newsletter

Since the giveaway has been augmented, I'll choose a winner on the 4 th   6th of July.

Posted with Blogsy

Good Bye Gray Weather Giveaway

Saturday was a beautiful day to go traipsing around Lancaster Country.  The brown fields are starting to turn green.  It was a great day to see the Amish out and about.  There were little boys with their fishing poles on the banks of the streams and horses pulling plows through the fields.

My friend Terry (TerryKramzar.com) and I went to a presentation by the fabric company, Northcott, put on by Burkholders Fabrics.  It was a sold out crowd as we got a sneak peek at fabric that won't be in the stores until this summer.  We also learned a lot about fabric manufacturing.  I was surprised to find out that 95% of our quilting cotton is made in South Korea. 

I met a student of mine at the presentation who brought us over to one of Burkholder's retreat centers, called the Cocalico Quilter's Inn. 

Vicki gave us a grand tour of the sewing room, kitchen, bedrooms and the outdoor living space.

It looks like an awesome place for a retreat for 14-20 people at an extremely reasonable price. The big bonus is you can go shopping at Burkholders starting at 8:00 AM, for forgotten items or that piece of fabric that you need to finish your project.

Of course we had to do a little bit of fabric shopping afterwards.  I bought some Mickey fabric for Henry and some of Northcott's Shimmer to go with this dragonfly fabric.  I love a touch of metallic!

When I got home there was a package I ordered from Massdrop.  I have ordered from them before.  They offer quilting items at reduced prices if enough people order.  They have a variety of items.  This time I ordered these Clover clips.  They are like little clothes pins and are great for bindings and putting in zippers - anywhere pins can get in the way.

To celebrate the end of those gray days and the arrival of Spring, I'm sharing some of the swag from the Northcott presentation  and a few Clover clips for you to try. Sign up to follow me on Bloglovin' (see the sidebar) and leave your email address with your comment.  

Come back on Friday to see if you are the winner.