Hope your July 4th was wonderful and full of fun! The weather didn’t exactly co-operate, but that’s to be expected in Indiana. It’s a nice break from all the heat though.

As always, there’s lots of new “stuff” going on at the Nook. In our newsletter, you’ll notice that on August 11th, we have listed a mystery purse workshop. Well….. it’s a mystery no longer! Diana made this really cute and really easy tote from a free pattern downloaded from the internet. It would be a great beginner’s purse class and an ” it’s too hot to think about doing anything hard” class for more experienced sewers.

Diana has been really busy and also has made these Halloween placemats from yet another free pattern that we will be glad to share with you. In fact, we’ve even cut kits to make this really quick. Of course, other prints than Halloween could be used and I’m sure Diana will come up with more ideas to use this pattern! To round the corners she used the new ruler/template from creative grid which makes this soooooo easy. Think Christmas all you little elves. A set of these wouldn’t take long and would make great gifts.

In our ongoing quest to find ways to make quilting easier, we have discovered a tool called the Batting Buddy. Without going into a lengthy description of how it all works, I will tell you that you will be able to quilt blocks as you go and there will be no, I repeat, no hand sewing to join the completed blocks together. We also have several patterns that use this technique and they are really neat. Linda Jones has jumped on this technique and has made a beautiful quilt using the new MODA fabric line from Kansas Troubles Quilters called Kansas Winter. This will be a class in the fall and I know you’ll all enjoy it. Just think, when you’re done piecing, you’ll also be done quilting and the binding will already be ready to sew down! Too cool!

　The Stars Over Indiana Shop Hop begins on the 10th of July and runs through the 18th. Shop Hops are a great excuse to take a road trip and see what’s going on in other shops. Always a source of inspiration for me. If you haven’t seen our shop quilt, stop in and take a look. I think its really beautiful. We also have other projects made from the shop hop fabrics to give you some more ideas. The fabric they chose this year is so cottage-y ( that may be a word) and fresh-looking that its been fun to work with.

New Christmas models are coming in all the time and of UPS delivers almost every day. By the way, we have a very nice UPS man and we have him trained to identify fabric boxes. He always tells us as he comes in the door whether we’re going be happy with him. Wonder if that theory could work on our husbands???? “HI, honey I’m home and I brought you something that will make you happy because I could”—-oh well, we can dream!

Until next week,

Mary

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 5th, 2009 at 1:55 pm