What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

 Tomorrow, Tuesday April 23, 2024, is National Picnic Day!

To celebrate myself and six other shop owner friends have decided to do an online Facebook Live Shop Hop. The way this will work is that each of us will go live on our respective Facebook pages one at a time, starting at 11 am MDT. Each of us will entertain you for about an hour and then send you over to the next shop. The schedule is as follows:

 I finally have the pattern finished for the shop sample using the new Wild North fabric collection we received recently. I'm calling it Wild North Zoom Meeting. If you've ever attended a Zoom meeting in gallery view then you get it. I was picturing all these animals in their nests and dens on their laptops chatting with each other.

 While the shop sample is not new, the kits for it are new.

The quilt measures 55" by 55" which is a good lap/wheelchair quilt, large baby quilt, or wall hanging size. The piecing is fairly simple, appropriate for an advanced beginner. The colored fabrics are from a charm pack. You cut the charm squares in half and use a folded corner technique to make four point units required for each block. There is a little sashing in the blocks then the blocks are just sewn together. A small outer border is added from the background fabric so that ...

 Nancy has her version of our Wild Stallions kit completely finished! We have two more kits left and not enough of the fabrics to make up more kits. We do still have some of the fabrics on the bolt and have a few more of the panels left in stock.

Note that Nancy opted to get extra fabric and the border print (which we are sold out of) to make a larger version of our kit. If you want to make a larger version like Nancy I suggest you substitute the all-over horse print for the border print. It's ...

  We have a winner of the 2024 March Meowness Contest. Fabric S Cat in the Box Cats & Boxes is the winner!

The backing fabric is also cat fabric. You can see that back and read about the quilt by clicking ...

  Time for Round Five in my March Meowness Contest!

Today we are starting with the 2 cat fabrics that survived round four. You need to vote for your favorite 1. The winner will be announced on Monday, March 25, 2024. Every time you vote you get your name in the drawing to win a fat quarter bundle of cat fabrics.

  Time for Round Four in my March Meowness Contest!

Today we are starting with the 4 cat fabrics that survived round three. You need to vote for your favorite 2. On Friday March 22, 2024 I will post the most popular 2 cat fabrics and you'll need to vote for your favorite 1. We'll keep whittling down the field until we have winner. The winner will be announced on Monday, March 25, 2024. Every time you vote you get your name in the drawing to win a fat quarter bundle of cat fabrics.

  Time for Round Three in my March Meowness Contest!

Today we are starting with the 8 cat fabrics that survived round two. You need to vote for your favorite 4. On Wednesday March 20, 2024 I will post the most popular 4 cat fabrics and you'll need to vote for your favorite 2. We'll keep whittling down the field until we have winner. The winner will be announced on Monday, March 25, 2024. Every time you vote you get your name in the drawing to win a fat quarter bundle of cat fabrics.

 Time for Round Two in my March Meowness Contest!

Today we are starting with the 16 cat fabrics that survived round one. You need to vote for your favorite 8. On Monday March 18, 2024 I will post the most popular 8 cat fabrics and you'll need to vote for your favorite 4. We'll keep whittling down the field until we have winner. The winner will be announced on Monday, March 25, 2024. Every time you vote you get your name in the drawing to win a fat quarter bundle of cat fabrics.

 I am declaring March 14 - 25, 2024 as "March Meowness." It's time to put on your thinking cat (if you have one) and vote for your favorite cat fabrics we have in stock in the shop.

Today we are starting with the 24 cat fabrics we have in stock. You need to vote for your favorite 16. On Saturday March 16, 2024 I will post the most popular 16 cat fabrics and you'll need to vote for your favorite 8. We'll keep whittling down the field until we have winner. The winner will be announced on Monday ...

 I received a new shipment of border prints in my shop recently so it was time to make some new shop samples with them. These Easy Striped Table Runners are so much fun to make!

Shown are our two favorite layouts, but the pattern includes instructions for four different layouts as well as some smaller candle mats that you can make with the leftovers.

The pattern is called Easy Striped Table Runner. You can see all the border prints I have by clicking the following link: Border Prints. The two we used for our samples are: Groovy Garden Border Print ...

 Well, we have several other patterns that also require 5 half yard cuts of fabrics. The pattern used here is called Baby Links and I used the Maple Woods Half Pack Kit for the sample, but ANY Half Pack Kit would make this quilt.

 My shop is participating again in the FabShop Online BlowOut event. The sale lasts all week long.

The clearance section has lots of great batiks, some Christmas fabrics, some Autumn fabrics, some great basics and blenders, and a few novelty ...

 Scrap Tape is a non-woven wash away interfacing. Have you ever heard of sewing to receipt tape or phone book pages as a foundation for sewing with scraps? Well, Scrap Tape does the same thing BUT, you don't have to take it off before using your scrap piece in your project. This is the part that really appeals to me! I hate ripping paper off the back of pieced fabric units/blocks! It's so time-consuming and messy!

Scrap Tape is currently available in three sizes:

5" by 25 yards Scrap Tape

2.5" by 25 yards Scrap Tape ...

  Alamosa Quilt Company has participated in the monthly online FabShop Hop for over a year now. There are always great prizes each month but this month the grand prize is an embroidery machine with a retail value of over $2200! You got to be in to win it though! All the details are lower down in this post so keep scrolling and get ready to starting hopping.

 These Needle Grip-Its are fabulous for hand sewing!

You put one on your thumb and one on your forefinger, right where you pinch them together to pull the needle through. They help reduce hand fatigue by gripping the needle to help you pull it through your project so you don't have to pull as hard. They stick very well and can be used several times before they stop sticking. I'm not sure how long that is because I'm still using the first two!

For proper placement, pinch your thumb and forefinger together pretty hard like you are ...

 I just finished a new shop sample last week. The quilt has been sent off to be long arm quilted so it isn't currently hanging in the shop yet.

The pattern I used is called Diva 5. It's a great pattern for a panel and includes instructions for the three current most popular panel widths of 24", 30" and 36". I had to adjust the pattern just a tad because this panel has a printed border around the outside that I wanted to cut off, but it's very easy to adjust. All I needed to do was ...

 Alamosa Quilt Company has participated in the monthly online FabShop Hop for over a year now. There are always great prizes each month but this month the grand prize is a serger with a retail value of over $1700! You got to be in to win it though! All the details are lower down in this post so keep scrolling and get ready to starting hopping.

 I have a new fabric collection which means a new shop sample. The fabric collection is called Whimsy. It's a really nice "basics" collection. A basics collection is a collection of fabrics that are designed to be blenders or "go with" fabrics for the trendy, designer prints. These are the fabrics everyone needs to have in their stash to compliment the designer prints and allow them to shine, the supporting actors so to speak.

But just because these fabrics are basics doesn't mean they don't look fabulous on their own in a project! Most of the prints ...