Making progress......

We are getting ready for Spring at the store.  I let Nancy loose on the windows this week and she decided that the Roosters have been sitting around the store idle for far to long.  She has put them to work - and the theme of our window this Spring is "Spring Cleaning"!

They are ironing (pressing) with Best Pressed!  A fabulous relatively "new" product from Eleanor Burns which takes the place of starch and our resident appliquer, Nancy, says it works great for prepping applique.  Good to know.

They are sweeping, doing windows and hanging out the wash!  ....and I imagine going through their fabric stashes to see what they can make into great Stashbuster quilts......there are new fabrics on their way yet again which I'm sure will enhance everyones' stashes or just compliment works in progress!

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned the rolls of fabrics we got from Westminster - well Libby bought one and she made a fabulous quilt - the picture does not do it justice - using the pattern Stars & Strips by Terry Atkinson - an old favourite!  You really have to come in and admire this quilt -

I let Nancy and Kathy loose in the store and the next thing I knew they were making up some fabulous Quilt Kits.  What actually happened was, I found all these great containers in the back while "Spring cleaning" and told them to use them - Look what they came up with -

Yellow Brick Road Kits!

...and this great pattern from a store in Pennsylvania - Elnora Kits - I almost took one home to do - they picked some gorgeous fabric combos!

Yesterday was the Saturday meeting of Healing Heroes and wait until you see what these ladies have been up to........Healing Heroes has now hooked up with Quilts of Valour and the quilts completed up until now will be going to the Armed Services to be given out to our men and women who have been wounded serving our country.

Take a look at some of these beautiful quilts!

These women are amazing and these are quilts donated by guilds and individuals made for Healing Heroes and dropped off at the store.

Now that I've lost yet another hour in my life - (we set the clocks forward) it was quite the struggle to get my act together this morning!  As it is I am a night owl so staying up until 2:00 A.M. quilting suddenly became 3:00 A.M. and I'm not getting that hour back any time soon.......

Barb (a fellow night owl) manned the store today while I taught a class so she got to see this quilt first hand, brought in by a "newbie" quilter Jennifer!  Sorry I missed the actual quilt - I would have loved to have seen it.....

And Debra stopped by to get some Soft Fuse for a block exchange she's doing which sounds awesome (check out Debra's blog on the side of our page - Patchwork Sanity).  The girls are using Soft Fuse in my class today to do their applique.  Nancy swears by it and I won't use anything else now that I found it for any thing requiring fusing........

However I digress, the reason I am telling you that Debra stopped by is because she shared a quilt with us - a KING SIZE awesome, unbelievalby awesome star quilt - I couldn't fit the whole quilt into the picture but it is absolutely stunning!

Today was the first class of our NEW Block of the Month - Sweet Tea (the quilt I have been working on the past few weeks).  I have the center of the quilt put together and now have to add the borders of which one is pieced teacups!  They look like alot of fun to do but we shall see.......

Here's the first block!

....and this one is my favourite block!  I love the 3-dimensional tea bag!

So as you can see - progress has been made!  After I do a little book work in the office I am going home to fondle my Farmer's Wife - taking the night off from Sweet Tea and the Mystery Quilt I am working on for the end of April.  Not sure if I'll do any stitching but my plan is to fondle fabric at least......

Happy Quilting!

Jo-Ann