Super Exciting News!

OK, let's get this out of the way first.  If you live in Deary, this might not be "Super Exciting News."  I realize that, and I do regret that this might be sad for some of you.  Truth be told, I'm a little sad about it myself, because I really like being in the old Deary Church, and I have family in Deary that I won't see nearly as often.

Ok, so maybe there are some people that won't be so sad.  Being the Crazy For Quilting resident handy-man isn't my dad's favorite job, even if he is super fantastic at it! I suppose he might be getting ready to throw a little party of his own...

Even so, I am really excited about the fact that I will have so much more time and opportunity to improve the store!  What am I talking about?

WE ARE MOVING!

Yep, the quilt shop is moving into my home town, Potlatch, ID.  I grew up here, and I live here (again), and I can't wait to be so close to home!  Not to mention that the new location holds many opportunities for Fantastic Quilting Fun, which I just might make my new tag line!  Plus, Kylee, my Crazy Quilter in Training, loves to help at the store and is excited that she will be able to spend time there during the week.  All around, it promises to be a great change for us all!

I'll be spending a lot of September moving and organizing.  Be sure to keep track of our moving progress by checking our store website, signing up for email news, and "liking" us on FaceBook! All of these can be done from our homepage

Now, back to packing for the St. Maries Quilt Show!

Let the Spooky Sewing Begin!

The rest of the fabrics for the Sew Spooky quilt arrived this week. Hooray! I was one of the lucky ones to get my fabric order in early, and now I can ship these awesome quilt kits right away.  This might be my favorite block of the month so far, but my birthday is in October, I love Fall colors, and one night of trick-or-treating sooooo beats weeks of Christmas shopping and stress, so I'm kind of partial to Halloween.  I'll be sewing up my sample this month, if you want to join me, order a kit before they're all gone!

Crazy 8 Shop Hop 2012

The Crazy 8 Shop Hop is fast approaching. As usual, I am nowhere near ready! But do I let that stop me from adding to instead of subtracting from my to-do list?

Of course not! Instead, I picked up paint today after work. (My non-quilting, daytime, unfortunately necessary to pay my bills, work.)

"Paint? For what?" you ask.

 For the quilt shop, of course!

I am giving the store's front porch a much-needed make-over before the Shop Hop. This means, sometime in the next 2.5 weeks, I have work to do!

But wait.....I already had work to do.....

Oh well, what's new, anyways?

I will post before and after pics when the painting party is over!

Want to learn more about the Shop Hop, like dates and times? Check out the store's Calendar Page and look at the first weekend in August for printable fliers and info.

Hope to see you there!

Newest Shop Sample-Vinyl Bags

It's been forever since I wrote on here regularly. Life gets in the way sometimes, and combined with my laptop's complete melt-down, blogging got put on the back-burner. Now that my laptop is working (if you don't count the keyboard's habit of adding random u's and six's to everything), it's time I get back to sharing my quilting with you all! Tonight, after a fun BBQ at the quilt shop, I decided to finish up my first set of this great new Atkinson pattern, Briget's Bagettes.

The pattern uses super easy zipper techniques to combine 2 fat quarters and some clear vinyl into 3 great organizing bags. Here is my first set.

My second set, which I was also able to cut from the same fabrics with just a few pieces needing to be pieced together from scraps, will be the opposite. The yellow will be where the purple is, the purple where the yellow is. These bags will be featured as part of a class at the store this Fall. Be sure to check the Shop Calendar for up to date classes and events!

I made 4 dozen cookies Tuesday night.....

it's Thursday, and I ate the last one for breakfast this morning. No kidding.

No, I didn't eat all 48 of them by myself. I had a little help, times four.

So tonight I decided to make more. Because they were really good. And I don't make really good cookies very often.

It's not for lack of trying. It's just that Grandma Judy gave the baking skills to all her other grand kids. Me, I got nothing but eating skills. Lots and lots of eating skills.......and this Kitchen Aid mixer.

This is the Kitchen Aid mixer Grandma used through my childhood. I'm pretty sure that it was her guilt over my lack of baking skills, and her fear of my children growing up never seeing me make a homemade cookie, that persuaded my grandma to give me her mixer a few years ago. It still purrs like a kitten, so there was no reason for Grandma to part with it. Maybe it was just her desire for a shiny new one and my obvious need for any baking help I could find. Whatever it was, I ended up with this beauty.
Sure it's dented and dinged, but it made a lot of mean cheese balls in it's time, so it's earned the right to be a little worse for wear. Now, the mixer makes it's home in a lonely corner of my pantry cabinet, only seeing the light about once or twice a year when I have delusions of knowing how to bake.
Like this week, when a craving for homemade chocolate chip cookies began to plague me, and Luke was nowhere around to make them. Seems he thinks that moving out gave him the right to not make me cookies anymore. The nerve......Now I have to resort to torturing my hand-me-down mixer.
However, thanks to a recipe from my

"Favorite Recipes From Quilter's" cookbook, my cookies turned out great. I should have know when the first ingredient was shortening! A staple in Grandma's cooking, of course my mixer was going to love it! So did my family, apparently, as evidenced by my very empty cookie jar. Who can blame them? It's not very often my baking results in something so....edible.
So now, my cookie dough is chilling in the fridge. Isn't it pretty?

By the time Charlie gets home from work, the house will smell like delicious oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and Grandma's mixer will have one more success under it's belt bowl.
Now, I'm off to finish cutting pieces for my next quilt while I wait to taste test my cookies.

Have you heard about my crazy new pricing?

Have you heard about the new pricing at Crazy for Quilting? To make things simpler, and more affordable, and just more fun, all fabrics in the shop are now either $7.99 or $9.99 per yard! That's right, even the brand new stuff, and this isn't just for a sale, it's for all the time!

Regular cotton fabrics, 44-45" wide: $7.99/yd
Batiks and Flanels: $9.99/yd

The new website reflects the new pricing as well. Now you cannot afford not to shop with us, and why would you want to miss the great selection and friendly service anyways?

What's New, Besides the Website

Finally! It looks like my new website will be up by the end of this week. That means I'll be spending my Sunday at the computer, madly uploading every last item I can squeeze into the product list. Some of them are brand new to the store, so I thought I'd share a few previews here.

First, the new quilt from Moda's Birchwood Lodge fabric line. This quilt goes together quickly, since the entire center is preprinted! Kits are available in the store, and will be online as well.

How about these great Fall prints? I love Halloween decorating, at least as much as Christmas decorating. Of course, my birthday is the day before Halloween, so that might have something to do with it. This fabric line, Haunted Hallow II, from Red Rooster, is just the right mix of Fall, Halloween, and rustic style that I love. It has a great panel, and once the website is online and running smooth I might find some time to play with it and make something fantastic!

Last for today, the Twister tools and book. This is a new technique I have yet to try, but I keep hearing great things about. I have a fat quarter collection from the 1990's that I have never broke into, from a fabric line I've long since forgotten the name of. Maybe I'll have to test out the Twister on it....