I believe that the first quilt shop I ever shopped at was called Stitches n Stuffing in Naperville, Illinois. I remember going there on occasion in high school and college. I remember that they had a ton of patterns (which is what drew my Mom in) and a huge classroom, and a very large shop. I remember that they had pre-pleated smocked bishop dresses and bubbles so you could just smock and finish them. On several of my trips home over the last year, I'd meant to get there, but never did.

A few weeks ago, I got an email from a shop I discovered this summer--quiltfabric.com. They were having a great sale--quilt fabric for $6/yard. Of course, I couldn't make it to the sale because it was one of my weekends in Milwaukee and those are precious to me. But they continued the sale the next weekend--a weekend I would be back down in Chicagoland. Of course I went. Of course I found some fabric that I wanted to bring home with me. But the strange part was that I notice some labels on the fat quarters marked "Stitches n Stuffing".

Turns out, Stitches n Stuffing closed over the winter. One of my Mom's friends had gotten an email about it. Finally, the tags and the great deals on the fabric made sense. And though I love my finds, I feel sad that the shop closed. But I'm grateful for the shop that first introduced me to quilting.

So as I mentioned in my previous post, the quilt shop I managed in Florida had a Christmas in July 12 days of Christmas kit sale. Here are a few more of the projects we kitted.

This was a very easy project--a wine bottle bag. Simply sew a rectangle in place, box the bottom by folding in the corners, and voila. Made up in a fine Hoffman fabric, it was great.












The tree skirt was made up with another Hoffman fabric. Again, easy-peasy. We folded it into eighths, cut straight across to form the octogon, slit the back, cut the hole in the center and there it is!
A folded star ornament was two sided and made in a beautiful print (might it have been another Hoffman?). I really don't remember how it was made, but I remember being intrigued by it. I must have those instructions somewhere....


This snowman (the only one to be seen in Florida THAT year) was made of batting, sticks, knit fabric, and scraps. The pattern is obviously from The Quilted Rabbit (I can read that!) and it was quick and easy to make.




Another wall quilt from a pattern pack. Fused applique as before, whimsical, and again, quick and easy. I love the way the shapes have almost a cookie-cutter line to them--nothing too complicated.





And finally, a Christmas stocking. Shadow applique was used for the cuff--basically, you choose bright colors of fabric, fuse them to the undersurface, overlay it with a sheer fabric, put batting behind it for tuft, hand-quilt through the layers to outline around the appliques and add definition and detail, and then turn it into a cuff. I love the look of shadow applique--I really do want to explore it further, but I feel it's more appropriately used in small ways, like this stocking cuff instead of large ways, like as a block in a quilt. But that's my personal opinion.

So there it is, the 12 (okay, 11) days of Christmas sale from times gone by. Finding and scanning these photos has been fun for me--getting reinspired by ideas that were rolling around in my head back then.

Back in 1998, when I lived in Florida, I managed a quilt shop. In July, we ran a 12 days of Christmas in July promotion where we kitted and sold different projects each day. Once again, I ran across photos while organizing. I'm going to share some in this post and in a post in the next few days. I really loved creating these projects--some were purchased patterns that we bundled with fabric selections and others were a bit more random. So without further ado:

This one was hand-quilted using pearl cotton, I think, in appropriate colors. It was referred to as "quick stitch" or "big stitch" at the time--I can't remember which. This was a small wall banner--maybe 6 inches across and 16 inches long.








This was a Christmas panel we had in the store and coordinating fabrics. The bottom is a pocket for Christmas cards, stiffened with interfacing to keep it hanging upright.




For this little green wreath, we ordered green doilies, sewed them together around the center hole by machine, then turned it right side out, sewed along the edge of the lace, leaving an opening, stuffed it, hand-sewed the opening closed, and added a metallic bow and hanger.


Another pattern pack packaged with batiks and marbles. I loved this pattern. I wish I could remember who created the pattern, but I can't read that little type. It was a good-sized wall-hanging and all the pieces were fused in place.
This was one of the favorites -- we were the Beaches Quilt Shop, after all. We drew a palm tree, used a zebra stripe for the trunk, and hand-sewed little faux lights on the trees. Having been there for a Christmas, I saw first hand that the residents of the Beaches actually did decorate the palm trees in their front yards, and I thought it was the coolest thing! So this was a must-have.

Coming soon, the other days. So far, I've only found 11 of the 12 projects, so we might have to pretend. The 12th will turn up sooner or later, I'm sure.

A while back I heard from my old boss, Judy, from the quilt shop I managed in Florida. She was going to be in town visiting her family and wondered if we might be able to catch up over Thanksgiving. So, between my nephew's wrestling meet and the gingerbread house party, we did just that. But what to do? Well, as I drove to the meet, I noticed a quilt shop, and, wouldn't you know, it turns out it was just down the street from her son's house. So there we were, wandering around someone else's shop. It was a little strange--so often, when I'm in a quilt shop, I look at fabrics and think "That's so Judy" or "Beth would love that." Beth and Judy were the owners of the shop. When the fabric reps would come to the store, it was always a hoot picking out fabrics with them. And I could almost predict which ones each of them would be drawn to. They had similar tastes, but there were subtle differences in their choices. So it was fun to look around someone else's shop and point to a fabric and say "There's one, Judy" and know that she'd say "oh yes!" But we spent a lot of time chatting as we wandered around the store so it was tough for me to focus on shopping. I did find a few fat quarters--three batiks and a flannel (light blue with polka dots, though you might not be able to tell it's light blue from the photo).

More to come from my "I really needed a creative fix" shopping trip the Sunday after Thanksgiving. I know, I thought there was a moratorium on fabric buying until I made something, but sometimes that just doesn't work out.