Keepsake Quilting Purchases and more

Time for some show and tell from my recent family vacation visit to Keepsake Quilting...

I've been practically drooling over the Jelly Bag pattern from Bunny Hill Designs that has been showing up around quilting and sewing websites lately, so I just couldn't pass up the chance to purchase it without paying shipping charges!

And even after receiving all those fat quarters from Grace Full Creations, I still had to pick up a few more to add to my collection.

In the front entrance of the shop is a sizeable display of sale fabrics which I had to check out, and I found a few fabrics that I liked. Then I found a few others that I purchased for specific purposes, which I'll be sharing with you shortly. For now, you'll have to guess which ones are which!


My daughter couldn't pass up their fabulous selection of flannels, and she came home with this lovely little bundle to make a baby blanket. She has a few friends who are getting married and is thinking that someday soon she might be invited to a baby shower so she wants to be prepared. Such a fun time in a young girl's life!


Sharing the same store space as Keepsake Quilting is their sister store Keepsake Needlearts and Elizabeth always finds something on their sale table on the front porch to bring home. Last year it was the Irish cross stitch which she finished and we had framed for her for Christmas. This year it was a cross stitch of the New York City skyline and a cute little Christmas cross stitch kit with a ginger bread parade on it. Those ought to keep her busy in her spare time this next year.

I love what I purchased at Keepsake Quilting, but my purchases from Patternworks just thrill me to no end! I can't wait to show them to you...next time!

Happy Stitching!

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Visit to Keepsake Quilting

Just last week, I had the immense pleasure of taking my annual shopping trip with my oldest daughter to one of our most favorite shops in the universe, Keepsake Quilting. Below is a little tour of the shop, but keep in mind that what you see in the pictures is only the areas where I could take pictures without people in them! The lady who cut our fabric for us told me that at last inventory, they had over 13,000 bolts of fabric in the store! Imagine!


This is the quaint little New England shopping plaza that houses Keepsake Quilting. The portion of it that you see in the picture is mostly the quilt shop, but a little portion on the left is where Keepsake Needlearts is located. And the part on the far right is where Patternworks, our favorite yarn shop, is located. I'll share that shopping trip in another post! This one already has loads of pictures!


Now we're getting closer to all that wonderful fabric!



But first, a stop in the ladies' room! Isn't it lovely? Those are fresh flowers on the sink!


And even the wallpaper in the restroom is pretty! Now that we can concentrate on what we came for, it's time to get busy!


Ooops, I really tried to avoid taking pictures of people, but I couldn't resist this rack of 1930's reproduction fabrics. There was more on the other side too!


Christmas and other seasonal fabrics are available year-round along with patterns and kits and medleys and anything else you could imagine!


Rows upon rows...


...in every color of the rainbow...


...who knew there could be so many shades of cream...and that's not all of them!


...it just keeps going and going and going...


This is just a small portion of their selection of flannel...just delicious!


And look at all this minkee...I had to touch every bolt! The colors were gorgeous!


This corner had mostly reds, whites and blues along with lots of patterns, medleys, fat quarter bundles, kits and finished quilts to spark your imagination.


Every end cap was loaded with kits, patterns, medleys, fat quarter and half yard bundles, die-cut shapes, you name it! And in each row, there were clip-strips of individual fat quarters of the fabrics in that row. You can see down the left side of this picture, the end caps of at least 7 rows of fabric. Each row is 3 levels high and full to overflowing on both sides! And this is just one small corner of the shop!


This is what you see upon entering through one of the doors from the outside. Very inviting!


Need a red fabric? If you can't find it here, it doesn't exist!


How about an off-white?


How about some greens? This is just one row of greens. There were many more!


How about some light blues?

I had to put my camera away and get down to my own business, but there is so much more in this shop that my own pictures didn't show. There are racks and racks of pattern books and quilting books, walls covered with patterns and packaged kits and fabric bundles of all sorts. There is a whole section with racks of every notion and tool and gadget you can imagine.

Keepsake Quilting is a destination in itself, not only for the immense array of fabric it offers, but for the customer service as well. If you are looking for fabric to use for a particular project and you can't find the perfect one, all you need to do is ask for help and you'll have your own personal fabric shopper help you find the perfect match for your project. All the people who work in the shop know the store inside and out and are more than willing to help you find whatever it is you need. Another nice thing about this shop is that no one hovers over you. If you need help, they are there, but if not, you are free to wonder the rows and get lost in your own little fabric fantasy. Shopping at Keepsake Quilting is a grand experience! I highly recommend it!

I'll share pictures of our purchases another time. Next stop: Patternworks, our favorite yarn shop.

Happy Stitching!

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My First Paper Piecing Quilt Project

This Paper Pieced Heart Quilt is a project that was so fun to do, from the very beginning -- picking out the pattern -- to the very end - delivering it to my friend for her new baby -- and every step in between.

I've already told you many times how much I love our annual trip to New Hampshire and the shopping day my daughter and I look forward to. Of course we always go to Keepsake Quilting in Center Harbor to browse and touch and sometimes even purchase the beautiful fabric they have there. I love to have a project in mind when I go there so I can make a purposeful purchase, so before our trip a few years ago, I decided I would make a quilt for a friend who would be having her first baby soon. I poured over patterns and books and ideas for what seemed like forever, and then I received my Keepsake Quilting catalog in the mail. One spin through that and I had my pattern! I ordered it right away and received it in no time. Then I set to work studying the pattern because it was a paper pieced project, a technique I had never used before and didn't really understand how it worked. I traced the designs onto paper and cut them out and used scrap fabric to practice and I really loved the technique. It was so easy to get nice sharp points on those triangles.

Then it was time for vacation and I knew exactly where I would be buying my fabric. This would be no Wal-mart fabric quilt. I was going whole hog and buying my fabric from a real honest to goodness bonafide Quilt Shop -- also something I had never done before. What fun that shopping trip was! I knew what colors I was after, and the selection at Keepsake Quilting is almost overwhelming, so it took me Forever to settle on my fabrics. I was so excited to get home and start cutting and piecing.

This is what the quilt looked like after I had sewn up the border pieces and spread it all out on the ping-pong table. My friend has always had a thing for hearts in any form, and she didn't know if she was having a girl or boy, so I picked fabrics that would be good either way and I thought this heart design was pretty gender neutral.


And here it is all sewn up and quilted and backed and bound. Don't you just love that pieced border? All the purples pointing out and the greens and yellows pointing in -- very clever. That's what the pattern called for, so don't think *I* was the clever one! I just followed the directions! I also love how the squares inside the nine blocks are tilted and the hearts are placed a little cockeyed on them. And then the outside border of green and the purple binding just finish it off so nicely.

I hand quilted this piece along most of the stitching lines, except for the green sashing between the blocks and the green border inside the triangle border. In the sashing area, I used a ruler and marked random straight lines going at odd angles to each other and quilted over them. In the wide green border area, I marked off evenly spaced triangles and stitched them with smaller triangles inside them. If you click on the picture, you can see these details in the enlarged version.

So that was my paper pieced heart quilt in purples and greens. What a fun project and quite a learning experience. I learned how nice it is to shop for fabric at such a wonderful quilt store with such knowledgeable staff and excellent customer service. I also learned that paper piecing is the way to go if you haven't quite perfected piecing odd angles.

What's your favorite quilt pattern or technique? Leave a comment and let everyone know.

And don't forget to enter my fall giveaway by October 14th for a chance to win a very nice pincushion bag and other fall goodies. Good luck!

Happy Stitching!

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