Calico Printworks Quilting

It's Almost Spring!

 

Okay, I know it's wishful thinking, but the birds have begun to sing in the morning and at least the snow is wet and heavy when it comes down now!

I quilted this quilt about a month ago, and I wanted to share it with you.  I know that the picture is small but I hope that you can see some of the details on it.  Obviously, it's created with reproduction 30's fabrics but each of the dresses is a different style with tiny little adornments such as ribbons, buttons, fun trims and laces.  This was obviously a true labor of love and I was honored to quilt it.

There's another quilt at the shop right now waiting to be quilted and I don't know who it belongs to except that she's 90 years old and loves to do printed cross-stitch.  Every block is a different floral cross-stitch pattern and I know that it took a long time to cross all those little blue crosses to finish this quilt.  Again, what an honor to be able to finish that quilt for someone.

This summer I headed back to my growing up home, Edina, MN to spend some time with some friends from high school that I hadn't seen in at least 20 years.  Some of them I hadn't seen since graduation.  Of course, we had to take turns saying what we were all doing now and I said that I was a long-arm quilter for a local quilt shop.  My friend, a beginner quilter, said she had a quilt that she had made for her parents and didn't know how to finish it and I explained to her what the long-arm was all about.  After Christmas, she sent me her quilt from MN and now that's waiting for me to finish as well.  I'm so tickled not only to be in touch with her again, but to finish her labor of love for her parents.

I hope you're all taking some time to finish (or start!) your projects before the backyard and gardens beckon us outdoors again!  Thanks to all of you that let me have a part in the creating of your masterpieces!

Fall Shop Hop

Audree, Carol, Gayle and I had been meaning to get to the quilt shop in Lodi for a few months.  We tried once on our way to Gayle's in Warrens, but we got horribly lost somewhere outside of Sun Prairie and decided to bag it for another time.  This time, we made it, and we were so delighted by the shop that I thought I'd tell you about it (and a couple others in Central Wisconsin we visited as well!)  I made the tablerunner in the photo above in about 2 hours and the pattern is designed and sold from a shop named Creekside Stitches in Lodi, WI.  (A quaint little town about a half hour outside of Madison near the Wisconsin River.)  The name of the pattern is Cookie Cut Starburst and there's a full-size quilt pattern that's similar in design.  The shop is well worth your visit if you love darker, homey fabrics such as Kansas Troubles, Three Sisters and Sandy Gervais.  The shop is larger than you'd think on the inside and just packed with fabric and books and patterns.  We give this shop a big thumbs up!  The address is 123 S. Main St. in Lodi and their phone number is 608-592-5793.

Another shop we loved is in Warrens, which is a pretty sleepy little town except in September when they host the famous Cranberry Festival!  The name of the shop is Quilting Plus, 103 Main St. Warrens, WI.  Their phone number is 608-378-4585.  The shop is located in what I think is an old brick tractor barn.  It's bright and airy on the inside and they have a nice sized classroom in the back.  They have all the fabrics we love plus a nice selection of children's fabrics and brights.  The ladies that work there are very nice and we feel very welcome when we come.  It's worth the 10 mile or so detour from the interstate to check this out.  And the Warrens Mall is not to be missed! :)

Our last stop was the Quilt Corner in Sparta, between La Crosse and Tomah.  Their address is 219 N. Water St. and their phone number is 608-269-1083.  This is a two story house packed to the walls with Thimbleberries, Kansas Troubles, homespuns, childrens fabrics and just about anything else you'd want.  They have quilts for sale in their basement and a huge classroom in the back.  They also have a weekend retreat center across the street, which apparently is filled most weekends!  We've been to this shop twice now and have been pleased both times. 

There's a bunch of nice shops between Racine and Tomah that we've visited as well, but I'll save that for another blog!  Thanks for taking the time to visit us and I hope your fall is going well!  Feel free to leave comments about anything or questions about the shops I've talked about!

And, for those of you trying to get your Christmas projects done, our cut-off date for quilting is November 15.  We may be able to take more after that date, but you'll have to call and check first.

Good books!

When I'm at a quilt shop it seems that most of my time is spent looking at and feeling the stacks and stacks of fabric surrounding me.  I hardly ever venture towards the books.  Maybe because I'm already overwhelmed by the colors and patterns around me or maybe because I always feel that I have enough at home to last a lifetime.

Having said that, I want to highlight two books for your library.  Honestly, they belong to my friend, Gayle and I didn't find them on my own.  But she had them along on a dinner one night and I loved them.  So I thought I'd pass my findings on to you, and maybe you'll love them too.

The first is Classic Quilts by the Keystone Quilters.  In its pages you'll find 8 quilts, one better than the next.  There's a Square in a Square, a beautiful house quilt, a Monkey Wrench plus a really great star quilt that's bordered with lots of stripe fabrics.  (A great one for fabric collecting on a weekend shop jaunt).  All are manageable sizes and the patterns are full-color.  It's a beauty!

The second book I'm recommending is called Simple Comforts 12 Cozy Lap Quilts by Kim Diehl.  My Calico friends are I are going to be working on a quilt from this book this weekend on our sewing weekend at Gayle's.  There is a Monkey Wrench with Nine Patches, some lovely applique quilts and one called Cabin Cozy, which is a Bear Paw block surrounding a Log Cabin.  That one is only 55 x 55, so we're hoping to get a really good start on it this weekend!  Again, the instructions are clear and the patterns are in full color.  I know it's hard to buy a book without seeing the insides, but I can guarantee that you'll like both of these a lot!   

I hope you're all getting a chance to get to your sewing machines this fall.  Sometimes getting to my sewing room, even for a half an hour, is the sanity I need in this busy life!  Hope you're all well . . .

Frustration!

I've known many people that have come into the shop (when we were Calico, Canvas and Colors) with a little teeny swatch of fabric in hand, a desperate look on their face and asked if we had any of a certain fabric that they just needed six inches more of.  I always felt so bad telling them that we were out, or we only had four inches or yes, we have it, but it's in that kit.  For some reason, it has never happened to me.  Whether I was uber-organized or just plain lucky, I have always had enough fabric to finish my projects.  Until today, until this quilt . . .

I quilted this quilt yesterday, and as I was quilting it I realized that I didn't have any binding fabric.  This quilt was put together over the course of this last year with my friends from the shop and we used fabrics from our stash of Civil War fabrics.  We had to buy yardage for the background, inner border and binding.  I forgot to buy enough of anything for the binding.  Duh.  So after I got it together I decided I really wanted the inner border fabric for the binding as well.  I scratched and clawed my way through the bits and pieces in my sewing room trash to come up with the tiny remainders of selvages that had writing on them.  Yippee!  I pieced these together as carefully as I would have pieced a jigsaw puzzle and voila! there were my clues!  I was sure the hard part was over, and I triumphantly went upstairs to search the World Wide Web.

The fabric is Windham Fabrics Civil War IV line (they're on Civil War VI now!) by Nancy Gere and the pattern number is 25309, color 52.  I  checked Ebay. I Googled every possible combination of "Windham", "Civil War IV" and "Nancy Gere" that you can think of.  I found a lot of 25309 in tan and I found a lot of Civil War V waiting out there, but alas, no blue Civil War IV.  The best I could do was a different fabric from the same line in the same color.  It's not great, but it's something.

So . . . I want to thank Doris from Lil Country Shoppe in Middletown, Delaware for helping me find my fabric and for only charging me a couple of bucks for postage.  I guess we can feel lucky that we have the amazing gift of the internet at our fingertips to find our elusive fabrics, but for those of you who have gone into any shop, anywhere, clutching your tiny bit of fabric, I feel your pain.

Welcome to Calico Printworks Quilting

Our quilting room and hours are expanding and we hope this webpage will give you all the information you need. Our hope is that you'll use this site to get information about your quilt (maybe you want to know when it will be ready), pick out the quilting pattern for your next quilt (all the patterns will be listed here), get some inspiration (I'll pass along some impressions about a really great quilting book I've seen) or check out the beautiful quilts that our customers are having quilted.

The form for quilting is available on the right hand side bar of this webpage as well as the quilting patterns.  Please read everything carefully!  Our new hours can be found on the Calico Printworks webpage at www.calicoprintworks.com.

This is definitely a work in progress, so if you have ideas about what you'd like to see here, leave me a comment.  But for now, let me introduce you to our quilting staff.

 

 

Carol Uebe has quilted for Calico for many years. She is a retired nurse, but you won't find her at home very often.  She loves to travel, garden and be a wonderful grandma to her 5 grandchildren.  Her secret desire is to raise alpacas!

Lynn Helmke (me!) has quilted at Calico for 12 years.  I took a year away from the shop to be the store manager at the bakery next door, but decided to come back to do the thing I love.  I have two children, Shawn who just graduated from Madison and actually has a job, and Laura who will be a sophomore at Madison this year.

Audree Bach has quilted for many years and also worked at the shop.  She now works full-time for Baxter.  She and her husband, Bob, love to travel and hang out at local Trevor bars where they play cards and stir up trouble.  She is a loving grandma to Oliver.

This picture was taken by our friend Gayle Gottfredsen at her cabin in Tomah.  The four of us are often seen checking out quilt shops on our girlfriend weekends!