FEEDSACKS!!

OK ~ You asked for it, you're getting it!! I had an opportunity to buy over 200 feedsacks a couple of weeks ago. There are many duplicates so I am selling FULL sacks, which I don't do very often. I've got a few listed so far and will get them listed as quickly as I can. They are available on both eBay and Etsy, whichever you prefer. If you need more than one just let me know. I've tried to keep the prices as fair as possible at $12.50 each. There will be some that will go to auction, but these are at fixed price. Here's a sample:

In other news, many of you know my friend, Karen Snyder. She recently "retired" from her fabulously successful shop in Long Beach, WA. I don't know how you can be retired when you are still designing fabric and writing books, not to mention being the "face" of Elna Sewing Machines. But I digress.....

She bought herself a fabulous 1973 Airstream Trailer to travel around the country in and has written David Bromstad of Colorsplash on HGTV to redecorate it for her! He and the producers LOVE the idea, but HGTV is balking.

SO--If you want to participate and write to HGTV on her behalf, she's giving away a bundle of my RISE n SHINE fabrics to the winner of the drawing. You'll find all the particulars on her site. Wouldn't it be cool to see her on TV??!!

So that's it for me! I'm off to cut feedsacks to fill orders. Yep, they're still coming fast and furious! Thank you!! Have a great week--

Blessings~

Let's Talk About Rickrack!

Some of you may have already seen the new Quilter's Home issue featuring collecting Rickrack. It inspired me to show you some of my collection! Hope you enjoy!

Before I start though, I want to show you the cute Iron Keeper that was also featured in the magazine using my Rise N Shine fabric! Thanks, Stasia, for emailing me and letting me know it was there!

Now on to rickrack.....

As most of you already know, I am a rickrack fiend! I absolutely love the way that it looks with feedsacks and repro fabrics. Before I found a good source for cotton rickrack I used only vintage cotton because the colors are so much nicer with vintage fabrics.

After collecting quite a few, I noticed that the labels were just wonderful! Many of them are from companies that we would expect like Wrights, Penney's, Talon, Coats and Fruit of the Loom. Oh, you didn't expect Fruit of the Loom???

But the really fun ones are those that we've never heard of today such as those below:

Notice how they seem to borrow themes from one another? Cameo starts out as a rose, then adds a cameo which is picked up by Lady Fayre. Here's another example from Warren's old and newer label and it's similarity to Boiltex. I have no idea which came first.

It's interesting to see how Wright's changed it's label through the years, along with it's price!

Penimaid was an old label for JC Penney's as you can tell from the package on the right.

Some companies even included a spool of matching thread to use in sewing your rickrack!

The next picture is one of the cutest I've seen. Little Prudence was precious!

I also love the Tailor Bird brand and once in awhile you see odd ones like the Princess rickrack that is wrapped sideways.

One of my most recent finds is this rayon rickrack in a box from Trimtex! Don't you love it? Next to it are their cotton cousins in more typical packaging.

Well, that's it for rickrack! Hope you enjoyed looking at some of my collection. Do you have any interesting ones to share? I'll put them on my blog if you do.

Hope everyone is having a great week! Blessings~

Guess What I've Been Doing??

Can you guess it? Right!! Cutting feedsack squares!! Thank you to EVERYONE who has already placed an order. No, I haven't developed carpal tunnel YET!

It has been fun to get back to playing with feedsacks. There's just something about them...... Here's a pic of a bundle of 100 off to play in someone else's house today!

I promised you a sneak peek of the quilt I'm working on. Actually, I'll show you the before and after. At least one block. The setting will be much different so I'm not giving too much away. Here's the quilt that inspired me:

And here's the block I came up with. What do you think?

That little inset piece was not as easy to figure out as you'd think! Of course everything I do is fusible, so I had to work around that. That's what got me to thinking about a picture tutorial blog.

I'm sure I don't need to say this, but I notice that other designers have it on their blogs, but everything I do is copyrighted, so please don't reproduce without my permission. You'll also see this on the sidebar.

That's my big week! I'm off to cut more feedsacks now. Hope everyone is have a great week, too!

Blessings~

Feedsacks!

This week has been a jumble. Bill and I have spent 2 days updating the website. Don't ever let anyone tell you that MS Front Page is user friendly!! It always turn out to be an ordeal!

One thing I added is that I am now back in business of selling 6" feedsack squares. I had them on my website for a long, long time and just could not keep up with the cutting demand along with everything else. I have continued to sell them without advertising to my customers who contacted me personally. But now I am telling everyone that they are back! They are still by Special Request, meaning that they need to contact me to order and when the order is ready, I will invoice the customer. Seems to be a good compromise for all. They will sell for $27.50 per bundle of 50. You can go to the Hollyhock Quilts website to view the particulars.

Every once in awhile, I get lucky and have a chance to buy a pretty big collection of feedsacks. Last week was one of those times. So needless to say, I've been soaking and washing feedsacks like a crazy woman. They were really nice. Florals mostly and several duplicates. Here is a pic of only about 2/3 of the ones I purchased.

It got me to thinking.... Some of you might know that I have reserved another blog name for Hollyhock Quilts. It was actually my intention to just transfer this blog to that one. But instead of that I think I will use that blog as a tutorial blog. The first entry will be the Collecting, Care and Keeping of feedsacks! It's not out there yet, but look for it soon. I also plan to have a picture tutorial for all my patterns and several of my techniques. What do you think?

Along with the box of printed ones, there was another box full of odd white sacks like sugar sacks, flour sacks, seed sacks. etc. Not sure what I'll do with them. Most of them are pretty faded or stained. But this one was in there and I think it's my favorite of the whole lot! Note what it says at the top about the Pert Little Pullets and Foxy Little Roosters. Don't you just LOVE that??

So that's it for me. Off to read my Bible Study lesson for tonight. Yes, Presbyterians sometimes go to church other than on Sunday and even study the Bible! I know you're shocked. Bill and I are leaders of a small faith group at church and it's always a good thing for the leader to read the lesson! Have a great week!

Blessings~

Wild Wednesday (Not!)!!

BORING, BORING, BORING!!! I apologize for not posting earlier this week. Let's see....

Monday was cleaning day and laundry. Sound familiar?? Tuesday was 4 hours at the Eye Dr. with my Mom in the afternoon. Wait, wait, wait.

That morning we went to the cemetery to purchase crypts because they were on SALE!! Oh yes!! You read it right! The crypts were on sale!! 50% off no less. Does that strike you as hilarious as it does me???? Not really where I would have liked to spend money, but I could just hear ourselves later saying, as we were writing that check to bury one or the other, OH WHY did we not do that??

No new fabric, nothing exciting. So I'll take the opportunity to show you a couple of Gallery Photos! Thank goodness for my friends!

This is a wonderful piece done by Lina LaMora in Purcellville, VA. It is a Drunkard's Path design done in authentic feedsacks. She says it was her 1st attempt at machine quilting. I think she did a beautiful job! Thanks, Lina!


I also want to share these darling dolls made by Jenny Alcorn from Victoria, AU. She dressed them in several of the "Fun with Feedsacks" prints. Thanks for sharing the pics, Jenny!

Other than that, I do have some good news! I got the results back from my Dr. on my blood sugar. I'm happy to say that it is back in the normal range so I guess my diligence has paid off! This week will be my last posting about my weight (which hasn't changed), not because I'm not still working at it, but I'm down to those last few pounds which may take forever to get rid of. I just can't bear filling you in on the ounces gained or lost over the next few months! But I will let you know when I reach my goal.

I give many thanks to General Geranium for her encouragement and kick start to get so many of us on the road to getting healthier. Thanks, Sharon!!

I'm actually still working on the quilt that was inspired by the vintage piece I showed you. I'm really happy with the way it's working out, too! I'll give you a sneak peek soon. I think you'll be surprised.

Have a great week, my friends. Hope you get to do lots of quilting!

Blessings~

Another Manic Monday (OK - Tuesday)!!

My apologies to any of you who tried to look at my blog yesterday and were greeted with a blank page! Apparently a link I had added caused the posts to disappear. How weird is that? Anyhoo--hopefully it's back now and working properly.

We had a fun little trip last week. I actually didn't take the camera (duh!) thinking there wouldn't be much to take pics of, but you might have enjoyed it more than I thought. Bill and I had gone to a travel show here in Tulsa a couple of weeks ago and at the booth for a new Indian casino on the OK/MO border, we won a couple of free gift certificates! His was for $50 worth of food and mine was for $25 worth of play money. So off we went on Thursday for a little Valentine's getaway.

I really wasn't expecting much, but was pleasantly surprised. I had found that if you mentioned "the web" when you made reservations that you got $30 off your room! That made the room $69. And BOY!! Was it beautiful!! They spared NO expense with gorgeous granite, big flat screen TV, and a beautiful tile steam shower along with a huge king sized bed that you practically needed a ladder to get in to! Wow!! So we went to the casino and spent several hours playing. They had a Valentine's deal where, if you accumulated 50 points on your players card, they would give you a little box of chocolates. We both had done that and when I got mine, they had me turn it over and scratch it off to reveal Happy Valentines. Great. Then Bill turns his over and wins ANOTHER $100 in play money!! Besides that we enjoyed a delicious steak in one of the 4 on-site restaurants with the gift card and had a delightful time. Came home with a little money even!

After a leisurely breakfast we took off for Joplin and I did a little SHOPPING! We stopped at the darling shop in Carthage where I did the book signing last fall and I got this gorgeous group of fabric. Haven't decided what to do, but the colors are wonderful!

Then hit a couple of antique malls and can you guess what I found???? Let's see--- Could it be FEEDSACKS??!!

Other than that, by the time we stopped for our famous fried chicken, I guess you can figure that I didn't lose any weight! But I didn't gain, either, so I'm OK with that! We had a lot of fun and now I'm back to work..... Sorta, anyway.

Hope you all have a great week and get lots of time to stitch!

Blessings~

A GREAT WEEK!!

Hi Everyone!

Well, I had a great week and lots to tell you! FIRST, I lost that 1/2 pound I gained and another pound to boot!! Yaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyy!!! Little bits of progress, but progress none-the-less.

NEXT I guess people felt sorry for me talking about my boring life of work, eat, and sleep so I got gifts!! I opened a totally unexpected package from Sharon at Red Geranium Cottage and look what I got!! DOTS and SOAP for Valentine's Day!! Two of my favorite things!! I've been collecting dots for a long time and these will go great with them. Now ~ What to make?? What to make??

THEN I opened an envelope and there was this DARLING group of fat quarters from Barbara at QuiltSoup!! It's her new fabric line called Bubblegum Basics. It is so cute and I just can't wait to play with it!

THEN I had a couple of really nice things happen in magazines! First, I looked at the April APQ and saw that Laura Boehnke had used my Rise N Shine fabric to test one of the patterns! I have to say she did a great job and the pattern is darling!! Darn! Why didn't I think of that first!!

THEN I got an email from a friend telling me that Mark Lipinski had reviewed Sugar Sack Quilts in his March issue. GULP!! He doesn't mince words, does he? But he gave it a wonderful review and to answer his "Should I buy it?" question he said "In a heartbeat, sister!!" Wow!! How cool is THAT??

So there you have it. Today I'm filling orders from my wonderful customers that came in over the weekend and hoping to sew tomorrow. We went to see the kids this weekend and went to a huge Arts and Craps (my husband's term for crafts) show. Also, got to see Cameron play basketball! It's amazing how good 5/6 year olds can be! Unfortunately, that was the other team!

Hope you all have a great week! I'll have to remember to complain about my boring life again sometime. If I do, will you send me presents?

Blessings~