Thursday, November 19, 2015

T-Shirt Quilt Gift Certificates for The Holidays

Oh no!  You just now figured out that giving a T-Shirt Quilt for Christmas is the best idea you ever had!  Oh wait...  Christmas is just a little over a month away.  Yeah really.  5 weeks.  In the best of times, it takes five weeks to create your special t-shirt quilt.  What to do?

Give a T-Shirt Quilt
Gift Certificate for Christmas
Give a gift certificate.  This way it will be a surprise - AND the best part is that you don't have to figure out what t-shirts you should use.  Most of the time Mom is in the kids closet trying to figure out what t-shirts mean the most to their child.   Or, hubby knowing this will be the best gift ever, does not have a clue how to get started.  Last year, a husband bought a gift certificate thinking that his wife would get the standard 12 block generous throw quilt.   Instead,  she dug out a big box of baby clothes and !had a quilt made from all of the clothes from when the child was newborn to toddler.

Christmas is just a few weeks away.  You can order your Gift Certificate clear up to Christmas Eve and we will email you a  personalized PDF file that you can print out and put under the tree!    What could be easier?

If you are not sure about a t-shirt quilt.  No worries.  We have several quilts already made that you might consider as a gift for that special person.  Just let us know what you are looking for and we will help you find something.

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

2015 Quilt Festival Wrap-Up

The largest convention in Houston each year is the  Houston Quilt Festival.  Quilt Mecca.  That is what the locals call the last 10 days of October each year.  I moved to Texas over 10 years ago, and have been attending Market and Festival every year since then.  What is it?

Well, Market  is a credentialed trade show, not open to the general public.    This is a whole different animal and is for quilt shops, book writers, pattern designers, longarm quilters  and other quilting professionals.  While there are several quilt displays, this is just the preamble to Quilt FESTIVAL.

Aaahhh, Quilt Festival.    This is the best of the best.    I remember my first Quilt Festival in 2003 (the first weekend that we had moved to Houston, the moving truck had not even arrived yet).  I went by myself.  Who cares that I  would not know anyone.    I went up and down the rows of quilts, my mouth hanging open.   Oh my,  the next row, how could it be more awesome than the last row...  I was in awe.    THEN, I discovered the vendors.  OMG...  Quilt shops from all over the country in one place.  Fortunately, my birthday is the same weekend.  I called hubby and told him not to worry about any birthday presents.... I had it covered....

Anyway, update to 2015.  My sister-in-law is visiting from out of town, and we are both taking classes.   This year we are commuting from Cypress to downtown Houston (about 30 miles) each day and learning about HOV lanes and Houston construction.    No worries.  We make it to our 8 am classes each morning.  Note to self -  next year bring DOWN JACKETS as classrooms are freezing.  Oh wait.. folks in Houston don't HAVE down jackets as it does not get that cold here!

Friday, November 06, 2015

70 Uses For Leftover Batting

What to do With Leftover Quilt Batting

As a longarm quilter I have PILES and PILES of leftover batting scraps. I have lots of uses for these leftover scraps, but here are some other suggestions that I have collected over the years. Some may be similar, but that is OK. Since we first posted this about ten years ago, we have had many suggestions for additional uses for batting scraps. New items added to the end of the list, and some of existing suggestions have been updated.


1. Rough cut a 9 x 12 rectangle to use in your Swiffer - bonus, you can turn it over and use the other side too!

2. Cut into 5" squares to use to make coasters

3. I use small odd shaped pieces to dust with.

4 . Use small piece of batting at your sewing table to collect loose threads ( I keep a stack of randomly cut rectangles at the end of my longarm table to collect thread scraps).

5. have another one at the ironing station to collect threads that you trim off while ironing