To All Our Quilty Friends...

Wishing all our friends a Holiday Season filled with peace, cherished memories, and time to cuddle under a warm quilt!

Enjoy the day!

~ Dawn

Special Holiday Hours: 

 

Spring Water Designs will be closed on December 24th & 25th.  We will re-open on Friday, December 26th ~ Join us for a Free Sew-In Day for the next Bonnie Hunter Mystery Clue!

We will close again on December 31st & January 1st, and will re-open on Friday, January 2nd. Happy New Year! 

Back to Work After a Little R&R...

We just got back from spending an amazing week in the Smoky Mountains.  This was our cozy cabin in the woods that I'm now totally in love with.  (Note the Bernina sitting on the table inside ~ it was the perfect balance of getting out and about, and also staying in and getting some fun personal sewing done!)

This was my sewing buddy for the week.  He smiled down on me as I sewed away and watched T.V.  Together we put together some more Farmer's Wife blocks for the group swap I'm in, and of course we got more sewing in on the Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt :)

 ...And then there was the getting out in the fresh air ~ especially welcomed after I've spent pretty much all year indoors working at the Quilt Shop.  It was nice to drive through the mountains...

 ...and just breathe.

 And we got some hiking and exploring in around Cades Cove.  Simply beautiful :)

 It was the perfect time to visit Pigeon Forge & Gatlinburg TN ~ The weather cooperated, and we were able to drive through the mountains without icy roads, got all our Christmas Shopping finished in the towns decorated for their Winterfest Celebration (even went to a few quilt shops along the way), and enjoyed the National Park and Crafter's Community with very few tourists.  We're back home now, thankful, refreshed, and ready to take on 2015 :)

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn

The Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt Kicked off Today!

Here are some "sights and sounds" from our Sew In Day for the kick off of the first Clue of the Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt she's calling the Grand Illusion Mystery ~ These are the sights anyway, the sounds were of laughter and good conversation :) 

Quilters gathered and played with fabrics, cut, and stitched on the units for the first clue...

 We saw several cool color choices

Here are my fabrics that I'm pulling from for mine.  I got all of my half square triangle units cut out today...

...and I got one of my Broken Dishes units finished ~ only 99 more to go :)

We'll be working on our units this week (Heather even caught the bug and is picking out fabrics to join in and play), and then next Friday, Dec 5th Bonnie will release the clue for Part 2 on her blog.  That's our regular Studio Stitch-In Day at the shop, so come and sew with us!

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn

Baltimore Block Show & Tell

The Baltimore Blocks for Beginners class with Mimi Dietrich got together one more time yesterday for a little Show & Tell and share their progress.  Here are a few of them, Enjoy ~

 ...It's amazing how different each one looks done in the different prints & styles :)

We are so fortunate to have Mimi come and teach at our shop ~ She is an amazing teacher...and now there are twelve new quilters with a love for Applique :)

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn

Our First Post Card Party Workshop

Have you heard of Post Card Party?  This week we had our first of several Post Card Party Workshops!  A group gathered in our classroom and Starlyn showed them how to she cut the little "petals" with the Creative Grids Dresden Plate Ruler to make these cute little Dresden Plate units.

She had several to show, and also showed examples of quilts using them.

Everyone sewed theirs together...

Then the students put together some Black Eyed Susan Postcards to swap in the Great Post Card Party Swap :)  Several students took theirs home to finish embellishing, and will bring them back later.

We'll be having several more Post Card Party Workshops in December and January to make other projects to submit for the Big Swap.  Keep an eye on our Events Calendar for upcoming Dates and jump in on the fun!

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn

Our Row by Row Pattern Now on our Free Pattern Page

Remember our little Springtime Row pattern that was available free during this Summer's Row by Row Experience shop hop?  Well now it's available as a Free Pattern Download on our website :)

 Here are a couple of different versions of our row that customers made...

 ...Make sure you send photos of what you do with our Row Pattern! 

This month at Fall Quilt Market they revealed that the theme of the 2015 Row by Row Experience shop hop will be Water.  I'm sure there will be plenty of really creative rows designed based on water.

...And remember our little "Just Quilt" license plate?  (We do have a couple of them still available in the shop from our last re-order) Well, we saw a sighting of our license plate at Quilt Market...

 This quilt was hanging in the Row by Row Experience booth, I don't know who made it...

...but this was the center block :)

Enjoy the day!

~ Dawn

Bonnie Hunter's Grand Illusion Mystery Quilt is Coming Soon!

Have you taken part in the annual Bonnie Hunter Winter Mystery Quilt before?  If you're looking for some pure sewing fun this winter, check out Bonnie's Blog Quiltville's Quips & Snips!  Every year Bonnie runs a Mystery Quilt starting with the first clue the Friday after Thanksgiving, and releasing another clue each week.  If you sew along each week making the clues, you end up with a wonderful  quilt at the end :)  Bonnie gives the color clues out ahead of time, using paint chips as reference to what she is referring to, so you can go through your stash and start gathering up your fabrics.  It's meant to be totally scrappy ~ the more fabrics the better!  Here are this year's color chips, and you can visit Bonnie's blog post to get full description of the colors and how this all works. 

***We want to take part in the fun at Spring Water Designs, (Mary has made some of Bonnie's past Mystery quilts, and they're amazing!) ...so we've decided to have a Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt Sew-In Day at the shop on Friday, November 28th!  It's totally Free to come and sew for the day ~ bring your machine and sewing supplies, and we'll supply the coffee and snacks :)  It's free, but call the shop to reserve your spot (410)381-0695...And since it's also Black Friday, there just might be a Sale or two going on at the shop that day...just sayin'.

Lisa, who has a great eye for color, pulled some fabrics that we have in the shop that she thought would be nice in this year's mystery quilt...

 All I could say is...oohh...

 ...aahh...

 ...Sweet!

 ...and she and Starlyn cut some yummy Fat Quarter Bundles :)

So if you need to supplement your stash (and I have spied some people in the shop with paint chips lately), come in a pick up a bundle.  We have little ones for each color way, and big ones that include all the fat quarters in them.  ...while supplies last ;)

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn

My Little Quilted Christmas Card Holder on Fabri-Quilt's Blog!

 

Christmas is coming...quickly!  And Fabri-Quilt is hosting a 12 Days of Christmas series over on their Inspired by Fabric Blog featuring projects made from their Holiday fabric lines.  They asked me to play and design something using one of their fabrics...and of course I said Yes!

 I used their Christmas Basics collection, and made this happy little Merry Christmas Tree.

And since I've been grappling with a way to display the Christmas Cards that we receive each year, I decided to make a quilted wall hanging Christmas Card Holder.

 Buttons on each of the quilted squares make nice little places to hold and display the cards.

These Wonder Clips from Clover provide just the right size of "clipage" to hold the cards, and the flat side lays nicely against the quilt. 

A little piece of ribbon through the hole in the clip lever makes the perfect little attachment to loop over the buttons on the quilt.

The cards will line up, and overlap across the quilt for a festive display of warm Christmas Wishes from friends and loved ones ~ or use the 24 squares to make your own Advent Calendar :)

Hop on over to the Fabri-Quilt Blog to get all the instructions to make your own ~ and there's a Free Drawing going on over there too!  I'd love to see the ones you make for the Holidays, so make sure you share some photos with me later :)

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn