Saving a Beloved Huggie

Anyone who has known children knows how vital their security items are.  Some kids have blankets, some have stuffed animals.

Emily has a ‘Huggie’. Huggie is a receiving blanket given to Emily by her big cousin Abby, who decided during one visit that she was now too old for blankies, but her baby cousin was the perfect age.

So Huggie has been with Emily since that visit, and they are rarely apart. But Huggie had seen better days, and what are you supposed to do when a security item is getting “tired”?

I already knew rough measurements of Huggie and had a plan in mind.  So I was able to cut my border strips prior to starting any Huggie restoration. Emily likes to cover up with Huggie, so I had a certain size in mind that I was shooting for.

The next step was to retrieve Huggie.  My best suggestion, giving the child some extra fabric and non-sharp sewing tools!

 
After sewing on my borders and pressing, I took quick measurements to determine my backing size. Since Emily was getting restless about what I was doing to her Huggie, I opted to sew my backing to my ‘top’ right sides together, leaving an opening at the bottom, and flipping the whole thing right side out.

To keep everything in place, I stitched in the ditch around my borders, as well as around the edges of Huggie.

So Huggie is alive and well. And Emily was pretty interested in the whole process. Grandma Dawn would be proud.

How have you saved your ‘Huggie’s??

~ Heather

At the Hospital...For a Good Reason :)

Yesterday I got to get out of the shop for a bit ~ I was invited to the Howard County General Hospital to attend a quilt unveiling as part of the National Hospital Week celebrations and observances...

...Why was I invited?  I had the honor of participating by quilting the quilt that was being unveiled!

48 different departments of the hospital participated in the making of this quilt by each providing a block!  Standing with the quilt here is Vivian Bonnell, a nurse in the NICU, who was one in the group of ladies who coordinated the making of the quilt.  Vivian contacted me to do the quilting after they had collected all the blocks and pieced the top together.
  

Everyone was so nice and welcoming to me yesterday as members of the different hospital departments gathered to see the quilt unveiled, and Howard County General Hospital president Steve Snelgrove even recognized me in his remarks, and chatted with me afterwards, asking me questions about the process of longarm quilting.

After the presentation, it was fun to watch people go up to the quilt and look at all the details, and find their department's block :)  The quilt is a nice testament of the unity, pride and respect that the departments of the hospital have for each other.

The blocks are all so different and creative, and many of them weren't made by quilters at all, so there was quite a variety of mediums used.  We decided I would quilt them in various ways on the different blocks to help with structure and stabilization, but not take anything away from the block itself.  Some were quilted simply all over, and some were stitched in the ditch or just highlighted with light quilting depending on the materials used.  Here are photos of some of them that I took when I was quilting it, so you can see some of the fun details they included on their blocks...

 There were logos and embroidery on some blocks...

 And some had stuffed elements like this little Pharmacy Super Hero and this Heart :)

 

Then there were the blocks that weren't made of regular fabric at all like this one from Sterile Processing.  This is one that also had items attached that I had to remove to load the top on my quilting frame.  I took photos before, so I could carefully sew things back on to the same place that they came from.

 Some blocks were computer generated and printed out on fabric sheets then sewn into a block.

 ...felt, letters and patches...

 ...and multiple types of paints.

 Coloring, beads, and jewels glued on. 

 Fun coloring and sketching too.

 Applique & Yoyos! This is Vivian's block from the NICU :)

And I found out today that some of my regular customers made blocks in this quilt too!  Judy Sullivan worked on this Claudia Mayer Cancer Research Center block :)

 And Ellen Deklau made this cute block from the Finance Department using fun novelty fabrics :)

...If you worked on a block in this quilt, let me know!

So now this quilt is hanging right in the main lobby for all to see ~ Walk in the main front door of the hospital and look over to the right and you'll see it!

I've sat in the waiting areas of this very hospital on many an occasion, and I know first hand how nice it is to have something interesting to look at, and focus your mind on when waiting in these situations.  I'm honored to have been a part of this special project.

If you get a chance ~ stop by the Howard County General Hospital on Cedar Lane in Columbia and take a look at the quilt.  It's a chance to visit the hospital for a good reason :)

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn

Our New Shop ~ A Little Before & After

So I'm waaaay overdue for a blog post, and I thought a little Before and After of our new shop location was a good time to wake up the Blog :)

At the end of 2015, as we were looking around for a new space that would give us some bigger work rooms, larger showroom, and a little elbow room, we found out that this double wide spot farther down in our same building had become available :)

In the beginning it looked like this ~ mostly one large space.  A (somewhat) clean slate to work with.

We knew we wanted some walls built to create our work spaces.

And we put up these French Doors so we can see out when we're quilting away in the Handi Quilter room.

Here the little kitchen area is being built that clients can use when they come rent the machines, or take a class.  This one is larger though than our last one, with a table in it and everything :)

If you haven't come in to visit us yet, we moved into our new space in suite G last Monday (Same building, just farther down to the right from where we were before ~ 9691 Gerwig Lane Suite G, Columbia MD 21046) 

Here are a couple of sneak peaks from around our showroom area.  Above is a simply stunning quilt made by Pat Brousil.  It's a sample for her upcoming Hand Piecing Class called Twisted Star.  Click Here for details about the class.

We have lots of space for quilt samples!  Here are a few...above left is a sample for our Sassy Quilt that we have a few kits for, and on the right hand side is  the Quilt As you Go Baby Quilt sample for Barbara Dahlberg's upcoming class on Thursday, April 21st.

We'll take a few more photos of more areas, including the workrooms as we get our quilts up that we brought back from the quilt show we also were vending at last week.  We still have things to get finished, and things are evolving.  Lots of new products are coming out each day, and we have plans for changes in the future for each of the areas of the shop ~ so stay tuned for more photos :)

Just this weekend our signage was installed ~ this time we have our whole name up!  Next week our logo decal will be installed on our front door too :)

Stay tuned for more photos, and stop in to see us in our new digs!
Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn

Get It Done UFO Challenge January Number Is...

 Number 5!

It's time to get started on those UFO Lists ~ The number to work on for the month of January is #5.  

You can read about the details of our Get It Done UFO Challenge at This Blog Post, and you can jump in any time.  It's all about having fun, and getting some of those quilts finished :) 

In the last post I showed my personal 2016 UFO list (12 of my UFO's at least), and my #5 is to finish my Pat Sloan "Farmer's Market" quilt...So Full Disclosure: Here is the state my "Farmer's Market" is in at the moment.  As you can see I have several blocks to finish adding the applique to, and then doing all the blanket stitching, adding any outer borders I decide to add, then quilting and binding.  Will I get it finished this month?  ...I'm not sure, with all I'm working on with customer quilts and my website in flux right now (Don't get me started...I could write a book)...But I do know I'll be getting some work done on it, and I'll let you know how things progress by the end of the month :)

Don't forget, if you get your #5 finished by January 31st, bring it in and show us and your name will go in the  drawing for our nice monthly prize! Even if you don't get it completely finished ~ Get it at least to a quilt top, and come in to the shop and show us, and we'll give you a coupon for a discount to purchase your batting and backing fabrics :)

And to inspire you and get you in the Finishing mood, here are a few finishes that our Renter, Pat Scully quilted up on our HQ machines yesterday...

She was on a roll and finshed the quilting on Four kid quilts for the Southern Comforter's Guild to be donated to the Georgetown Pediatric unit.  She kicked these dino quilts out three at at time!  All they need now is some binding :)

Enjoy the day!
~ Dawn

PS ~ As I mentioned briefly above, our website is currently in flux as we switch to a new provider.  Please be patient as more content gets loaded and tweeked, and we work through all the bugginess.  If you have any questions, or want to sign up for a class, call our shop at (410)381-0695.