Using wide backing fabrics on the back of your quilt is already less expensive and easier than piecing 45″ wide fabrics to fit. Now you have the opportunity to enjoy the ease at a discount. Starting today and running through August 15th all wide fabrics are 10% off on our website. Stock up and enjoy!

Check out our wide backing fabrics here: http://www.threesistersfabric.com/fabric-2/backings-and-muslins-9/

Thought I’d let you know that we are running a first-ever sale on our website. From Black Friday (Nov. 26th) through Cyber Monday (Nov. 29th) all digital quilting patterns, backing fabrics, quilting books and patterns will be 20% off on our website. No discount code needed…. The sale will automatically start running Friday through Monday.

Just wanted each of you to know we’re thankful for you and your business!

Happy quilting,
Allison, Tammy & Jacquie
www.ThreeSistersFabric.com

Here’s how it works: We each picked out our own pallet of fabrics. Then we placed them in a pillowcase. At each guild meeting we will pass the pillowcase to the next member in our Challenge group (there are 10 people per group) until the pillowcases go through the complete list of members. Each member has one month to use the fabrics in that pillowcase to make any block she chooses. We applied certain limitation to the blocks that can be made – i.e. no smaller than 6″ square and you cannot make the same block every month. Blocks can be rectangle or square, they can be large or small. The challenge will be at the end of the 10 month rotation to put all the differently shaped and sized blocks together into a quilt. I can hardly wait!

I am looking forward to seeing how all these blocks turn out. It is going to be a wonderful challenge to find a creative and attractive way to put all of them together. Last night at the guild meeting, a member of the guild brought a couple of Pillowcase Challenge quilts she had done. They were stunning! It was encouraging to see a finished challenge turn out so nice.

Allison's Pillowcase Challenge bundle made with Martinique pinks and Glace greens. The fabric bundle is sitting on top of the pillowcase she made for it.

The Park Avenue bundle that Tammy will be using

This month I have Carol Honderich’s pillowcase…. From previous posts, you know I consider her a special quilter in my life. Can’t wait to make her a wonderful block! Tammy has Marie Troyer’s pillowcase. She’s a special quilter friend too. We met her at the same time as Carol Honderich. (They came to visit our quilt shop in Michigan at the same time along with a Edith Shanholt and Janis Nelson.) It should be a great month!

Thankfully, we are finally starting to expand our offerings! We’ve already started adding gifts, notions, and patterns. But now we have the joy of adding more fabric!

The Whimsy logo

I introduce to you – Whimsy by Fig Tree Quilts for Moda!!! It is a delightful collection reminiscent of childhood days and good old antiquity. The colors are the typical softened shades characteristic of Fig Tree Quilts, but yet have a clarity to them. I hope you enjoy them as much as we do.

A delightful Jelly Roll to please your creative side

Watch for the new patterns and kits to be added soon that use this wonderful collection of cotton quilting fabric!

First we had to clean out all the stuff that was in the building from our move. That wasn’t too hard. We loaded the back of our Malibu Maxx (It’s a hatchback.) full of stuff and then drove it over to our garage where we picked a nice, empty corner and stacked it all there neatly. Of course, it took a few trips, but it got done rather fast.

Tammy – AKA Drillcilla

Then we dove into the unknown. Could we do it? It looked almost like fun, but would we girls be able to tear into all these shelves and oddly constructed cabinets and tear them down and burn them? Well, we did! We renamed ourselves Drillcilla, Pryanna, and Sludge after our tools of preference. It was rather funny to see how each of us were more comfortable with certain tools and were less adept with others.

Tammy and Ruth – with their less preferred tools

It took us two full days, but we are done. And it feels so good! Now, the walls have to be torn out and we are going to let the guys from church do that for us…. We’re worn out! When they’re done we are going to wire and insulate. We’ve insulated before and think it’s rather fun. Michael (my brother-in-law) said he’d teach us how to wire. I imagine that will be rather fun too. I’m looking forward to learning it.

We are very anxious to move in…. I suppose I need to remember that nothing gets done over night and prepare myself for a new lesson in patience! But really – I’m very, very happy to be making progress on our new longarm quilting studio!

Smiles,
Allison

Here are some pictures of the building as it is now.  It was used by the former owner as a woodworking shop.  That has been cleared out and we’ve been using it for storage lately.  We are looking forward to the finished project, landscaping included!

]]> http://www.threesistersblog.com/2010/02/visions-of-a-new-studio/feed/ 0 http://www.threesistersblog.com/2010/02/great-quilty-stationery/ http://www.threesistersblog.com/2010/02/great-quilty-stationery/#comments Sun, 14 Feb 2010 04:05:49 +0000 Allison Payette http://www.threesistersblog.com/?p=9 Is “quilty” a word? I guess it is around here!

We are expanding our website this year.  Since our move, we have only been carrying the bare necessities.  (Of course that mainly included fabric by 3 Sisters for Moda!)  We are really excited about the newest additions that are arriving.  We’ll be adding some more designers to our collection of fabrics, new patterns, books, notions, and digital quilting patterns for the Statler Stitcher and Intelliquilter.

Today I thought I’d show you our new gift items for quilters.  We got in some great new stationery!  I’m not much of a writer, but I do like pretty stationery.  I guess I know I should write, and I really do love my friends, and having stationery at least makes me feel closer to my goal – a letter in the mail box. 

I guess I’ll start with the easiest kind of notes.  Small, yet big enough embossed note sheets.  These are my favorite.  It is very easy for me to keep these on my desk and quickly jot a note to a friend or a customer without feeling overwhelmed.  It helps me keep it short and sweet, and yet it gets DONE!  I love the scalloped edge of these sheets and the pretty lavender color is delicate without being too immature.  And of course, the embossed quilt blocks at the top brought the first smile to my face when I saw these.  They are really cute!

Then there are the note cards.  I love note cards.  They give you room to write a decent note and let someone know you’re thinking about them, but they don’t give you enough room to write a journal that will never make it to the mail box.  (I’m very familiar with the un-mailed “journal”.)  These cards come with  matching envelopes and a cute carrying pouch that fastens with Velcro.  How nice!

Check out the other design we have too!

Hope you like them as much as we do!

Smiles,

Allison