Help the Food Bank

Don't forget this weekend is our annual food drive for the local food bank. They always need help but especially this time of year. Check out our newsletter for how you can help. And, if you don't already get the newsletter, sign-up so you don't miss Quilt Country happenings,

Whew!

Just finished looking at the sale books we have on-line. Well, we try to keep the website in sync with the shop, but that's a hard job.

So.... I took off the books we've already sold and added some sale books we'd never added on-line. What I'm saying is, keep on looking back for new stuff! Here are a couple.

There's still time!

Every year I think I have PLENTY of time to get things done before the holidays. Then reality sets in...

Well this year, my friend Karen designed a quick and easy napkin pattern I just had to try. I love to set a pretty holiday table and these napkins are so quick, I made 14 yesterday. They're SO quick, I not only made some for Thanksgiving, I made some for Christmas. I may even make a few as quick gifts.

Sometimes we jokingly refer to Quilt Country as Kit Country because we like to make kits.... So, since these napkins were so much fun to make, we decided to share... if you can't come by the shop, look on-line to check out these kits if you want something that can be done quickly and looks great.

Fall Market 2010

Well,we've always loved the look and feel of wool but hadn't been able to find any that matched the look and feel of Quilt Country. Guess what we found at this Market? Yummy wool kits!

This one in particular just has me itching to get my needle and floss out. And, it'll be something cheery to work on during the upcoming yucky winter weather.

Who knew there were so many young new designers from Australia? We found several kid's clothing patterns, embroideries and take a look at this whimsical quilt. Can't wait to get started!

Oh. There's just one thing, I guess. We'd better get all the notions, books and patterns we brought back from Market organized, put out on the floor, models made, etc. Of course, there'll be stuff that we couldn't bring back with us coming in for quite a while, too. (Yippee!!) So, maybe my needle and sewing machine will have to wait just a little longer....

The New Website

A year in the making, the new website is live at last! There has been a REAL learning curve on my computer. I am relatively computer literate but this was something totally different. Take a look and see what you think. http://www.quiltcountry.com/

Below is a photo of new home page. Everything about the new website is so much better, the look, the shopping cart, all of the departments and well, just everything! On the home page there is also a spot to subscribe to our newsletter, which is also totally new. The newsletter will go out in the next day or so. We hope you enjoy all of the changes on the new site.

What an honor!

Yesterday I was out front in the 30s fabrics and guess who walks in the door, the Statue of Liberty. Now this would be an honor for anyone BUT for us at Quilt Country it is a special treat! If you have never been in our bathroom it is really fun and full of Statue of Liberty memorabilia.

When she walked in the door I couldn't believe it. I told her she had to go to our bathroom. She stopped in her tracks. I explained our bathroom decorations and she went back to check it out. Krissy grabbed her camera, of course, and documented the event! Krissy even got the reflection of the torch in the mirror perfectly placed so it looks like she is holding it.

lessons learned from cleaning out the pantry

We have been on a cleaning binge the past 4 days or so. We had a mini remodel in 2 bathrooms and so while everything was a mess we decided to take it a step further. We have a closet across the end of our den that is 6'X24'. It is really big so it can hold a lot of junk! It had gotten so bad that we couldn't get in it any longer so what else could we do. Even we were appalled at the amount of stuff that came out of there. We divided it into the appropriate groups and now we even have empty shelves.

Next it was on to the kitchen. I cleaned out the pantries, all of the cabinets and drawers and I got a lot of junk out of there too. There were packs of Jell-O that were 3 years past their expiration date and all sorts of partly used packs of seasonings and a bunch of opened crackers, cereals and pasta. There was a particularly interesting bottle of old rice. It was some sort of special red rice that I thought deserved to be poured down the disposal. It all went down with no problem. Next it was on to the coffee cabinet which had at least 6 partially used bags of assorted coffees One was a very old can of Folgers decaf which I thought needed to be poured down the disposal so that I could put old knives in it. Half way through the decaf things stopped working. Tony was working on hanging mirrors in the bathrooms and I really hated to tell him that the sink was stopped up. He was perturbed when I told him about the coffee. (You might guess that this is not the first time I put something that I shouldn't have in the disposal.) But then I had to fess up to the red rice. You know what happens to rice when it gets wet? Well, it expands. The rice had swollen and totally blocked both sides of the sink. He had to use a knife like an ice pick to get it out. As soon as he got the rice out of all of the nooks and crannies the coffee water started pouring out. It was totally gross. Of course, I got photos.

The bin was about 3"-4" deep in rice, water and coffee.

The moral of the story is, don't put uncooked rice down the disposal.