Wishing you a....

Wishing this Thanksgiving finds you with plenty of reasons to give thanks!

Happy Thanksgiving from Prairie Flower Quilt Co.

Neat Seats....and more!

Things are starting to look like a quilt shop! We put in a 10 hour day today and things really feel like they're taking shape now. We put 20 tall and 2 short shelving units together today, assembly line fashion. We have 8 more short ones to go, but got sidetracked when we started working on a layout for the shelving and never got the rest assembled. Our big open space is shrinking fast as we start moving things in.

We also put some of the chairs back together yesterday. The chairs came with the building but the seats were all ripped up, so we took them all apart and recovered them with 'orphan' blocks. We really think they look neat.

And, best of all, the carpet was installed this week! It makes the building feel soooo much warmer.

Sneak Peek

OK, here's a sneak peek of our new shop. Just a little slice to show you the color scheme (although it's not completely accurate in these photos). We don't want to reveal too much because we want it to be a surprise when we open on January 1st! (Don't forget to mark your calendars and join us then!)

Just imagine these shelves adorned with antique toy sewing machines, jars of old buttons, and other fun notions from days gone by!

As I've mentioned before, our color scheme is a barn or brick red and sage green trimmed in black. Picture lots (or at least a few in the beginning) of beautiful quilts hanging from the black railing that runs around the top of the room.

I hope you have goosebumps just thinking about it - we sure do! We're working hard to make this a warm and inviting 'home away from home' where you'll want to spend lots of time.

We owe a BIG BIG Thank U....

....to Alan for all of his hard work at the quilt shop. He has spent the majority of the last 6-7 weeks doing the remodeling at the shop. We definitely wouldn't be anywhere close to where we are today if he had not committed soooo much time to the project. He's definitely a handy guy to have around!!!

Hi Ho, Hi Ho....

It's off to work we go. Today we're headed to the shop to finish small details (touch up paint, install remainder of trim) and clean up so that the carpet can be installed next week. It'll probably take three days to repair all the cracks in the cement and lay the carpet. The bathroom tile was laid yesterday, but has to dry for 36 hours before it can be grouted, so we plan to do that tomorrow. It's been a much slower process than we originally thought, but we're finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

Another Giveaway!

Did you check out yesterday's giveaway? Well, if you liked that, here's another one! Old Red Barn Co. is giving away not one, not two, but three quilts! Click on their name and enter for a chance to win....but do it before the deadline on Monday! I'm never lucky enough to win anything (well, I take that back, once I won a beautiful quilt made by Laverne that she donated to my son's senior class for a money raiser for Project Graduation), but maybe you will be.

Fun Giveaway!

Since I started this blog, I've found tons of other quilting blogs. And guess what, some have online giveaways, contests, etc. What fun! Camille at Thimble Blossoms is having a great giveaway right now. Visit her blog and post a message telling her which of her patterns you like best, where you're from, etc. and she'll enter you in a random drawing for a free quilt made from your favorite pattern! Tell her Prairie Flower Quilts sent ya!

Finally!

After several weeks of work, we finally installed the last of the beadboard walls! We still have to finish painting the last section and then put up the trim - some of which can't be installed until after the carpet is laid. We also finished rebuilding the kitchen base cabinet that will serve as our coffee corner. It's been painted, but still needs a coat of polyurethane to protect it. Tomorrow, we'll start tiling in the bathroom so that we can install the new sink and toilet. Still trying to figure out what to do with the damaged walls in there (more beadboard?) and need to have the plumbing fixed. I think we're making progress......?

Countdown to Carpet

The carpet will be laid in a week. This week we'll spend finishing up any unfinished projects. There's a few more outlets that need to be wired, one wall needs to be finished now that the plumbing lines are installed, the bathroom needs tiled, painting needs touched up, etc. We're on the homestretch now!

Inventory continues to arrive. This week we received wrought iron quilt racks and fabric that we ordered at market from Benartex. We originally set November 10 as the date to ship inventory, so things will really start rolling in this week.

Quilting Bloggers - Part II

The second day on Quilting Bloggers has garnered lots more international visitors to this site. Today we had visitors from Germany, Sweden, Hungary, Italy, Belgium, Uruguay, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, as well as several from countries we listed yesterday. It's fun to see where our visitors live!

Quilting Bloggers

Last night I registered this blog on the Quilting Bloggers website....and today we had 67 visitors to the site! We had our faithful local viewers but we also had several international visitors as well. They came from Canada, France, Norway, Turkey, Spain, Australia, The Netherlands and Czech Republic. Quilting must be popular in The Netherlands as we had numerous visitors from there today.

It's not pink!

Saturday was paint day at the shop. Deb, Marilyn, Janet and Sharla spent the day painting while Belinda cleaned. Sharla's husband, Alan, continued hanging the bead board and Deb's husband, Vic, began working on the exterior walls to seal them to prevent further water leaks. Our hope is that by the end of the week we'll be at a point that the carpet can be installed.

We are painting the walls a sage green with an accent wall of brick red. We primed the red wall yesterday, but it looked more like pink than red. We all agreed that it was a very pretty color of pink, but not what we wanted for the shop. Can't wait to get the final coat of paint on it. We're painting the trim black which really looks sharp against the sage green!

Progress?

Our first shipment of fabric has arrived! It arrived sooner than we had hoped as we do not have the building ready yet. This will be a big work weekend for us as we try to finish the walls, make ceiling repairs and prep the floor so that the carpet can be laid next week. The internet was installed today and the telephone will be installed on Monday. Hopefully the electrical will be finished at the beginning of the week also. Slowly, but surely, we are making progress!

Windshield Time

One benefit of driving all the way to Houston for quilt market was that we had plenty of time to make plans for the quilt shop. We determined our shop hours....

Mondays: 12 - 8 p.m.

Tuesdays - Fridays: 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Saturdays: 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.

We also set our opening and grand opening dates....

Thursday, January 1, 2009: Opening Day - "Football Widows Event" - 1 - 5 p.m.

Saturday & Sunday, Jan. 31 & Feb. 1: Grand Opening

We also began planning some of our classes and programs....

• Block of the Month featuring the Square in
  the Square technique: Second Saturday mornings and following Monday evenings
  beginning in February
• Breakfast Club: Fourth Saturdays beginning
  in January from 8-10 a.m. (each month you'll get instructions for a new
  project)
• PIGS (Projects in Grocery Sacks): Every 1st
  & 3rd Thursday, bring in your PIGS and work on them with friends
• Kansas Troubles: A quarterly project program beginning in March

We also planned some single classes, such as paper piecing, handbag classes, beginning quilting classes, etc. You'll be able to sign up for these classes beginning in January when we open, so clear your calendars girls!

Name Dropping

We had a great time at quilt market. One of the most fun things was seeing and meeting all the 'famous' quilters in the industry. Some of the people we met or saw include Eleanor Burns, Jodi Barrows, Nancy Zieman (Nancy's Notions), Ricky Tims, Robin Pandolph, Lynn Hagameier (Kansas Troubles), Rachel Pellman, Marti Michelle, Jinny Byers....just to name a few.

Jodi Barrows demonstrates her 'Square in a Square' technique. We'll feature this technique in our first Block of the Month program beginning the first Saturday in February!

The Prairie Flower Quilt Co. crew poses with Lynn Hagemeier of Kansas Troubles Quilters. We'll kick off our Kansas Troubles quarterly quilt program in March.

P.S. Be sure to go back and visit our previous posts about quilt market - we've added photos!

Proud Owners

Second day of market found us going back to the booths we were interested in.......including the Gammill booth. We are soooo excited, we purchased a Statler Stitcher for the shop! It will arrive mid-December and the sales rep will train us sometime in January. Soon, we'll be able to provide machine quilting services for our customers at the shop.

Home Again, Home Again.....

.....jiggady, jig. We left bright and early this morning at 6:30 & made it home this evening at 10 p.m. We had a great time at market and came home with lots of ideas, but we are tired. We'll tell you more tomorrow and share some of our pictures. For now, though, it's time to hit the hay!

Our luggage loaded with market finds!

OMG.......Day 2

OMG......our feet hurt! Today was the first day of the actual trade show at quilt market. We started off the day taking another class, we each took a different one. Then, the rest of the day was spent at the trade show. We walked and walked and walked - and we're only half way through the vendors! We saw several pattern designers and companies from Kansas - who knew there were so many! We picked up lots of vendor information and tonight we're going to go through what we have and decide if we want to go back and order anything. Tomorrow we'll have to go faster than we did today or we won't make it through the whole show. When the market closed, one of our sales reps and the owner of the company took us out for supper. Food was good, but the restaurant was so noisy we could hardly hear each other.

The highlight of the day (for Sharla) was we met "Moda Home Mom" in the Moda booth. She's the one who talked about our wordle quilt on her blog which resulted in all the visitors to our site (yesterday we had a visitor from Tel Aviv, Israel!) Here's Sharla & Angela....

We have one more day of market, then we'll head for home on Monday.

A Fat Quarter is NOT a Body Part!

Today was the first day of quilt market for us. The day was packed full of classes - we each took 16-17 different 30 minute classes. We saw lots of beautiful quilts and lots of ideas for classes and fun kit ideas. So many ideas, too little time! Then tonight we went to Sampler Spree. People started lining up at 4 p.m. to get into the event at 8 p.m. I guess the hot item that everyone races to is the Moda booth to buy the jelly rolls, fat quarter bundles, etc of the new fabrics so they can go home to make their shop samples. If you buy something, then you get a free Moda bag. Of course we had to do that! So we each have new Moda bags to tote our quilts in. We also bought t-shirts for all of us to wear for the grand opening of the shop. We think the saying is a hoot - "A Fat Quarter is NOT a Body Part". We also bought a little something for our hubbies who are home working on our shop....koozies that say "My Wife Quilts Therefore I'm BROKE".

After Sample Spree, Belinda, Deb, Marilyn and Janet couldn't resist peeking in the windows at the market show area.

Sharla, Marilyn, Belinda, Deb and Janet sporting their t-shirts!

Greetings From Houston!

We made it! Deb, Marilyn, Janet and Sharla left yesterday afternoon for quilt market in Houston. We picked up Belinda near Lyons on her way home from KSU Extension Update in Manhattan. We drove to Denton, Texas last night, arriving around 10 p.m. Today we were up and on the road by 7 a.m. so we could get to the Moda warehouse in Dallas early to shop! We got lots of fun fabric (114 more bolts to add to what we bought a couple of weeks ago) and can't wait to get home to start making shop samples.

Shopping @ Moda

We are most excited about the 'cheater' fabric (fabric already pieced in a crazy quilt pattern) that is in the same color scheme as we are painting the shop. We're going to make table squares for our coffee tables with it. We also bought a couple of coordinating bolts of fabric to make valances for the windows and tablecloths for under the table squares.

Our shopping carts loaded!

Tomorrow our day is packed. We start classes at 8 a.m. and have classes scheduled solid until 8 p.m. We have both fun classes (Schoolhouse Series which is 6 hours of mini classes of new techniques and gadgets) and business classes (anything from how to package fabrics to developing shop procedures). Then from 8-10 p.m. is Sample Spree. We're not really sure what all is available at the spree, but we've found pictures on the internet of women loaded down with goodies for their shops.

It's been a fun, but long, day and now we're in our hotel rooms winding down. If we're not totally exhausted, we'll tell you all about our first day at market tomorrow night!