More new stuff has arrived!

I love getting new stuff in the shop - books, patterns, fabric, kits, thread - whatever it all inspires me!

We will be getting one of these little jems each month - but started off with three this month. They come with everything you need to get the project done except for the batting and the thread - all for a great low price!

Fall/Winter 2010 Quilting Arts STITCH Magazine Just Arrived

The theme for Stitch Fall/Winter 2010 is THE FABRIC ISSUE, exploring sewing projects and techniques featuring a wide variety of exciting fabrics. This is your chance to pull out that specialty fabric you have been saving for just the right project! Features 40 projects for the fall season!

Issue Highlights:

Sewing Room - Cool sewing products, tools, notions, patterns, and books.

Sew Boutique – From inspiring people to hot trends , check out the news from around the sewing world including indie pattern lines, limited run fabric, unique sewing companies/stores, sewing for a cause, and more!. Featured: launch of new Oliver + S fabric line; The Sewing Machine Project that provides sewing machines to people in need around the world; and Sewing Yoga to help you relax after hours at the sewing machine.

Technique Spotlight - Sewing with Silk -Splurge on a luxury silk fabric but afraid you’ll ruin it when you sew? Here are the tips and tricks you need to gain silk sewing confidence

Sew Connected – Get connected with online sewing resources from blogs to websites

Material World – fabric reviews, profiles of fabric designers, trends in colors, fabrics, fashion, home décor, fiber art. Featured: Galbraith + Paul husband and wife fabric design team; and fabric storage tips and tricks Sew Inspired - Essays from a variety of popular sewing bloggers and designers on how to be more creative with your sewing. Featured, Kathleen Frances of the popular Grosgrain blog (grosgrainfabulous.blogspot.com)

Feature Article - Quilting the Modern Way – Learn how contemporary designers are reinterpreting the classic quilt in contemporary ways.

Project Themes:

DESIGNING DENIM – Not just for jeans anymore, denim can be used for a wide variety of clothing, accessories, and home décor projects. These projects explore the creative possibilities denim offers in a variety of colors and fabric weights from heavyweight denim to lightweight chambray. Designers show off their embellishment skills by adding topstitching, embroidery, and trims, mixing it with other fabrics and prints, and getting artistic with bleaching effects.

GETTING FANCY – Everyone loves a little sparkle around the holidays and special occasion fabrics can add a touch of bling, shine, and luxury to even the smallest sewing projects. Special occasion fabrics include embellished fabrics (beaded, sequined, embroidered, etc.) and fancy fabrics such as taffeta, velvet, satin, lace, brocades, organza, metallics, and silks. Featured projects include clothing, accessories, and home décor MODERN PLAID – From Burberry to punk, plaid can be traditional or edgy, and everything in between. Projects show how you can reinterpret this classic fabric print in fresh ways by playing with color, graphically mixing fabrics, textures, and prints, and using it in unexpected projects.

ONE YARD GIFTS – Take only one yard of fabric and mix it with a whole lot of creativity and you have a fabulous gift for a friend or family member that you can whip up in no time. Perfect for stashbusting or just the excuse you need to buy a luxury fabric (you only need one yard!), these small but innovative projects will please everyone on your gift list.

OFF THE COUCH – Decorator upholstery and drapery fabrics can offer an exciting array of prints and textures from traditional and retro to modern and graphic. And who says they have to be used for sofas and drapes! Designers take advantage of these beautiful medium to heavy weight textiles to create a wide variety of home décor accessories, wearables, and gift projects.

To get your copy of this magazine please email us at sales@sugarshackquilting.ca

Time Flies, Doesn't It!

In June I thought I would have more time over the summer, not less.  Seems that the draw of the kids being home is too much for me and I have been getting somewhat lazy... well maybe lazy is the wrong word.  More like neglectful of my responsibilities.  Oh, well.  The kids are only kids once and it is going by so quickly!

I have a had a chance to add some free patterns to the website and new fabric arrived yesterday and there is more on the way.  You had better hurry in, the new stuff always goes quickly!

I love the saturated colours of these fabrics.  These are two of my favorite prints but there are a lot more.  One of them is a gorgeous stripe with orange and lime green and sienna - it is sooo nice I am thinking about making myself a table runner with it.  The orange flowered print shown is going to be sewing into a table runner for my dinning room table - I was working on designing the pattern this evening - measurements done, now I just need to make some time to sew.

See you soon!  :o)  Tina

Beautiful Trail British Columbia

The other day I was walking from work to the swimming pool to meet my husband who had kindly taken our children to their swimming lessons and I wished so much that I could have taken a picture that would capture the smell of the warm spring air and the flowering trees and the feeling of well being that I had walking along the beautiful Columbia River in this most beautiful time of year in this beautiful small city...

This is Rotary Park.  I walked through it on my way.  The trees are much bigger now but the view is still wonderful and I all I could smell was sunshine and flowers.

At Home with My Husband

First of all let me say that I love my husband very much.

Each night as we settle in to our nightime activities I wait for it to start.  The soft rythmic snore.  He usually falls asleep in his chair around 10.  As I am a night person he gets about two solid hours of sleep in that chair every night. Tomorrow he will tell me how he only got about two hours sleep for this reason and that reason. So is all his sleep in his chair?

Join us June 17th at Sugar Shack for our FREE Janome Education Day!

Precision, power and reliabilty make Janome the perfect machine for the beginner to advanced sewer. This is event is a must for everyone who loves to sew!

Join us and receive a free gift valued at around $15, be entered to win a fabulous door prize valued at around $250, sip coffee or tea and nibble our delicious signature cookies while learning from Liz, Janome's pro!

9:30 until 11:30 am

We will be welcome the new Horizon 7700 into the shop! Liz will be here to demonstrate the 7700 as well as all of the fabulous accessories for your Janome machines. Learn an abundance of techniques that can be done on almost any Janome sewing machine - open the door to your creativity and discover new possibilities for your next project!

1:00 to 3:00

Stick around to attend the afternoon session and let Liz show you how an embroidery machine can kick your creativity up a notch! There will be a demonstration of the basics and Liz will show you some examples of the work she has mastered on her machine. Everyone will enjoy and be inspired by this session!

Don't miss this exciting event at Sugar Shack Quilting!

Kids Sewing Class

Don't miss out on the kids sewing class we have scheduled to begin on May 22!

Time Flies...

Wow.. where has the time gone? Time sure flies by when you are having fun - my Auntie Susie told me today that time flies when you get old.  I have been feeling old, does that count?

I have so much to blog about that you have been missing over the last few weeks. I have included some images from the West Kootenay Quilt Conference - just one of the places I have been and things I have been up to over the last few weeks.  I hope you love them!

Part of the trouble is I love to read other blogs and then I spend all night jumping from one blog to another... there is so much fun reading to do, so many great projects, and such precious little time.  Hmm, if only my DH's lucky streak would kick back in big time....

This quilt belongs to Paul Hertz - he made it at the Sugar Shack Quilting Beginner Sampler Class

I love crazy quilts.  They are the reason I learned to quilt although I have yet to make one!

I like the colours and the combinations of pieced and appliquéd blocks in this quilt.

There and Back Again - Creston Home & Garden Show 2010

Okay, so it wasn't the next day.  Give me a break, it has been a busy week!

These are the amazing mountains that you pass through to get from my home in Trail to Creston. We call it the Salmo Creston Highway - and to be honest I am not even sure what its official name is!

On the way there we saw a herd (?) of Big Horn Sheep ewes. On the way home, on the other side of the road, we saw the rams from my earlier post.  We also saw Wild Turkey, Elk (twice), and of course, lots of deer.  Beautiful British Columbia!

The Creston Home and Garden Show was fun as always!  We were lucky enough to have the Mountain FM booth next to ours so there was great music playing all the time and the staff was fun to spend the weekend with!

There were lots of interesting things to see in 100 or so booths, I only took pictures of the ones that I thought were esthetically pleasing or that has something I wanted (like a sink).  You can see all of the photos I took on Sugar Shack's Facebook page.

This booth was selling candles from the Kootenays!  They smell and looked so gorgeous I had to take some pictures of them.

The creamy yellow color of these beeswax ones was so beautiful.  It made me think of Christmas - maybe it was the trees, stars and pine cones!

I loved the colors of the dyed ones - and available in so many delicious scents!

This one was hand painted by one of the owners of the business (I think). I wish I could do this - or at the very least be brave enough to try. There were quite a few hand painted ones, I took the this picture because I really love lilac and lilac season is upon us!

This is What I Saw Today

Steve (the DH) spent the last two days in Creston at a the annual Home and Garden Show.  This is what we saw on our way home.

Tomorrow (when I am not so tired!) I will post all of the other cool stuff we saw between here and there - and of course while we were there!

British Columbia is the most amazing, beautiful place on earth.  We are so blessed to be able to live in such a wonderful place!

Handy Picnic Placemats

This is a great take along for the upcoming eating "out" season. Roll them up and pack them in your basket or cooler to head to the beach or keep them loaded and ready to go for those spur of the moment BBQs that seem to occur all summer long!

Click here to download a FREE pdf of this pattern.

Krista's Coffee Cozy

These Coffee Cozies are fun and easy to make and are great for a quick personal gift! Leave them plain and simple or embellish them any way you like!

A few fabric scraps for top, bottom, and embellishment, a scrap of cotton batting or fleece for the lining and a few notions and you are ready to sew!

Click here to download a pdf of this pattern.


This pattern was donated by Kritsa @ Twirl Designs Studio! Thank you Krista, you are my crafty hero!! :o)!

Ponderance

When you have tried everything and then things suddenly fall into place once you have stopped trying so hard, you have to wonder if that was the problem all along and perhaps you were trying to hard to begin with.

I think that we should all take a lesson from our children - well mine anyway - who truly believe that there is no such word as can't.

I suppose that my husband and I are the ones who taught them that - this is when we can pat each other on the back and say "Look at what we did.  Isn't it great?"  It is great - my little champion in the tree.   :o)

Tipster Tuesday

I decided at the beginning of this year that it was my year to get my poop in a group.  To pull up my proverbial socks and change all of the things that I was not happy with in the previous year.  I am a firm believe in the fact that if you are not happy with something in your life you are the only one who can change it.  So, what needs to be changed:  The biggest thing, because it effects (affect???) so many other aspects of my life is my complete and udder lack of organization.

I think (and hope and pray) that if I get organized the other important things that need to be changed will fall into place - such as my messy finances and my tendency to be late for everything and the clutter in my home and on my desk at work will all get better.  So this is my hope.

One of the things on my list was to make sure to do a newsletter every month.  So far, not so good.  I am a perfectionist and it is really hard for me to send out any old thing thrown together.  I just can't.  So, with the help of my beloved staff (Brandi, Krista (yes I am counting you) and of course Ralph), we are pre-doing what we can for some months.  I hope you enjoy the new format, I have spent about 40 gazillion hours making sure it is near perfect!

Brandi, with her organizational abilities, is going to do a section entitled Handy Brandi's Tips for Organized Living (I wanted to spell Handy with an 'i' but I got outvoted).  In my travels I found a really great blog for her to draw ideas from, it is called, simply, Get Organized.  It is great and when I am ready I will turn to it for friendly TIPS and advice on how to get my poop in a group.

Fabulous Friday - Oops, I guess it is only Thursday....

My eight year old son is gone for the weekend (blended family situation, lots of gory details) so my daughter's BFF has come to spend the night.  The are so stinkin' cute together it is beyond ridiculous. 

They will both be 5 in May (Victoria on the 2nd and her BFF Trysta on the 17th) and they are so fun to be with.  We went for dinner and then shopping this evening.  We went to Ardene and tried on sun glasses and jewelery it was very fun. I loved to see how they both have their own personal style.

Victoria always goes for the feminine while Trysta leans more toward the funky.  Victoria's glass were pink (well at least pink!) while Trysta's where leopard print.

Dear Daddy

I just found out that Cesar Millan's dog Daddy died in February and I have to admit I shed a tear.  I loved Daddy.

Poor Cesar. I am so sorry for your loss.  Poor Junior, Daddy left some pretty big shoes for your little white paws to fill.

Rest in peace sweet old dog.  Thank you for making me smile and changing the world's out look on what  being a Pitbull means.  You were wonderful and I love to see your tail wagging on my TV screen. You will be missed.

Wishful Wednesday.

If I had a boat load of money and more time than I currently seem to be able to find in a day I would buy a local hotel and turn it into a crafting mecca!

I have had this pipe dream for a few years and cannot seem to let it go.  Wishful - perhaps.  But if there was one thing that I have learned through my life is that everything starts out as a dream. The Union Hotel is about 15,000 square feet, has rooms that are currently used (to the best of my knowledge).  There is a restaurant and a bar.  The bar would be cleaned out to make room for the quilt/sewing/craft shop, the restaurant can stay.  The basement has meeting rooms which would be PERFECT for classes and seminars and (even better) group meetings!  It would be the perfect retreat centre....  ah what a sweet dream.....

I am a go getter.  I want it.  I get it.  Period.  Nothing ever seems to be handed to me though, I always have to work for it which makes it so much sweeter.  Having said that, my boat load of money has yet to arrive. 

Ahh, wishful on Wednesday...

NEW MemoryCraft 7700QCP HORIZON Announced Today!

The 7700QCP Horizon is a sewer and quilters dream! With an 11" bed with a FREE ARM there is NOTHING this machine cannot do! You are limited only by your imagination with this amazing new sewing machine, only from Janome.

Just imagine, a sewing machine with more of everything that you need:

* Space * Precision * Light * Convenience * Best of All, Choice *

This amazing sewing machines will be available in May. Visit Sugar Shack Quilting Today for more information.

Congratulations Door Prize Winner!

Congratulations Linda Cassidy of Castelgar BC!

Linda was the lucky winner of our shop door prize, valued at over $300!

Each year we give away a huge gift basket, entering everyone who makes a purchase in the store and online. We are thankful to everyone for the support in helping us grow our small business - we couldn't have gotten this far without you - and this is one of the ways thorught the year that we like to say thank you.

New Class List Out This Week!

Check out our new class list on our shop calendar.  Just click on the item you are interested in to get more information.  We are really excited about this new feature and hope that you will take the time to check it out!

2nd birthday 37% off sale at Sugar Shack Quilting

http://www.sugarshackquilting.ca/

I am sitting hear wishing I had something interesting to Blog about but sadly I have been spending all of my time cleaning up the shop for our upcoming birthday sale (the shop is two and I am 37 - guess what your discount is!), painting my daughter's room (okay this was my husband not me, I just visit him while he works).  Spring is in the air and it is wonderful.  I have been walking to work and enjoying every minute of it.  The birds chirping, the tulips poking through the dry looking earth. Funny that Canada is supposed to be the Great White North and it was 20 today and Pam Bono has 4 inches of snow in Georgia.  Global temperature shift?

I have been working on finishing up my current needlework project so that I can move onto my next one.  I am currently working on Miribilia's May's Emerald Fairy and when that is complete and all my little projects have been tidied up I am going to try my hand at a Heaven and Earth Design, I have purchased Sunrise and Sunset - I can't wait! (This image is of the Emerald Fairy <- and this is Sunrise ->.)  Although I have been a Miribilia / Lavender & Lace fan for a long time, the detail of the Heaven and Earth pattern is so much more - but that means so will the time it takes to get it done!

So back to Sugar Shack Quilting's Birthday sale.  37% off of everything in the shop and online with the exception of Kwik Sew patterns, sewing machines, and sewing machine parts and accessories.  Having said that - there will be some really great deals on sewing machines but you will have to come in to see Ralph.

The other Sugar Shack Quilting item worth mentioning is that our new class schedule will be out soon.  There are loads of "Mom" classes coming up.  We are trying to offer a little more for my generation as well as kids.  We have a lot of people asking about kids sewing classes so we have decided to get brave and do it!

The Plan...

Okay, so for someone who owns a shop that is supposed to be about creativity, I have been anything but lately (unless blogging, keeping up with friends on Facebook, listing stuff on Etsy and website development are considered creative?).  All computer no sewing machine!  Yuck....  well not really, I love both.

So, anyway, Victoria has been asking me to bring my machine home from the shop so it is coming home with me tonight and I am going to spend this evening and most of tomorrow finishing up the creative or mundane projects that have been piling up and I promise to have at least one thing completed before the end of the day!  I also promise to try my best to take some cool photos of the works in progress, as the progress.

So, have a lovely weekend! If you get a minute, vote for my cousin Joseph's band, The Bank Dogs - they are very talented kids living my dream!

VOTE HERE FOR JOSEPH HERE

Beautiful Brazilian Embroidery!

Edmar Threads now at Sugar Shack Quilting! If you are not familiar with this type embroidery, there is no time like the present!

It is beautiful and has a lot of possibilities. It is three dimensional so you can create object with it that are part of a picture without being flat like more common forms of needlework such as cross stitch.

Brazilian embroidery is a type of surface embroidery that uses rayon thread instead of cotton or wool. It is called "Brazilian" embroidery because the use of high-sheen rayon thread in embroidery was first popularized in Brazil.  Brazilian embroidery patterns often include flowers formed using both knotted and cast on stitches.

I have wanted to do the lady shown here (her name is Verana) for ages but I just cannot seem to find the time in my chaotic life to finish my current stitching project (Mirablila's May's Emerald Fairy) so that I can move onto the next.  I learned long ago that I need to finish one before I start another or the other NEVER gets done!

Watch for more patterns and books being added to the website over the next few months.  Included the wonderful "A to Z of" books.  If you have never seen an "A to Z of" you are missing out on an invaluable resource.  We do have the A to Z of Brazillian Embroidery in the shop if you are interested please email me at tina@sugarshackquilting.ca.

Winter Clearance Sale

I love snowflakes.  When I am ordering fabric for the shop I always want to order every single snowflake fabric that is available.

Look at these fabulous fabrics at 25% off!! at Sugar Shack Quilting.  Just till the end of the month though so hurry in and don't miss out, all of the other fabric is on sale too...

Whip Crackin'!

One or two Fridays a month a group of us get together at Sugar Shack Quilting to quilt and we stay till until late at night sewing and venting and gossiping and having a nice time with a diverse group that we may otherwise not be with.  I would say that the ladies that come (there are four of them, and Brandi and me) have all, to some extent become my friends.

Okay so that has nothing to do with what I wanted to say - well very little.

The last time we got together, Brandi was not there to point me in the direction of the project that needed my attention and no one really needed my help to I went into the "in progress" bin we have at Sugar Shack and came out with a half woven ribbon thing that I planned on turning into a pillow top.  One of the ladies saw it and insisted that it be the project that I worked on that evening - so I finished it and I have to say, I am glad that I did.  It is gorgeous!

I had seen it done in some book or magazine along the way - a long time ago - and had wanted to try it since.  So in the spring (maybe longer ago) I cut the ribbon and sewed the top and the left side to a piece of muslin and started weaving.  I did not finish as I thought it was really crooked and I am a perfectionist but is looks great not that it is done and the ribbon has relaxed into place.  Super easy, a little teadious, fabby results!

Ho Hum...

Well I finally did it, I took down my Christmas tree.  Pathetic I know.  We always have a real one and this year we opted for a fake one.  Air freshener is NOT the same but it DOES make you lazy.

So last night I spent like two hours cyberstalking my high school friends on Facebook. I wonder if anyone ever does that to me?

So today is my day off.  I spent it cleaning my house.  The dog, cat and person hair needs to be thoroughly vacuumed on my hands and knees kind of vacuuming about once a month.  You know get in the corners kind of cleaning.

I think Maxine is fabulous. At work I have a print out of her that says "Don't believe everything you think."  I LOVE that!

As I said, Ho Hum.  Did you check out the sale at Sugar Shack Quilting?

Sugar Shack Quilting is Having A Sale!

I do not like sales.  Well of course I love to shop them but I do not like to have them in my shop.  I am a self proclaimed hypocrit and it seems maybe a bit of a snob!  It is not selling for less that bothers me, it is that I feel it cheapens my shop....  I do not remember any sales, ever, at The Cloth Shop (terrible website - but wonderufl shop where I learned to quilt!).  Well, that is Vancouver and this is little old Trail and sometimes our local shoppers need a little pick me up!  That and my staff talked me into it!

Hope to see some of you here in the next few weeks helping to clear out the old to make room for the new spring fabrics that will start arriving in February.

Oh, one more thing.  Can you please make sure you tell everyone you know about this sale, I want to warm up to the idea and a good sale will help!

Rain Rain Go Away!

It was raining so hard this morning that I asked my husband to get busy building the ark - he did not get it.  Running around the house unable to open his eyes because he has a migraine.  He does not often think I am funny - but I do. Sometimes I make myself laugh so hard that I cry.  I love it!  No sound coming out, tummy hurting, tears rolling down my face, everyone thinking I am an nuts.  Goods times!

Anyway, about that the rain.  This is not the West Coast.  This is the Interior.  We should be getting snow even in the lowlands and it should be very cold... anyone have any plans they can send me for that ark?

Who Am I?

I have finally decided to take the plunge into what seems to be a well used venue for venting, sharing and just chatting by women in similar shoes to my own.

My shoes you ask? Huge and very full! I am the mother of several (four) lovely children with wild tempers and loving hearts. I am the wife of an emotional, kind, warm hearted snugly man. I have several cats (4 - this Phoebe and she is as cantankerous as she looks!) and a big hairy yellow dog, a small sometimes hairy white dog and am thinking about some fish. I am the owner of a lovely quilt shop and sewing store. I like to think I am a brave, creative, funny, intuitive. I know I am impulsive, intelligent, and gullible. I am dependable but impatient. I am terrible with money but I am great cook.  The good with the bad and the bad with the good.  :o)

I think I might be crazy to start doing this - who knows maybe I will do one post and never look at it again. Maybe this little blog with turn into somethings fabulous that propels my little business in the next level - where I want it to be!  Maybe, maybe, maybe.  One of the best parts of life is the whatifs!

I love a good tear jerker...

Last night, I spent most of the evening trying to load Anchor Pearl Cotton onto my website which I would have finished if I did not get so consumed by the movie I was watching.

My husband found me a copy of The Time Traveller's Wife.  It was so so good that I did not even look away from the TV.  I have watched lots of good movies lately - Avatar, Inglorious Bastards, and now Time Traveller's Wife.  Tomorrow is the Season 4 Premier of BIG LOVE so I won't be getting anything done during that hour either....  this is making me sound lazy.

Anyway, I have been working on listing all of the Anchor threads now that the DMC is finally done.  Sugar Shack is going to be a thread mecca.  In addition to the DMC and Anchor we have Caron, Kriniek, Mettler, Guterman, Sulky, Wonderfil, and Aurifil!

Anyway back to the movie.  I do not want to ruin it for anyone so I will just say that although it did not get a lot of press and has no huge action or special effects it is really touching.  It is based on The Time Traveler's Wife" is based on the best-selling book by author Audrey Niffenegger and starring Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams. I have now become a fan of Eric Bana - I always loved Rachel McAdams.  Anyway, such a good movie I have to read the book - it is always better!  I am so excited to read it.  The last book I read was a Mauve Binchy novel called Quentins, it was a good read - I like to use those kinds of light hearted books as filler between the intense historical fiction that is my passion.

I am all over the place with my post so before I fall into the danger of sounding like a lunatic, good by for now!