New Wool products are here!

Just received a big shipment of beautiful hand dyed wool fabric and kits from Woolylady for wool applique and fibre art! 

They will look great with the ideas from Sue Spargo in her new book and her hand dyed cotton threads from Valdani.

Grand Opening

It was a beautiful Fall day, with the sun shining outside and the butterflies in full flight inside!

Fall colours

Setting nerves aside, we gathered at the shop with a full complement of friends and family to set up refreshments  with a special surprise of `bubbly` and cake from my sister Brenda and her daughters Kara and Candace.

Congratulations!

A beautiful cake!

With customers waiting outside, we opened the doors shortly after 9:30. Things started humming right away and the store was packed within a matter of minutes with visitors from up and down  the valley from Salmon Arm, Vernon and Kelowna south to Oliver, Keremeos and Princeton! There was excitement in the air as veteran and new quilters alike expressed a warm welcome and their best wishes. 

Odessa - Customer number 1

Door greeters Rebecca (R) and friend Lisa

Quilt talk with Sam`s cousins Bev, Brenda and their friend

What a welcome to the community!  Flowers arrived throughout the day.  And Todd across the street at True Grain Bread even sent over a beautiful platter of fresh baked goodies!

Beautiful flowers

And more!

Thank you to everyone who showed up, with a special thanks to Mom, Brenda, Kara, Candace, Rebecca, Lisa and especially Marilyn for all your help yesterday and over the preceding weeks.  I couldn`t have done it without you.

We made it!

The window paper is down, the windows have been cleaned and the door is now open! After two months of hectic activity, a lot of anxiety, and long hours of help from Sam, Marilyn and Gary we opened the doors without fanfare Wednesday afternoon. And, we even had a few walk in customers.

Paper down and windows cleaned!

Windex - for those Final touches.

There is still a lot to do to get ready for our Grand Opening on Saturday Nov 10th, but we made it!

New Paint, Lights and Flooring!

Things are starting to come together.  After two long weeks of hard work, the store has a new look with a fresh coat of paint, new lighting and flooring.

New paint, lights and a floor!

Finishing the trim and moving in cabinets.

Cara assembling the cabinets 

Assembling shelves for stock

 In between final assembly and trim, and the upcoming Houston Quilt Market, we will soon be ready to start stocking the shelves.

Out of the House and on to Main Street!

Who said dreams don't come true?  For the longest time I have wanted to open a Quilt Store. Well it's finally happening.  Sometimes I just have to pinch myself!!

Last month after several months of site searches, planning and crossed fingers, things came together and we were able to sign a lease for a property on Main Street in Summerland!

Street view of the old Summerland dollar Store

Renovations started almost immediately with removal of old slat wall   Electrical and HVAC work is now done, painters are done, and flooring is scheduled for installation next week.

Interior looking to back of store

Interior view towards the street

10105-1 Main Street

There is still so much to do!  Over the last three weeks I have been meeting suppliers, ordered lots and lots of great fabric and am now lining up notions, books etc. Sam has helped coordinate the trades to prepare the space for business. I have ordered furniture and fixtures, been to Edmonton with Sam for training on the HandiQuilter  - YES!! - we are going to be carrying quilting machines. And, looking ahead, between setting up my booth at the local Penticton Quilters Guild Show (Oct 19th & 20th) and a trip to Houston for Market at the end of October to see the latest and greatest in quilts, fabrics, notions and everything else, we will be setting up the fixtures, receiving product and preparing for Grand Opening early November.

Cherry Tree Quilts (the store) will focus on Quilting, Fibre Art and Longarm sales and services.  We will be selling Quilting fabric and notions, Fil-Tec Thread and Bobbins, Fabric Art supplies and HandiQuilter Quilting Machines, with classes available on all themes.  I will still have my home studio for designing new projects and my own quilting.

Stay tuned for more information on store progress and news of our Grand Opening!  I can hardly wait to share all this with you.

Fall Studio Tour

There is a crisp coolness in the air in Summerland these days.  Daily highs of mid-20's are due to drop dramatically to mid-teens this week, just as we approach the Thanksgiving weekend!  Yet, all is well with the cooler weather as we head indoors into our studios and sewing rooms to get back to our love - Quilting!

For those of you out and about in the south Okanagan, we are again participating in the Summerland Art Trip Studio Tour, Oct 6th and 7th.

With the risk of changing weather I won't be able to hang my quilts around our yard as we could in the Spring Tour.  But, I have a quilt on my Long Arm and fabric art projects on my work table.  Drop by to see what exciting things are going on in our neck of the woods, and to chat about quilts, thread and fabric art.

They're here!

The new Glide colours are in!

My shipment of the new Fil-Tec colours is finally here.  Check out all these gorgeous new colours on my web-site. They are all available to order in both 5000m and 1000m spools.

My Fall teaching schedule is starting to firm up.  My fabric art series of 4 classes (Surface Design) at Linda's Quilt Shop in Kelowna has been set - its going to be a lot of fun as I have added several new techniques to those taught last year.

With the arrival this week of new threads, as well as assorted dyes and new embellishment materials, I am also working on my thread and fabric art displays for the fall quilt show season.  Come visit me at my booth this September 21st, 22nd and 23rd in Kelowna at the Orchard Valley Quilt and Fibre Arts Show, and at the Penticton Quilters Guild Show 2012 on the 19th and 20th of October. You can see all my new hand dyed fabric, fibre art supplies and kits, and check out the new Glide colours up close!

Well, its back to quilting.  I have a couple of customer quilts to finish today then I can finally get back to working on my own quilt show entries.

Where has the Summer gone?

My, but time has just flown by this summer.  Between a bit of  golf, a bit of camping and generally being lazy, my best laid plans to quilt and dye all July and August have 'faded' away (ha ha!).  Sometimes you just have to sit back and enjoy the view.

In July, Rebecca's best friend Sasha came for a visit from Ottawa.  Talk about `two peas in a pod`.  They had a blast, but like all visits, it was just too short and it was soon back to work for both of them.  But, Sasha had a great souvenir to take away - her very own quilt, pieced by Sasha and quilted by Barb!

July also marked the start of 'fruit season', starting with Cherries, then Apricots and now Peaches.  Apples will come later during September.  We are surrounded by Cherry Orchards and they had a bumper crop this year.  The sad thing was that the bottom dropped out of the local cherry market as fruit was being imported from the USA cheaper than could be picked here.  In this orchard close by, almost a quarter of the crop was left unpicked to dry on the trees!

Earlier this month Sam and I were 'fill-in' drivers for the Quilt Guild's entry in the Penticton Peach Festival Parade.  What a hoot - and not a little bit embarrasing (NOT!)!  The Guild are proud owners of a 'car quilt' and we were the only members available with a car to fit when Marilyn and Gary decided to head up to Babine Lake to go fishing.  So, Saturday morning we popped downtown, registered with Parade officials, moved into position and dressed up our little Escape SUV

The Quilt Car

Then two weeks ago we were introduced to my niece's new baby Abigail Rae. Of course, I got to play on a new 'project', a whole cloth baby quilt on white satin with an angel motif.

Abigail - a little angel!

I did finally get to try out my new dye house today - actually its my second batch as I tried out several new dye colours in light medium and dark combinations earlier this summer.  Now I have to order more dying fabric and start assembling kits for the fall quilt shows at Kelowna and Penticton.

My Dye House

Mixing the dyes

Teaching in Kitimat

Where, do you ask, is Kitimat?  The easy answer is: halfway up the west coast of BC - a two hour flight North from Vancouver to Terrace followed by a hour long drive to Kitimat.

I was contacted two months ago by the local guild about flying in for a weekend to teach. They have a very active, albeit isolated, guild.  Each year they conduct local fund-raising so they can bring in an instructor to teach.  This year, I was asked to teach my Big City Lights pattern (aka New York Beauty) and Fibre Layering. Since returning from Ottawa I was busy ordering supplies, printing patterns and assembling kits.  I flew up last Thursday and was met by wonderful people and spectacular scenery.  I taught Friday and Saturday and even had the local tour. I think I even had more fun then the quilty ladies!! A special thanks goes to Karen for organizing the trip, as well as my hosts Janet and Gary. What a fantastic weekend!!!

Fibre layering

Big City Lights

Some perspective!

Beautiful scenery

After the whirlwind weekend, I returned Sunday just in time to get ready for our long weekend camping trip.  When, oh when, will I get time to get back to quilting? Oh well, I should have most of July and August to quilt, dye new batches of fabric, design new art projects and get ready for the fall quilt shows.

Teaching and Celebrating in Ottawa

Busy, Busy, Busy!!  We barely had time to take a breath following the Summerland Artists Studio Tour before we left for Ottawa early June to attend our son Robert`s convocation ceremony at Carleton University.  After 5 years in the co-op program, he graduated With Distinction from the Computer Software Engineering program. Even better, he started a new job with a software firm two weeks before grad!

Our graduate!

Proud parents!

While in Ottawa, I was also able to touch base with Ann and my other friends at the Country Quilter to teach my Fibre Layering class.   What a lot of fun to see old friends and introduce them to my latest activities.  I like teaching this Fibre Layering class because every project is unique, from the hand-dyed fabrics through to the coordinating fibers and embellishments.  I teach the techniques - the overall layout design is entirely up to the inspiration of the student.

Laying out the project

Layering and embellishing

Quilting the top

The finished project

The finished project

Congratulations - each project is unique

Now - I'm off to the airport to catch a flight to Kitimat, BC, for my next quilting adventure.