The Big News of the Day

Big News!
Periwinkle Quilting has been around now for just over 15 years!

and the time has come for it to get a new owner! I have enjoyed so many aspects of this business -- most of all the creativity and joy that quilting adds to one's life. I experience it with every project I tackle, and am inspired by every photo I see, and each project that customers share. The second major blessing from this 15 year project has been interacting with both customers and the staff. Some of each have been around since the very beginning!

It is with real pleasure that I am handing over the store to Patti Erikson-Reynolds, who has recently had a bit if a break from being in the shop, but has over ten years working at the store. However, her real talent has been shopping for fabric, and she has over 20 years experience with that! she has had a longarm for the past several years, and has quilted a large numbers of the samples that you might have seen in the shop.
I am pretty excited to see what she has planned! I am sure that we will see her personality shine through in the fabrics and kits she will choose to stock in the future.
I am also happy to report that the current staff will largely stay the same, so you will be assured of their continued excellent service.

Which brings us to the topic of my "departure"...... I will be holding on to one aspect of the business-- Longarm Lucey! I am currently looking at various locations to set up a studio for her in Saskatoon. It will be a longarm rental service, and I might even venture into doing a bit of quilting for customers too! If you have any prepaid hours, they will just be applicable to Lucey wherever she is in Saskatoon. If you have any concerns or questions about the new location, just let me know, and I can give you more information. I have twisted Nancy's arm to come and help me in this new venture, too! Hooray!

which brings us to the topic of some Sales!
From now until the switcheroo, which should be around mid to late December, I will be offering some sales with two goals in mind. First, I want to celebrate that it's been pretty great to have the customers that we have walk through the door, and try to thank you by offering some great deals. Secondly, I want to get the inventory slimmed down a bit so that Patti has more leeway to bring in a whole whack of fresh stuff that will reflect her outlook.

It has been a great adventure! Now it's time to go on another journey.

BOGO Book Sale

BOGO

When I first saw the letters BOGO appearing in sale ads, I didn't know what they were talking about, so I googled it and found out that they stand for Buy One, Get One. 

So In this week's special, you can Buy One Book, Get One Book for Free!
Somehow I always buy so many books, that we get overstocked.  So if you buy any book at it's regular price, you can pick one of equal or lesser value to take along for free. 

This includes all books, and we have all sorts of them... books on Techniques, Learn to Quilt Books, Books that focus on precuts or special shapes like hexagons, embroidery books, coloring books, making handbags books, rug hooking books, ... there are sure to be books you want to take home and use. (or just peruse).  And don't forget the quilters on your gift list!

This special will go from right now through Saturday, November 19th, closing time.

Oh, and be sure to cast your vote for the viewer's choice in the Mini Quilt Challenge!  there are a lot of great minis that have been entered.
 

Mini Quilt Challenge!

yup, that's me there with the mini quilt! 

This October has been unexpectedly drab here in Saskatchewan, so I thought it would be fun to liven it up with a fun challenge! 

A Mini Quilt Challenge!

(Mini quilts are always so adorable.)

The Details:
Bring in a mini that you have made in the past 2 or 3 years to display until the end of November.   It will be eligible for a viewer’s choice award or you can designate it for “display only”.   
Voting will begin by the end of October, so the sooner you bring it in, the sooner it will start to garner votes!
The prizes!    🏆 

 Each entry will receive a fat quarter or a Periwinkle pattern .🏅🏅🏅🏅🏅🏅

 The Viewer’s choice winner will be able to pick out 25 fat quarters of their choice.🎖  

The first and second  runner ups will pick out 10 Fat quarters.  🎖🎖

Size: the mini should be smaller than 24 inches per side, so total perimeter not to exceed 96 inches.   

Ready Set Go! 🏇🚴🏇
                   

Our Row by Row pattern

I mentioned a while back that we are participating this year in a program called the row by row experience. it was this blog post here. It at that time I copied the information for how the program works. So if you are interested you can refer back to that post by clicking on that link.

The program starts on June 21. So to prepare for it, I had to decide on a pattern, sew it up, and plan on how to display it. It seemed simple at the start.  

however, first I had to decide on some sort of a design for our row.  

I sketched out a few ideas. The theme was water, so I focused on blues,

I started to test sew a few of the ideas.

and it wasn't too long before I had several possibilities: 

so I decided to sew them together into a simple row quilt, child sized to use as a sample.

i opted not to use any sashing between rows to keep it as simple as possible, and added only a 3" border of the white background.

the row I decided on for the pattern is the one that uses these strip pieced sections:

It uses a simple technique where you cut your background piece and insert a contrasting strip between the two pieces.  Just do that over and over....

i thought the design evoked the idea of rain, and it used many solids, so I am calling the pattern... Solid Rain!

Of course I had to sew parts again to work out the pattern, resulting in another project... for the table runner I used part of two different ideas, but still made it to be the 9" x 36" finished size, so a person can see the size of a table runner using only one row.

I quilted the projects very differently.  the baby quilt has very simple horizontal wavy lines.  the table runner is much more densely quilted.

I hope you have fun with the row by row idea, whether you collect any of the shop patterns or make a row quilt.  I think there is such a lot of potential from using a simple pattern as a jumping off point! 

i would love to see what you can make of this simple pattern!

You can pick up your free copy of the pattern starting on June 21st, and we're not allowed to send them out by mail or email, just hard copies given out at the store, so hopefully we'll see you soon!

Bulletin Board

Just doing some embroidery on the new bulletin board cover for the foyer of our new shop location, 

Using big stitches,,!

 

Moving Coupon

I just sent out an email to the mailing list for the store that includes a coupon for this month.  This is because we are moving to our new location on Broadway later this month, and it would be nice for people to come to our current, beloved space one last time before we dismantle it. 
It has been a very good space, and we will miss many things about it. 

This is the coupon, if you aren't on the mailing list,

 Periwinkle Quilting and Beyond    933-3072
#105-2105 8th St E Saskatoon, Sask, (in Grosvenor Park Mall)

Special Coupon:
40% off one item of your choice
   (  one coupon per customer, valid until Feb 20, 2014 only, 3m limit of cut battings)

Name ____________________________________
Phone number:__________________________________________

    
also keep your eye out for other moving specials that might arise as the month progresses!

Planning!

Well this is me in a hotel in Chicago, we're here for a few days for Richard to attend a conference

It is pretty overcast and dreary and slushy

Yesterday I went in several stores, not to shop for stuff, but to look at their displays and fixtures!  Yes, my brain is accumulating a bulliten board of ideas for our new store space!

I am looking forward to picking up the keys when I get back to Saskatoon and just spending some time in the space, getting a feel for the size and the possibilities! 

One thing is for sure, those rows of lights have got to go!