Road Trip

Yesterday afternoon we got in the car and drove to Edmonton! Yay!  Left Saskatoon about 1 p.m. and drove straight through, about 5 hours.  The photos are taken from a swiftly moving car, so might be a bit blurred.  Got here and checked into hotel, then headed out for a party at the university for the Scandinavian/Germanic group here. 
Now we need to plan out the day, hope to fit in visits to some favorite shops, Yay! michelle

Friday Morning Bustle

Yesterday was a typical day at the shop.

Got there a bit early to meet a sales rep.  She has the best fabric, but it takes a few hours to go through.  The reps usually use rolling suitcases to bring the samples.  Some of the samples are on paper, but this time most of them were real cloth headers. She comes every few months, and we do orders for about 4 or 5 months ahead.  This time it was a lot of Christmas fabric.  We start by making coffee.  Then, she lays out all the samples and tells me details about when it's available, what it's called, whether there are patterns or pre-cuts available to go with the group, assorted trivia, etc.  There is usually a huge mountain of samples in front of me when she's done.  Along the way, I jot down notes about what groups I like, when they're available, or if there are particular things I need to remember.      The photo above was taken when we already had put away a lot of stuff.  I like to do all this, but it's a bit nerve-wracking.  I sort of have to imagine what we'll be wanting for the future, and hope that I choose things that my customers will be looking for, and try to co-ordinate that with what we already have on order.  So we put in orders for at once, and for every month until August.  I already have other orders from her that go until April or May. 

At some point I heard a delivery come in, and so popped out to see what it was:

Just one box of fabric, some odds and ends that we needed.

Finished about noon. 

Braided Rugs

I love braided rugs, of course.  For a few years we offered a class on how to do this at the store, and if you were lucky enough to have taken this you know how good a teacher Dianne is.  I took this class and was hooked!  To date, I've made over a dozen of them, in various sizes, but all round or oval.  I love the way they feel under my feet.  I've made them from 100% wool and from mysterious fabrics with mixed fiber content, but my favorites are the wool.  The one pictured here is under construction and it will be a monster size.  It's about 6' x 9' now, and I intend to take it up to the cabin, but for now it's in my sewing room, where it attracts a lot of threads.  However, it is so nice to walk on that I think it will be here all winter.
I am currently writing a How to make a Braided Rug Tutorial, so that will be coming up later!
michelle

Spoonflower Fabrics, (again)

 This was a post from a little while ago, but I edited to make the link to spoonflower work, and it is now re-posting.  I suppose over time i will learn how to do things more efficiently on the technical side of things.
Ok I'm home,  and have immediately connected to the internet.  Came across this amazing web-site http://www.spoonflower.com/ .  It seems to be a company that will print custom fabric for you for about $20.00 a meter! Wow, this is incredible!  For any of you who are interested in controlling all aspects of your design, this is a momentous discovery.  They have some videos on the site to explain how to do this.  Right now they have a contest for steampunk designs.

Saturday Block #12, Spinning Top

Yesterday (Friday) afternoon I drove up to Sled Lake, where we have a cabin.  Haven't been here since November.  There is a lot of snow!  I can't use my laptop because it doesn't seem to have a modem in it, so I can't load any photos, so I'm using Richard's.  Fortunately I had started this post yesterday so I have the photo of today's block in the pastel colorway, but I can't put up the red and white colorway.  I will take lots of photos while I'm here tho!

This is the block for Saturday: