Dream Believe Be

Recently Linda had the great idea to host a Jelly Roll Race at the store. A great time was had by all and the proceeds from the sign ups went to MS. Below are some of the resulting quilts.

Of course with so many stunning quilts, the discussion naturally turned to what else you could do with this concept. Below is a Jelly Roll quilt that my Mom pieced with 40 white on cream 2 1/2" inch strips. Instead of joining the strips on the diagonal as with the original concept, she joined the strip with 2 1/2" brightly coloured solid squares, letting the colours fall where they may, like confetti.

I was so pleased with the blank pallet that this quilt allowed. I asked Linda to quilt it with a very whimsical overall effect, in very bright colours. Isn't it great? Can you find the message in this quilt?

Here is a close-up of the words!

Dream, Believe, Be

I saw these words once on a piece of jewellery and I love the message.

Here is a close-up of some of Linda's incredible, and as requested, whimsical quilting.

Linda you are amazing!

A little something from Quilt Sampler

Some of you may recall that Katja's Quilt Shoppe was featured in the Fall 2008 issue of Quilt Sampler Magazine.

This was a very exciting time for us and a huge honor. Each issue features 10 top shops across the USA and Canada. Not every issue contains a Canadian shop. At most one Canadian store is features amongst the 10 shops.

One of the pictures featured in our article was a mini Cathedral Window quilt that my Mom made for me as a Christmas gift several years ago. Later she also made a slightly smaller version for Linda (who brings my Mom her Starbucks fix every Friday). I was reminded of this today while reading Linda's blog at http://www.lindasquiltmania.blogspot.com/

Below is the picture from the Quilt Sampler article along with the original quilt beneath it. My quilt is 5 1/2" x 7 1/4".

My Mom loves to challenge herself by working in miniature. I have been the fortunate recipient of a mini Double Wedding Ring quilt, a mini Baltimore Album, a 1/4 scale Thimbleberries quilt made from leftovers from the original full sized quilt, as well as projects made from 1/4" hexagons. Look for more of her miniature creations in upcoming posts.

Friday at the shoppe!

Jeannie dropped off a wonderful present the other day in the form of an old door. Isn't it great? Here it is in the process of being scrubbed.



Look at the beautiful new Thimbleberries that arrived today.

It's Friday so Linda dropped by to bring my Mom tea (Starbuck's Tazo Chai Tea Latte). Here they are hard at work, or is that play?

Greg popped in to choose borders for his quilt top. Didn't he do a great job?

Miracles really do happen

This was the view from my deck last night!

It was actually a full double rainbowwith shodows of a third at times.

I took the top picture on a landscape setting and the bottom one on a sunset setting. My Mom and I went outside and admired this miracle for at least half an hour. I couldn't stop taking pictures it was so breathtaking.

Learning lessons

Lesson #1 - Always use spellcheck

Lesson #2 - Always re-read for content before hitting the publish button

Lesson #3 - Never say never

I've been planning in my head just what types of things you might want to hear about on this blog. Let me know and I will try to accomodate.

So, now that Carla has let everyone know on her blog www.graceandfavour.ca that I've entered the blogging world. I will attempt to get some regular posting going. Watch for new fabrics as they arrive, iIdeas in the planning...etc...etc...etc...

By the way, I'm still trying to figure this all out. So for the first while you may notice that the font and pics don't always look the same.

The oh so scary internet

OK, so in 2008 I decided it would be a good thing to have a blog. I have looked at it several times over the last three...that's 3...yes THREE years! However, being a mite Internet UN-savvy, I have resisted the urge(translate that as found any excuse not to) to do anything further about it. I have been prodded by kind friends. It has been suggested to me by well-meaning customers that perhaps (nudge, nudge, kick in the backside) I should stop procrastinating and do something about that BLOG that I oh so conveniently kept "forgetting" about.

I am hereby committing to post to this blog a minimum of once weekly!

There! Written in blood!