It's Time to Talk about Winners

We've acquired a small list of winners over the past month, so we're going to announce them now.

First up, congratulations to our block-challenge winner. Each spring, we decide on one challenging fabric, and many quilters make a block from it. Then everyone votes on their favorite block during our open house. This year it was very, very close--but the winner was Deb H., whose block looks like this:


Nicely done, Deb, and excellent use of the Paula Nadelstern fabric! Stop by to pick up your $75 gift basket, which contains 2 fat-quarter 6-packs, an Asian Vase kit, an embellishment book, and a pattern called "Home is Where the Quilts Are":



Going back to our Anniversary Open House as well, Kathy R. and Martha T. each won door prizes for knitting...

and quilting...


And finally, we also are thrilled to announce a winner from last week's contest. Several people guessed that Cynthia was knitting a squirrel, and one even guessed a giraffe. Good guesses everyone (although... okay... there is not much orange anywhere on a squirrel....). The correct answer is.... a penguin. Congratulations to Deb K., who won the adorable Fiber Trends penguin pattern!

What is Cynthia thinking?

What do you think Cynthia is thinking about making with this new yarn, in a kind-of orange....


And black....

Is it for Halloween? Could be. But look! She is also using a bright white that really, truly felts....


And a little bit of fuzz....
What on earth is she going to make?

Guess! And send your guess to stitchyourartout AT yahoo DOT com. If you're randomly chosen out of everyone who gets it right, you will win a free copy of the pattern that Cynthia is using to make........ well, what's your guess? Guesses are due by midnight on Friday, July 20.

What's New?

We have all kinds of things going on! The fall yarn shipments we ordered in June are starting to trickle in, and already we have our Christmas fabrics! (We ordered those in February!) We have all kinds of nifty stuff to show you, so here's a little tour....

Let's start with our newest thing--beads!


We have an assortment of size 6 (for knitting and quilting embellishment) and size 11 (for quilting embellishment). Plus we have Swarovski crystals in both sew-on and iron-on styles--you pick! We're going to be getting more styles and colors in as the summer goes on, so keep checking back as we expand our selection. We're thrilled with the quality and beauty of the Japanese beads we've selected! Also, we're going to be offering knitting and quilting with bead classes this fall, so look for those in your fall newsletter, coming out at the end of August.

Let the tour continue with some of our new yarns. We're in the middle of replenishing sock yarns, and we have new colors of Mountain Colors Bearfoot:

We also have new colors of Step (this sock yarn has Aloe in it for extra comfort). We have a new cotton yarn from Skacel called Sockina, which is self-striping and very comfortable! Coming soon: Trekking natural, and Cherry Tree Hill hand-dyed.

Along with the Christmas fabrics, we have a new collection from Benartex called Winsome. It is soft and pretty, and great for either baby quilts (the coordinates are beautiful with our Beatrix Potter fabric) or for grown-ups. Be sure to see the darling quilt Kim is making up from these!


We continue to love our Emperor II fabrics from Kona Bay. Only 1,000 shops in the country stock them, and we're one of them!


And we're getting a lot of new patterns in. We're loving our new tablerunners! Cynthia made this one, called Waffle Time:


And Kim made this one (which would also double as a wall hanging), called Kabuki:


We love the tabs on the outside--so interesting!

And guess what? We also have a wonderful, new air conditioner. At the moment, it is our most favorite new thing of all! So come in to our nice, cool store, and enjoy all our new things!

Hi! We haven't forgotten about you. We've been busy, but we wanted to take a moment to let you know what's going on.

Summer is a time to refresh ourselves and our shop. Our last couple weeks have been spent renewing our shop environment--rearranging fabric and yarn, creating and hanging new samples, discovering and ordering new product. We've also been planning for fall and winter. New fabrics and yarn are beginning to arrive so we're also making room to highlight our new collections.

In a couple of days, we'll tell you more about what we've been doing and what we have in store. Back to work!

Damp but Done

We're not sure how, but we're always getting ourselves into ... situations. This one was all about a flamingo. (And a hedgehog.) (And Cynthia.)

Here is their story.

It started with an email from "Whad’Ya Know?" The NPR program was coming to Penn State (it will be here this Saturday at 11:00), and they asked us to donate "quirky prizes." We thought hard and decided that to a national audience, a 6-pack of fat quarters and a Yarn Buddy might sound quirky.

Then they looked at our website. Apparently when they saw that, they thought we were even quirkier, and so they asked us if we also wanted to have some quirky props on stage as well. It was impossible to turn down that offer.

We thought and thought. It was hard to think of a quirky quilt, but we chose Kim's rainbow-bright block of the month quilt, which is at least very pretty and showy.

We already had a felted purple-and-pink hedgehog. But the hedgehog was kind of small for Eisenhower Auditorium. We believed we needed something more. Something like... "Hey, would you like me to make you a felted flamingo?" Cynthia offered to Sarah, the show's coordinator.

Sarah (who is way smarter than Cynthia) hesitated. "That would be great--actually, our program's theme is flamingos--but wouldn't it be hard to make one in a week?"

Cynthia, who is a terminal optimist, who thinks that every task takes only half the time it actually takes, assured her that it would be no trouble--no trouble at all.

The deal was sealed. There was no turning back, no room for national public humiliation. And so Cynthia began to knit. She made the legs first, since they were easy back-and-forth knitting. These were done during our drive together to Columbus, Ohio. Don't worry--Kim did the driving while Cynthia knit.

The other leg and tail were made in the hotel room.

And then there was a little hitch. The novelty yarn for the body was back in State College, and we were in Columbus.

Now, at Columbus, we were at a huge wholesale yarn market. We were buying yarn for all of next year. We were surrounded by more yarn than you could possibly imagine, miles and piles and mountains of yarn--and yet we had no yarn we could use for the flamingo. We thought of Fed Ex, but the yarn wouldn't arrive till the day we left.

"Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink."
--Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner."

So the rest of the flamingo was put on hold until we returned.

Home late Monday night. We needed to prepare for our store's 4th anniversary celebration. There was no time during the day on Tuesday for knitting, as we worked getting the store ready. Cynthia began knitting Tuesday night.

And continued Wednesday night. (Cynthia's Kevin, who could see that the flamingo still needed quite a bit of work by bedtime Wednesday, wondered aloud if Cynthia was knitting an albatross instead of a flamingo.)

Thursday began, and we were ready for our anniversary sale. The flamingo had no head.

It was anniversary day and Cynthia really couldn't stay home. So she stayed in the store in case it got too busy, but she hid in the closet behind the counter. All day long, she knitted relentlessly. She emerged to eat lunch and use the bathroom, and, once, to help Kim. Her arms were aching, her shoulders were aching, and even the muscles in her temples were sore. The words and numbers for the pattern blurred on the page, and as she worked she chanted over and over the counts for the short-rows that would shape the head: "Knit 47, wrap and turn, knit 43, wrap and turn, knit 41, wrap and turn"--and she kept knitting.

She devised her own short rows that made the flamingo's bill more anatomically correct than the bill on the original pattern. (Kim said she had one chance to modify the bill, and if it didn't work, she was to follow the pattern. This was motivating.)

By 4:30, the flamingo was completely knitted and ready to have its seams sewn. Cynthia sewed for an hour till closing, went to a knitting-guild picnic and sewed there a little, and then finished up the sewing and felted it at home.

It was just about done. Overnight, it dried in the coordinating pink bathtub, with a fan pointed at it.


Friday morning, it was not dry, but it was as done as it was going to be, so she stuffed it. She used little plastic pellets to weight it down. (They scattered everywhere. She will be finding little plastic pellets in her house for months to come.) Oops--let's not forget to sew on the eyes!

And then the flamingo was ready for its delivery at Eisenhower auditorium at 11:42--minutes and minutes before the deadline of noon on Friday. She grabbed the Rainbow Bright quilt, gathered her animal friends, and ran to Eisenhower. It was fun to watch the set up:


And the flamingo and the hedgehog were excited to be on stage, waiting for the program to begin:


And Cynthia went home, relieved.

Now that you know about our flamingo story, please be sure to listen to the radio, station 91.5, this Saturday at 11:00. You should hear our store being mentioned, and you will personally know the flamingo who is on national radio!

We are busy preparing for our 4th Anniversary sale, which starts Thursday, June 7th, and runs through Wednesday, June 13th. We hope to see you!

We've marked some yarns at Buy 1, Get 1 Free, some at Buy 1, Get 2 Free, and even some at Buy 1, Get 4 Free. In addition, we have other yarns priced at 20%-60% off. We also have marked a selection of fabrics at $2.00, $4.00, and $6.00 a yard.

Don't forget that if you sign up and pay for summer classes before the 13th, then you can take 10% off your class registration fee.

So stop by, say hi, and check out our celebration prices!

At the Printer

The newsletter is at the printer. It should be out in about a week, so start looking for it soon! We have a lot of excitement coming up, including our 4th Anniversary in June.

There is still time to do the block challenge before the deadline of June 2 at 5:30.

Here's what happens when you enter our challenge. Last year, we gave people this fabric to work with:
We had many wonderful blocks that came in! We have just finished a lap-quilt top made from some of them:

How beautiful is that? (We can't take any credit, so we'll go ahead and fuss over it!) We're going to donate it to the Quilt Guild's Hearts and Hands charity. Maybe it will become an auction quilt; maybe it will go to someone in need. Wherever it is wanted, it will go.

This year's fabric looks like this:


We bet you can do something pretty neat with it! So enter our challenge, and have a little piece of yourself go to a worthy place. (And have a chance of winning a $75 gift basket, while you're at it!)

Look for many fun events at our anniversary open house, coming up in June. We have lots of great classes this summer, and we're excited that you'll have the list of them in your hands soon!