Are you a lover of joyful little rolls of scrappy strips? We’ve got you covered.
Well, it’s officially July – and the Summertime livin’ is still easy…except now I’m filling it up with more sewing projects!
On the heals of my recent introduction of our newest Happy Scrappy Stack additions in the shop – I wonder if it’s obvious enough that I kind of have a thing for assembling fabrics that cozy up comfortably with one another. What’s more, even though it does take a little time, I kind of get a kick out of cutting fabric up and assembling it into tidy little, inspiring bundles for you (and for me!).
Okay – so I get that it’s taken me a hot minute to introduce what the above IG-posted images are all about, but great things require time and evoooolving, friends! Continue reading “Oh, the Bundles We Grow!”→
The long and short of it is that Spring gets me every time. By ‘gets’ – I mean that more than any other time of the year, Spring inspires me to whip up something great; something adventurous and cheery; bright and sunny; joyful and quite obviously – Springy. So when miraculously at Fall Quilt Market 2017,I won a fat quarter bundle of Crystal Manning’s Painted Garden collection, Continue reading “Painted Gardens and a Springy Serendipity Sandbox-Style Sewing Project”→
Back in what sometimes feels like the olden days, when my family was young and growing, I remember feeling like there was always tons of planning and organizing going on. In those days, we went the grocery store once a week with a detailed list. We organized that list by section from back of the store to the front, because that’s the order in which my ducklings and I proceeded throughout the store.
It’s true. They were perfectly perfect, JUST like this, walking in a straight line behind me. Honest! (memories have a magical way of smoothing themselves into hindsight perfection, don’t they?)
…where it aligns you with people, things and situations that match the energy you put out. The more you improve yourself and raise your vibration, the more you will see things that are beneficial to your well being.”
No one seems to know who actually said the above, most magically thoughtful, words (please speak up if you do!) – but they speak absolute volumes to me every time I read them!
I know, I know…it’s been a while, again! That said, what a wonderful November we had at Serendipity Woods Shop! While it’s true that we’ve been bringing in lots of pretty new individual fabrics every day, we’ve also brought in some pretty full collections too, like…
Mon Ami by Basic Grey for Moda FabricsRedwork Revival by Color Principle for Henry Glassand Hazel by Allison Harris of Cluck, Cluck, Sew for Windham
We’re also extra excited for the continued growth of our very own cheerily entitled Happy Little Bundles section. It’s actually the fastest growing section of our shop!
Some of our newest bundles include:
Dandy Turtles 8 Piece Bundle, including fabrics from Riley Blake as well as our newest manufacturer, Lecien.Our Happy Little Aquas Bundle, featuring fabrics by Moda, Robert Kaufman Kona, and Studio E.…And despite the fact that Halloween has technically passed this year, our Happy Little Halloween Bundle of fabrics from various Moda lines continues to be very popular!
But I really want to tell you about another new addition that’s arrived in the Happy Little Bundles section – we call them Happy Little Scrappy Stacks, and they look like this:
Happy Little Scrappy Stacks…
…and a lap full for Sophie, who’s feeling quite festive these days.
with pretty bows…
Happy Little Scrappy Stacks are made up of 100 – 2.5″ precision cut pieces of 50 different fabrics. ‘How am I supposed to make a quilt out of that?’ you ask?
Easy peasy. Here’s one for ya…
2015 Serendipity Woods Happy Scrappy Stack Quilt
…you pair each of your 100 – 2.5 squares with some 2.5″ Kona Snow strips to go around each one (sewn just like a log cabin block only without so many rounds), use 1.5″ strips of Kona Medium Grey (or any other handsome solid that strikes your fancy) for sashing strips, sandwich it, quilt it, toss on a binding – and you’ve got a 72″ square Happy Scrappy Quilt. It goes together quite quickly too!
This week, I’m moving on to creating a quilt with Hazel – a line mentioned above by Allison Harris of Cluck, Cluck, Sew. You may or may not see what I see, but I’m in love with this fabric line because even though it’s awfully springy – it has struck me from the start as quietly and JOYFULLY Christmassy too. I’ve decided to whip up up a quilt designed by Lori Holt (of Bee in my Bonnet/Farm Girl Vintage fame) called Sugar Stars.
Springy ,yet quietly and JOYFULLY Christmassy too – Hazel.
Happy December, friends. I’m going to work really hard at getting right back here by week’s end with a post of my finished Sugar Stars Hazel quilt. Thanks, as always, for sticking with me 🙂
Whew! What a whirlwind of a July and already HALF of August! Happy Thursday, All. I’m inclined to apologize once again for how long I’ve been away from my CLH Blog, but as is abundantly clear to me now – the early dynamics of having a Quilt fabric business are more than a bit consuming! With that in mind, how about if I don’t apologize, and just get right at what I’ve been up to! Perhaps I’ll categorize a bit as well, so my head doesn’t just explode onto my keyboard in a completely nonsensical manner…
First – A few views of our shop, this very day:
I can’t decide whether or more excited about all the new fabric we’ve accumulated to share with you, or the clever storage design Superman has come up with, which houses everything in such a versatile way! In case you wondered, from left to right (atop each structure) is Mrs. Peabody Owl, Gracie Elephant, Big Sophie Bunny, and Gloria Bear (oh, and the ever-present Charlie in her newest yellow dress, not wishing to be left out).Though not originally intended, we found that not only does the peg idea work great for housing fabric bolts, but also – if we employ a simple 1/4″ smooth board, they work wonderfully as a shelf holder for precuts and other quilty wares.Truly, no matter how much my studio begins to resemble an actual quilt shop, all it takes is for me to turn my back for just one second, and my animal friends determine a comfortable spot upon which to perch (perhaps in fear of becoming irrelevant – which, I remind them just in case – is not possible).
Studio photos aside, things have been going really great and we’re learning lots! While Superman continues to navigate brilliantly through the financial logistics, storage solutions, and just cheering me on in general, I’ve been having great fun interacting with so many new and returning customers, as I ship them the treasures they’ve been finding in our little shop.
Especially popular in our shop:
If you haven’t yet heard, this has been one heck of a FARM GIRL SUMMER! We’ve sold (and reordered, and sold, and reordered several more times) more of Lori Holt’s Farm Girl Vintage book than any other item in our shop. Along with the book, folks have scooped up an assortment of Lori’s Modern Minis precuts as well, since this quilt, by definition, is as scrappy as the day is long – Precuts are working great for it! In addition, Lori has also collaborated with Aurifil to create a perfect thread collection for use with all of her fabric designs (not just the current one). We’re enjoying plunking it, and all of Lori’s happy designs into the post for our customers.
One more thing I have to admit – I’ve been bitten by the Farm Girl Bug myself! A few of my blocks…
We’ve also had some pretty impressive (and unexpected) success with all kinds of patterns in our shop!
We’ve done our best to select patterns that support precuts, since as we launched our shop – Precuts were some of the first items we stocked.
While we still put emphasis on selling precuts because they’re so versatile, we’ve started to also carry yardage. Recently, we picked up the whole line of Tree of Life by Sue Zipkin for Clothworks.
While we’re still learning about just what will be popular at our shop, Tree of Life was a complete no brainer. Sue Zipkin’s art is beautiful from every angle!
Okay – so I think I ought to wrap this post up so I can get some much needed sewing done! Before I do that, I wanted to share one more recent addition to our shop that I’m particularly excited about. To preface, we’ve been thinking about the fact that an awful lot of quilting going on today is of the scrappy nature. So great quality fabrics at great prices for stash building is important to you, and we’re on it! We’re thrilled to introduce a whole dedicated shop section called Serendipity SALE. It’s all the same premium quality fabric we pride ourselves in carrying (Currently from Penny Rose and Riley Blake – but look for more manufacturers as we go along!), all at $3.00 per half yard/$5.95 per yard.
I’ll bet you know that I’ve lots more I’m dying to spill into this post – but how about if I just hold tight and give you a ‘Next up’ hint…It’s scrappy, classic, and interactive – all at the same time. Stay tuned!
