Laurel Burch News

We have just received Fanciful Felines - a great new collection from Laurel Burch that brings back her often-requested cats! This is the first of many new collections that Laurel's family will be introducing in her memory over the coming years.



In addition to the cats, we also received a wonderful line of Laurel Burch basics which coordinate wonderfully with this new collection.



Stop by to see this wonderful fabric line.

Batik News

Great news for all of us batik fanatics! A new line from Moda just arrived---Leaf Reflections Batiks. Beautiful patterns in shades of teal, jade, grass, bark, brick, sand and burgandy. We also just received a line of pastel batik stripes. Come on in and check them out!

Toys for Tots

We are an official drop-off site this year for the U.S. Marine Corps Toys for Tots Foundation. "The primary goal of Toys for Tots is to deliver, through a shiny new toy at Christmas, a message of hope to needy youngsters that will motivate them to grow into responsible, productive, patriotic citizens and community leaders." Please help by donating a new or gently used toy, unwrapped, in our box. For more information or other ways to help and more donation sites, visit the Toys for Tots website. We thank you for caring and helping this holiday season!

Kaffe Fassett

Kaffe Fassett is here in town and the first workshop is going on today, Friday, at the Sheraton Hotel. We can still accomodate a few more people at his "Kaleidoscope of Color" lecture tomorrow, October 20, Saturday evening at 7 p.m. The lecture will be held at the Grace Church, 200 Sage Road, Chapel Hill, 27514. The fee is $20 and you may pay at the door.
We will have copies of Kaffe's new book, Quilts in the Sun, available for purchase.
Doors will open at 6:30.

Directions:http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&time=&date=&ttype=&q=200+Sage+Road,+Chapel+Hill,+NC&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=30.599615,57.919922&ie=UTF8&ll=35.955777,-79.01556&spn=0.030501,0.056562&z=14&iwloc=addr&om=1

Deer in the headlights?

No, a deer in the quilt shop! We arrived Saturday morning to find a buck had crashed through the front window of the Bernina room, landing right on an Artista 640. Fortunately it happened just minutes before we arrived to open the store, so no one was in the room at the time. He turned around and went right back out the way he came in, leaving a huge mess of broken glass and blood behind. The deer was badly injured and the police told us he died on someone's front porch in a nearby neighborhood. Customers started arriving and we had a class starting, so closed the door to that room and kept right on going. We found a very efficient company, Servpro, who sent two hard workers to take care of the clean-up and board up the broken window. They arrived within two hours and did a great job. We have said it before... that you just never know what will happen next, even in a little quilt shop!!

Stash Dash-it's almost time

OK, so if you have never done Stash Dash you are probably wondering what the fuss is all about! So here you go: The theme this year is "Think Outside the Blocks." The event goes on for 3 days-this coming Thursday, Friday and Saturday. You buy a little passport ($5) at one of the participating 8 stores, (and if you get it right now we still have a few collector's pins!) Starting on Thursday, you visit each store, be sure to get your passport stamped at the stamping station, and you will be given a free pattern. The pattern will be one of eight parts of a quilt, and you will see eight different versions of THE official Stash Dash quilt made up in each store. Feel free to take photos, as at your last store you get to vote on your favorite quilt. Each store will offer you a 20% off coupon for one item of your choice. Door prizes will abound, (see photo of our sea of goodie bags!!) and you are likely to run into every quilter in the Triangle at one store or another.

The stores this year: Us of course, in Raleigh: Bernina World of Sewing, Sew Unique, and Carolina Sew-n-Vac, in Cary: Etc, Crafts and Elegant Stitches, in Wake Forest: Quilts Like Crazy, and in Selma: Whistle Stop Quilt Shop.

Now, here is the big kicker: Turn in your passport at your last store and you will be entered in the Grand Prize drawing which is a fabulous selection of 16 big prizes, including 3 sewing machines, notions, fabric, tools, etc!

So quilters, do not miss this fabulous event, and if you show up in our store toward the end of the day, bring wine or margaritas, or mojitos (for the staff that is...!)

See you soon. And if you were thinking of just regular fabric shopping this weekend, better wait til Sunday!

Flower Sale

SALE!! We have 100's of bolts of gorgeous florals on sale. Celebrate the rain with us by getting a garden quilt started! They are 35% off and going fast! Sale continues through Saturday 10-5.
Hope to see you here...

Jelly Rolls

We just got in these new Moda Jelly Rolls-the bright ones are called "Alien Invasion" by Amy Bradley and the other ones are from a collection called "Shangri La". The Shangri La Jelly Rolls come in these cute little suitcase-style tins that is perfect for holding sewing notions. They come with a free pattern inside too. So what is a Jelly Roll you ask? Well it's pretty new if you are feeling out of the loop, but they are 2.5" strips perfectly pre-cut for you and tightly rolled into an irresistable little package. And what do you do with them? Well, make a quilt of course...and to help with that we have lots of patterns that use 2.5' strips. Endless fun!

Keep Cool and Sew

Wow, it's been a long time since we posted. Where did August go? School starts tomorrow and the weather forecast promises a little relief from the record breaking heat. Thank goodness. It's been a good month for staying inside and sewing, so I guess we shouldn't complain, since we have such a great indoor hobby. So what have we been up to at Thimble Pleasures? We reorganized the store a little bit, so don't panic when you walk in and there's Christmas fabric, where Kaffe used to be! Kaffe has a new and bigger location along the wall where all the florals used to be. We're not sure where the florals went... The loads of new fabric Julie bought after Spring Market are arriving. We just put out some new bright pastel batiks that are gorgeous. There's a new Fusions collection-a roses print in many colors. If you like sheep there is a group of sheep fabrics that are adorable. Hope you all have been sewing cause its almost time for Fall Market! My machine has been whirring away all weekend. Two small quilts are almost done. I'll post some photos when I can take them in the daylight!
Karen

Hot new notion

These beautiful new Olfa rotary cutters just arrived and we can hardly resist them. They are decorated with orange or plum Calanthas, and just make cutting your new fabric even more fun.

Halloween fabrics are arriving and some are not even out of the box yet, but if you get started soon, you could have a wallhanging ready by Halloween. Come by, its cool in here!

Cool new stuff

We have a whole new assortment of fun embellishing products, like Bead Soup, Bead Gravy, Oliver Twist, Boucle, Radiance and Eyelash yarns, lots of new colors of Paintstiks and Angelina fibers. Oooh, ooh, just so enticing. Plump bolts of spectacular Alexander Henry's keep showing up, and if you haven't seen Jason Yenter's new collection from In the Beginning Fabrics, come quick as some are just about gone. The collection is called Floragraphix and is a luscious mixture or florals and graphix in 22 (whoops, 21 now) different prints. I took a photo but it didnt do them justice so just come see!

Quilting for Teens

We are back from Bernina University and our heads are spinning with new ideas. We are all working on integrating some of what we learned , with new quilts, classes and techniques to keep bringing you fresh inspiration. Meanwhile, while we were gone, our wonderful staff filled up the store with new goodies. (fabric!) So come see! We keep finding new bolts that we had not yet seen.

Coming up soon, with space still available, is our first-ever quilting class especially for teens, 13 and up. If they are just a little familiar with the use of the sewing machine they can take this class. They will make a simple and gorgeous, large, throw-size quilt using the fabric of their choice. We carefully scheduled this class during the late summer so that most teens would be back from camp or vacation, but had not started school. Stop by to see the beautiful sample made by our teacher, Kristie Taylor, using Amy Butler's fabrics. (pictured above) The class starts Monday August 6 and will be held from 2-4pm,then will continue on Tues, Thursday and Friday of that week.

Greetings from Orlando

We are writing from 18 floor of the Hyatt Regency overlooking Disney and Epcot. There is the most outrageous pool you have ever seen, however we have only had time to get in it once! Our butts are sore from sitting in classes all day and learning all we can about what's coming up from Bernina. We will remember as much as we can and share it with you when we get back. Some new machines have been unveiled along with new books and embroidery software from Ricky Tims that you will love.
See you soon!!
Julie, Gail, Celeste and Karen

I'M BACK

I"M BACK!!!!!!! I can't tell you how good it is to be back amongst my friends- the fabric bolts... and it has been great seeing all of you, too!
I hope the group is enjoying themselves in Florida, at Bernina Universtiy. I can not believe they left Kathleen and myself in charge. Of course Jean, Kathryn, Lisa and Lea are keeping a close eye on the two of us. We have been warned about completely re-arranging everything and confusing everybody.
Kathleen did get into several of the new arrival boxes. That's her favorite thing to do. She pulled the Floragraphix (from "In the Beginning" fabrics) out. They are fabulous. Lisa, Kathleen and I have naturally already cut ourselves some. There was an arrival of new boxes yesterday and I just might get into them (even before Kathleen!).
It really is great being back. I've missed the interaction with all of you. We really do have the best customers in the world. See you all soon- Diane

Bernina University

Julie, Celeste, Gail and Karen are heading off to Bernina Unversity in Orlando on Saturday. Bernina has all sorts of cool things planned for us, so we hope to come back with lots of new ideas to share with you. Diane will be back working in the store on Saturday, and she and Kathleen, Lea, Kathryn, Lisa and Jean will be holding the fort down for us while we're gone. So be sure to come by and give them a hard time! (and buy lots of fabric, cause the store is busting at the seams!)

Quilting at the Beach

I spent last week at Corolla Light on the Outer Banks, and in between the delightful weather and plenty of beach time, I taught my neices how to quilt. Pictured on top is Rachel, 17, working on an Itty Bitty Bag and below are Christina and LeeAnn, both 10, with their finished quilts! They did all the piecing, machine quilting, the binding, and even the hand-stitching themselves. It was a great experience for me, and they were just tickled and so proud of their quilts and Rachel of her new purse. We had a sewing room all to ourselves, (the boys had a pool room!) two Berninas, and lots of great fabric as you can see! What fun, I highly recommend getting kids sewing at age 10 or so. They can reach the foot pedal, are great at following directions and have the attention span to keep working until the project is done. I am so proud of them!

Karen

Well, we no sooner get one entry made and another two big boxes of fabric show up at our door. Here are pictures of Free Spirit prints from a collection called Inspiration, by Terri Mangat.

Kathleen returned from her trip to New York with great things to say about this quilt shop in Victor, New York. It's called The Ivy Thimble and their store is an old train depot. Check them out on the web at http://www.ivythimble.com/.


This print is based on the Chinese calendar and has great characters on it. See if you can find yourself in there. They are really fun to read. What kinds of crazy ideas do they put in your head?








For the embroidery enthusiasts, we have new designs in the Embroidery Take-Out. Don't forget, I can create files in any format you need for your machine (Bernina, Janome, Brother, Deco, Babylock and Viking). Laurel Burch, "Jungle Songs" is in the New Arrivals, as well as Catberry Tails (Debra Mason) and Watercolor Florals (Jan Woodman). Great Notions has a beautiful "Pretty Peacocks 1. Some of these would make wonderful quilts.

Come in and get out of the heat! Our summer classes are on the schedule now. It is a great way to spend the hot days of North Carolina.

Celeste and Julie

New Fabric and Patterns

Julie and I are updating our blog so Karen doesn't yell at us when she returns from her vacation. We know you are checking this Karen.

I don't know how we keep up with all the boxes of fabric and patterns that arrive daily. We are so fortunate to have such a wonderful selection to choose from.

Some of the highlights have been the new Amy Butler patterns. Our favorite is the Gum Drop Pillow. It is a large pillow to be used as a footrest. We may have to special order that much polyfil for all of us.

Julie's favorite fabric has been the great Asian collection and I just love the turquoise and brown Joel Dewberry collection.

Also, Julie told me there will be a trunk show arriving next week for Turkey Track Designs. They are sending some of their bags for us to see. I can't wait! I love making bags during the summer months.
Here are some pictures of some of the new fabrics we've recently unpacked. Enjoy!!

~Celeste and Julie

Progress Report on Diane

Diane's hip surgery went well and she is recovering nicely. She is walking two hours outside each day. She is now free of two pains - her hip and her job. She also retired from Duke and will be spending more time teaching classes here. Yeah!
Julie

Viewer's Choice Winner

All the visitors to the CHHS show had a chance to vote on their favorite quilt, and the winner of "Viewer's Choice" was Anna Will, for her creatively sewn quilt. Her quilt is pictured here. Anna received a $100 Gift card to Thimble Pleasures. Congratulations to Anna!