Quilt Shop Tour: Ye Olde Schoolhouse

The past couple of years have been crazy, right? I haven't really been out much or visited any quilt shops during the pandemic. But I spent the nicest day day at Ye Olde Schoolhouse quilt shop in Cedarburg, Wisconsin, last Saturday, meeting quilters and "showing and telling" some of my quilts. Jeanie Rudich, the shop owner, is running a monthly Little Quilts club this year and they were using some of my books to make their quilts. She kindly asked me to stop by and visit with the class. Such a nice group of quilters! If you live near there or are in northern Illinois like me, stop in and see all of the wonderful fabrics and kits she has available. So worth the drive, even if you live farther away.

Ye Olde Schoolhouse in Cedarburg, Wisconsin

My favorite Schoolhouse quilt! With stars! 

Some of you ask where I get my nice variety of fabrics - Bundles! If you're looking for assorted fabrics in smaller pieces to make your scrappy quilts, Jeanie's got 'em! Check out her online shop. For now, take a tour through my photos.

Bundles are especially terrific for making the small blocks in my Schoolgirl Sampler quilt if you have a desire to start working on that someday.

If you're just looking for fabrics in a certain color to spice up your stash, give the shop a call. They carry a wonderful variety of fabrics in all colors and I know they'd be happy to put together some different prints and send them off to you in the mail if you ask. Tell them I sent you and if you like my quilts, they'll know what to send, LOL.

Check out some of the kits Jeanie made up from some quilts in my books.

                                   

This summer, I'm hoping to take a few more quilt shop tours and if I do I'll take you with me though some photos. Summer motto: Support our reproduction fabric quilt shops! Without our support, there won't be many left . . . . 

Scrappy Stars - Again

Some of you may remember this - In 2018 I decided I really needed to make a simple, scrappy lap quilt so I started  making some 6" stars for it. I challenged myself to make several blocks each week. Then I planned to sew them together into a lap quilt. I ended up making about 40 stars. 

                            

Well, as the story always goes, I became involved with other things and put it aside. I did put some of the blocks together and then decided I didn't really like the fabrics I chose for my setting.  Last year, I ripped out some of the stars and left a center section of nine blocks. Framed it and then put it aside again.  

                                          

Moda's Words of Wisdom

Last week, Robin finished her stars quilt and showed it to my Facebook group. A few quilters were interested in making these stars so I've challenged them to a Scrappy Stars Sew Along again. And I'm going to make a few more myself and then decide what to do for a setting. Who knows if I'll even finish with all of the other quilts I still want to make or finish. Isn't that always the case??  But I figure if nothing else I can use some of the stars to make a small quilt or runner someday. 

These stars are really fun to make. You can find my FB group here.  The details are in the group files.

Here are some simple cutting directions to make one 6" block - 

    Cut one  3 1/2"  x  3 1/2" square for the center

    Cut eight 2"  x  2 "  squares for the star points

    Cut four rectangles - 2"  x  3 1/2" - for background

    Cut four 2"  x 2" squares for the background corners

This will give you a finished 6" x 6" block. 

I like to choose my fabrics for several blocks one day, cut the pieces, lay them out on a cutting mat, set the mat aside and then sew them together another day. It's been fun to resurrect these blocks. 

Here are my latest endeavors from this past week -  using some 

fabrics I've been holding onto for years. 

Have I really had this Judie Rothermel pink print since 2000?? That was the year I started quilting. 

Cutting into some of these fabrics and actually putting them into blocks feels great!

You never know when you're going to need some scrappy stars . . . .

Have a good weekend!