The Birds are Back!

Where have we been? Well, since our sale, we had a terrific workshop with Laura Wasilowski (more on this tomorrow), then we closed for a week of frantic painting, redecorating, rearranging, opened for business the following Monday, then got ready for an auction of fabrics and things that needed to find new homes, held the auction last Wednesday evening, and then I think we passed out! Reactions to the new shop layout have been very positive - there's so much room now. And we have incredible lighting in the shop now! I'll post photos later this week.

What this post is really about is Virginia Robertson. She's coming for three days this week, and on Friday, July 10, she is giving a FREE lecture and trunk show at Lansing Community Center at 10 am. The lecture is "If Monet Were A Quilter", and Virginia will discuss how color can be used mostly effectively in quilts, and how color can influence the "feeling" of a quilt. Don't miss this opportunity to meet an amazing quilter who's been influential in the world of American quilting for 29 years. Virginia's quilts for the lecture and trunk show arrived last Friday, and all I can tell you is that it will be worth the drive to come on over to Lansing for this event!

Friday afternoon (12 - 5pm) Virginia is teaching the class "Grandma's Button Jars". We still have room in this class! The cost is $25.00 for the class and a kit fee of $22.50 to Virginia for the fabrics, ribbons, trims and buttons for the jar lids. The kit will make about 6 jars - find some cute ones and give us a call to sign up!

Saturday, Virginia will be teaching "New Twist on an Old Favorite - Wedding Ring". Don't think about the old way of making a Wedding Ring quilt - many customers have told us either they only made one, and never again - or that it was just too difficult of a quilt pattern to even consider making. Don't worry, Virginia has taken the technical part of this quilt and simplified it for us all. Just look at these beautiful samples she sent us. She will teach several different quilt techniques and you'll be on your way to a fabulous new quilt. We have a couple of places open in the class, and we'd love to fill it up! The class is Saturday, July 11 from 10 - 5 and costs $48.00.On Sunday, Virginia teaches "Strip Club", although there won't be any partially clad men running around the shop! We'll be using 2 1/2" strips to make one of five different quilts. The quilts are all absolutely charming, and again Virginia will be demonstrating shortcuts for the techniques needed. She says that most folks leave the class with their small quilt top completed or well on its way. Please don't feel that these classes are too difficult for you as Virginia teaches to all levels of quilters. One of the great thing about taking classes is having the opportunity to learn from a great teacher, and also learning and sharing from the new quilting friends you'll meet in class. There are a few spots left in the "Strip Club" that we'd like to see filled. It isn't everyday that you get the opportunity to take classes from a really great teacher!

Last, but not least..... if you won a gift from us, but it hasn't come, please, please let us know! Sometimes things don't get where they are supposed to go, and if your gift didn't make it to your house, we want to fix that!

Birdy hearts to you all -

posted by Angela

Phew!

We had a HUGE sale last week. We're not sure at this point just how many bolts of fabric went out of the shop, but we can tell you that it was a lot! There are stacks and stacks and stacks of empty bolts outside the back door. Getting inside the shop is sort of like going through an obstacle course. Thank you to all our wonderful customers who came and shopped, then shopped some more, and then came back yet another day to shop more.
That's Deb with our customer who won the "most repeat visits during the sale" prize, and perhaps "spent the most $$$ during the sale" prize. Speaking of prizes..... Today, yes today, we're getting the prizes in the mail to everyone who won at our last drawing. We didn't forget! We've been overwhelmed the past weeks, and today was truly the first day we have had to address getting your goodies out to you. If there are no interruptions, our big plan is to get them to the post office today. Thanks for hanging in there!

This is us on Saturday after the last customer had left the shop. We were exhausted, fried, crispy, toast, whipped, our dogs were screaming and our backs out after 3 + weeks of non-stop work getting ready for our shop re-do.

Please note, we are closed throughout this week to have time to change over the shop. We know we told many of you that, "yes, of course, we'll remain open after the sale". We seemed to have the idea that we could do a gazillion things at once and still deliver the customer service you deserve. Then we realized that birds do not preen their feathers while in flight, and they most certainly don't moult during flight! So we're taking a week to re-feather the nest and we'll re-open next Monday, June 22 at 10 am.

Birdy hearts to you all,
Angela

Our Web Site!

We're Sorry! Silly to not have a link to the web site.
Here it is:
www.YellowBirdArt.com
Come on over and do a little shopping!

Birdy Hearts to you all -
Angela

On-Line SALE!

As part of our big sale, we're offering on-line specials as well! We don't want you to miss out on the fun just because you can't get here! We’re excited to offer a different daily special each day now through Thursday! Each daily special runs from 12am through 11:59pm on the specified day, and on that day only. Sale fabrics have a 1 yard minimum cut.

Sunday, June 7: 20% off fabrics listed under the Oriental Fabrics - Alexander Henry Fabrics shopping category
Monday, June 8: 25% off fabrics listed under the Black and White shopping category
Tuesday, June 9: 25% off fabrics listed under the Oriental Fabrics - In The Beginning Fabrics shopping category
Wednesday, June 10: 10% off fabrics listed under the Children's Novelty Fabrics shopping category plus free shipping
Thursday, June 11: 15% off any kit (excludes Block of the Month)

Go ahead and place your online order and we will process the discount when we process your order manually here in the shop.

Happy shopping!

It's a HUGE SALE!

It's huge. It's big. It's awesome. It's the most extensive sale we've ever held!

Amy and I came home from Quilt Market with new ideas for Yellow Bird Art - great ideas - we hope you'll agree when it's all unveiled. We scoured all the crooks and nannys of the shop for all those wonderful little things we had been storing "for later". I bet each one of you know exactly what I'm talking about. You're all storing things "for later" too! So we decided to clean house to make room for all the wonderful new things that will be arriving in the next couple of months.

Believe it or not, this entire wall of fabrics is on sale. Gotta tell you that getting up the courage to put an "X" on the ends of those bolts was hard to do. We love so many of them! But reality in retail is that you have to move the old out before you can have any new things.In the past we rarely have put any oriental fabrics on sale, but this time we narrowed our eyes down to squinty little eyes and decided that some of these fabrics have just been "bad dates" for us. You know the "how to tell if he's into you" sort of dating advice that's part of the singles' thinking these days? Well, we decided to think of our fabrics as "dates", and asked the question, "So, what have you done for me lately?". Gotta tell 'ya, some of our beloved fabrics have been very bad, bad dates and have stood us up for all practical purposes! So, they're outta here!!
This is our lovely Marsha in her little birdy apron, just waiting for customers! Some of you live a driveable distance away from Yellow Bird Art, so I'm going to encourage you, urge you to fill up that car and get your little bodies over here right now!

The sale runs from 10-5 Saturday through Thursday (including Sunday).

Today everything on sale is -20%

Sunday -30%

Monday -40%

Tuesday -50%

Wednesday -60%

Thursday -70%

Items on sale are: fabrics, kits, ribbons, trims, threads, books, patterns, notions, and heavens - I just can't name it all. When you come in, you need to look for the X on items. If it is marked with a X, then it's on sale!

HURRY ON OVER!

In the Studio II

I have a small collection of items pinned to the wall by my sewing machine - its sort of an inspirational place. There's a photo of Amy and my oldest daughter, Penny, taken on a bloody hot day at Times Square, a small art quilt I began in a class with Susan Shie, photos of two of my favorite pets taken by a friend just before I had back surgery (so they could come to the hospital with me - little did we know that our hospital encourages you to bring the pet in to visit the patient!), a little oriental hanky folded into a kimono shape and other little things that bring joy to my day, and also inspire me to continue working on this dream of running a quilt shop that inspires others as well. Boy that's probably one good run-on sentence! The adjacent photo is of the top drawer of my sewing desk. It is often left open, and its where my most often used items are stashed. I've found that consciously making a place for the things I use in my studio and then always, yes always, returning the thing to its assigned place makes my sewing life so much easier. By nature I'm a stacker, and that just doesn't work well when you're working on a project with some sort of deadline, and you can't find the thingamajiggy no matter which pile you search in. It takes a lot of self-monitoring for me to do this, but the agony of the search, and then the periodic - let's just throw a grenade in there! - cleaning out takes too much time. Besides I end up in the living room wild eyed, hair on end, and completely irrational, just sure that DH has appropriated my seam ripper for some unholy oily wrench and hammer man-job out in his studio. Which he never, ever does....... It keeps the holy bonds of matrimony much less of tempest if I keep my studio organized.

Most of the time, not always, I'm the person who sews the garments and handbags for samples for the quilt shop. I'm making the adorable Lily Top by Pink Fig out of Sandy Henderson's collection by Michael Miller. Its going to be an amazing little outfit!

Then I thought I'd include a photo of the progress on the Bitty Dog pincushions by Bunny Hill.

I wasn't too sure if I should include it - it looks sort of like some sort of doggy dismemberment park. Speaking of which - I have the little grey herringbone Bitty Dog all ready for the permanent attachment of his teeny hind legs, and mystery of mysteries, one of the little hind legs has gone AWOL!Now, I searched the basket I had all the Bitty Dog parts in several times (I usually do hand work in the living room in the evening with my husband watching TV - only educational things of course, or movies of significant value....... are you laughing yet?). I took the cushion out of my recliner and dug around in the places you don't actually want to put your hand after owning a piece of furniture for 6 years, and only turned up lots of crumbs of mystery food, loose change, and the lovely surprise of a missing earring! Still no grey herringbone rear leg for the grey bitty dog. A bitty mystery. If you find it when you're cleaning under your couch cushions, send it on home, ok?

Birdy hearts to you all!

Angela

In the Studio I

I don't know about you, but I love seeing other folk's sewing spaces. I was fortunate that we had the space available after adding an addition to our house for me to have a nicely sized space just for sewing. I think I've used every bit of space that I can.

My ironing and cutting area are directly across from my sewing machine. My iron is a Rowenta steam generator, and let me tell you that this iron is amazing! It gets hot, something you may have noticed is sadly lacking in many irons, and the amount of steam you can generate takes wrinkles out immediately. Friends who hate ironing have fallen in love with this iron just because its so efficient.

I've been working on wool pincushions from the Bunny Hill pattern collection. Here's the first of three Bitty Dog pincushions. I'm also working on the Bitty Kitty and the Bitty Bird pincushions. We absolutely love pincushions!

Look for more photos of samples I'm making for Yellow Bird Art in tomorrow's post.

Birdy hearts to you all!

Angela

www.YellowBirdArt.com

New Things are Happening!

Yup, it going to be a big deal! Amy and I came back from Quilt Market with a new and better vision for Yellow Bird Art! So, we're going to say "goodbye" to loads of selected fabrics, books, patterns, trims, kits, threads...... You're going to love this sale! We are making room for marvelous new lines of fabrics, notions, books and patterns. We can't reveal all the details now because we want it to be a fantastic surprise for our customers.

And to clarify, we are not going out of business, and we are not moving! So mark your calendars, and gather the girlfriends, and get ready to fly on in to Yellow Bird Art on June 6!

Birdy Hearts to you all!
Angela

And the Winners are: !

Contratulations to the winners of our drawing!
Pam, Quilt Mom, e4e Sarah & Clare all won the combination of two patterns and the two fabric cuts.
Cottage Quilter won the collection of batik charms and the pre-fused appliques.
Kami won the four Kona Bay fat quarters.
Kathie won the four Prints Charming fat quarters.
Quilt Smiles won the lovely hand crafted soap.
Tracy won the kit for my "to Market to Market" tote bag.
Maria won my newest pattern, "Gotta Fly Bag", and a few goodies to go along with it.

I sent e-mails to everyone who had an e-mail addy last night, but if you didn't hear from me, please e-mail me your mailing addy at either:
angela@yellowbirdart.com or
alblair@sgwb.coop

I'm very sincerely thanking each one of you for your thoughtful answers to our question!
Birdy Hearts to you all,
Angela

Still time to leave a comment!

You ladies are all making me a bit misty eyed. The suggestions for a great quilt shop are awesome! Amy and I were inspired when we got home from Quilt Market, but you're all helping shape what our shop is going to be like in the future! Really. We have been planning a big re-do of the shop to make it even better for our customers, and your thoughts have given us a wealth of ideas. Thank you all so much - truly and deeply! I thought I'd put up a photo of Amy that won't make her want to choke me. I think it was from around Christmas.

I'll list the winners of the drawing tomorrow morning!

Birdy Hearts to you all!

Anglea

Winners! & New Stuff to Give Away

These photos are just random shots of Quilt Market on Sunday. Sunday is relatively quiet, and if we had know this, we would have waited to do most of our ordering on Sunday. Friday and Saturday are a crushing madhouse, but then I'm not too keen on crowds. Friday we walk the show with our show catalog in hand, checking the booths we want to come back to on Saturday or Sunday. It did seem to me that there were more exhibitors last fall in Houston. All I know for sure is that by the time you've walked through all the exhibits on Friday you think your legs and feet are going to fall off. Or swell up and become giant watermelons. We were dreaming and wishing for a massage person to show up!

It was obvious that buyers had a million different ways to shop market. We just had a general list of things we needed or wanted, and then a list of things we hoped we'd find at Market, and then we ended up ordering fabrics that just knocked us out. More on this in another post.

Coming home from Quilt Market is quite the experience. First you attempt to sleep straight through for about 24 hours, or as long as your household will let you. Then you try to remember all the things you did order, then you fall to your knees and thank God that you did not order all the things you saw that you loved and really, really wanted. Wanted in a bad way! Then you slap yourself around a bit and get real about just how much money you do have in your budget for new purchases. Where is the trust fund when you need it? Is this too much to ask?

Moda and Indygo Junction had the most amazing booths - those folks have the display thing worked out! The imagination and creativity that went into the display of most vendors' booths was WOW! We took notes and photos, but you know how that goes. You look through everything later when you're home and you'd think you'd been on a bender while you were taking the notes and photos because that's about how much sense it makes!

• Now for the FREE STUFF! Here are two new patterns, and two precut quilt blocks that will be given to four lucky quilters!

Next we have a set of 40 charm blocks of batiks with six pre-fused appliques. We bought an Accucut Studio and a mess of dies - what a difference accurate cutting makes in assembling a quilt. And I have to tell you, our customers LOVE the pre-fused appliques.

The next gift is this 4 pack of Kona Bay oriental fat quarters. This collection just came in, and we are all weak knees over it. Wonderful details, and the metallic gold! Gotta love it. We should have the fabric posted on our web site http://www.yellowbirdart.com/ in the next couple of weeks. We have a fabulous high school gal, Christina, who scans all our fabrics. Normally we only get her three or four hours a week, so sometimes there's a bit of delay before fabrics get posted to the web, but hooray, school is almost out and she'll be able to work more often!

The next two goodies are a four pack of Prints Charming's amazing poplin fat quarters with that incredible citron color. Which, by the way is one of the colors, along with grey, for the year - learned that in a class at Market! Next is a lovely handcrafted bar of the most wonderful soap you'll ever use. A friend of the Bird makes these hand moulded bars of soap that have just the loveliest scents and they lather up so beautifully. Your skin feels so smooth after using these soaps.

The last two gifts are my designs. The first is a "To Market, to Market" tote bag kit. The kit includes my pattern, the fabric and webbing to make the tote. I really try to design bags that are really functional. This tote can take a lot of use and you can machine launder it.

The last freebie is a copy of my newest pattern, the "Gotta Fly" handbag. I designed this bag for a bus shop hop we participated in a month ago. So far, the reports back have been good. The bag has a great exterior pocket, two generous interior pockets, and my favorite, a strap with a slider so you can use the bag as a handbag, or let the strap out to wear the bag.

• So if I counted correctly, there are 10, yes 10! give aways! Here's how to get in on the fun. Send us a comment telling us what a great quilt shop should be like. Then since there are 10 prizes, I'd like to ask you to send a link for the blog to 10 of your quilting/sewing friends. We're working on building the traffic to our blog and website, and you are the key to this!
  Since this is a holiday weekend, I won't draw the 10 winners until Monday, May 25 at 7pm, central time.
• Congratulations to Jeanne for winning the drawing for the Lecien fabrics! We were in the mood for a bit more fun, so we also drew Carmi's name for a pack of the Lecien fabrics as well. We're girls who know what good clean fabric fun is all about!

Winners should e-mail me your mailing addys at angela@YellowBirdArt.com

Have a great weekend!

Angela

Be Sure to Check us out Tomorrow!

Just a reminder - check tomorrow's post. I've been working from home this week and am going in tomorrow to work with our Stash Master's group (if you have a stash, come on over!). Amy has all the goodies at work, so I'll take photos of tomorrow's give aways then and post tomorrow afternoon. Also for those of you wanting the Lecien fabrics, you'll find them on our website in a couple of weeks (we have a secure shopping cart) www.YellowBirdArt.com

Angela