Thimble Pleasures ~ A full-service quilt shop

  

Hope you had a great 4th of July weekend!  We had alot of rain, so the fireworks were all postponed, but we are sure grateful for the rain. Well, the new Kaffe’s we promised are here, and we put them out in the store and on the web today.  Ooh, you vegetable and flower lovers, Kaffe has done it again. Plus, he has yummy small prints to go alongside the big flashy ones.  Also,  if you didn’t get the email, we put all blues, greens and purples on sale today. Come help make room on the shelves. There are boxes and boxes stacked up back in the classroom full of fabrics from spring market. The kids are here for sewing camp this week and the store is hopping. Come see us! (And check back cause I am still working on getting them uploaded to the web!) 
~Karen

 

 

We are starting our Sizzlin’ Summer Sale Series today. We will have a different group of fabrics on sale each week this summer, and we are starting off with one of our favorite designers, Kaffe Fassett. All his fabrics will be 30% off this week, so hurry on in and stock up while they last. This is a sneak peak at one from his new collection coming soon!

Thimble Pleasures now has its own Flickr page!  Click here to go there directly or you can access it from the links section of our blog.

For those of you who are new to this idea, Flickr is a website you can load your photos onto so you can share them with others.

How to share your photos:
If you would like to upload your photos, you will create a Flickr account with your Yahoo login.  If you don’t have a Yahoo login, the Flickr website will allow you to create one from there.  Once you have a Flickr account, you can join our group by clicking on “Groups” and search for Thimble Pleasures Photos.  Then click the link, “Join this Group.”  You will upload your photos to your Flickr account and then add them to Thimble Pleasures’ group.  You can also add descriptions of your own photos and comments on others’.

We are so excited to see everyone’s photos and keep up with all the wonderful things being created by our customers. 

This is a sample of Ricky Tims‘ embroidered quilt called Rhapsodie Fantastique. The embroidery, piecing and free-motion center quilting was done by Karen West and the awesome quilting on the outer borders was done by Margaret Reiswig. The embroidery designs are available in our store on multi-format CD. This quilt utilizes only two of the nine designs that are on Ricky’s CD. He includes large color photos of 3 different color-way options and thread choices. The designs can be laid out in endless combinations to make your quilt very much your own. These incredible designs are based on Ricky’s well-known applique quilts. Come see it close-up in the store.

We were so pleased to be able to sponsor another quilt competition for Mary Zimmerman’s “Apparel Development I” class at Chapel Hill High School.  Many students showed us their creativity and sewing skills while learning to make their first quilts.  The judging was difficult but we worked through it and here you see the two students who won.

Lily Steponaitis was our 1st Place winner with her quilt titled, “Autumn Leaves.”  She is here with her parents (to the left), Mrs. Zimmerman (to the right) and her brand new Bernina (already being loved)!  In addition to demonstrating her commitment to quality work, Lily also showed a lively, creative flair with her wonderful fabric choices.

 

Glenna Teague was our 2nd Place winner with her quilt, “Paisley Paradise.”  Glenna received a $100 gift certificate to Thimble Pleasures!  Now we know we’ll get to see more of her work.  Glenna’s quilt is an example of her elegant design style and shows she is willing to spend the time it takes to do things correctly.

 

Both of these talented girls have a lifetime of creative sewing ahead of them and we have been proud to be a small part of that.  Their quilts are hanging in the classroom for the next week, so stop in and see them.

Celeste

 

If you haven’t seen the new office we created in the back of the store, here is a peek!  Karen is busy working on the website in here and getting ready to begin putting some of our merchandise online. Hard to believe this has been a storage closet full of batting, quilts, out-of-season fabric, supplies, etc for all these years! It’s tiny but functional and even hooked into our network.  And what did we do with everything that was in there you ask? Magic happens! When there’s a will there’s a way.  So check back soon and you’ll see changes happening here.
Just a reminder that we are taking our little annual siesta next week and will be closed for a few days, so that we can get some non-stop quilting time!  We will close at 2pm on Tuesday, May 20 and reopen at 10am on Friday the 23rd.  So be sure to come by Monday for all your last minute fabric and thread emergencies! See you soon.

It’s a cool, rainy, spring day in Chapel Hill and our town has become lush and green with flowers blooming everywhere.  It’s a perfect day to let our families do the cooking and laundry and spend the day poking around in our stashes and playing with fabric.  In fact I think I will go do that right now…start pulling and sorting fabric for my next quilt.  And don’t worry, even though it is Mother’s Day, our store will be open this afternoon in case of any fabric or thread emergencies, or if you want to start with all new fabrics. (Oh BTW, the new Laurel Burch Christmas Collection is in!)  So come see us,  and  we hope you all get to hug your babies today, or at least hear from them!

A group of students from the NC School of Science and Math in Durham chose quilting as their Mini course in April. They spent most of a week at Thimble Pleasures learning to quilt with Karen. Their fabric choices were fabulous and their quilts all turned out spectacular. Here they are pictured with their just-about finished quilts. (Just a few more stitches on those bindings!) They were delightful, enthusiastic students.

Last Sunday was a beautiful warm spring day and while Carolina was busy winning the ACC basketball championship, look what we were doing…making the most adorable little zippered pouches! Everyone left happy with a completed pouch and many different ideas of what we might put in them. Watch for a pattern coming along sometime this spring!