American Quilt Retailer is presenting Meet Me in St. Louis–an event designed to connect quilt shop owners with designers. Over the next few weeks we’ll be introducing you to the eight designers featured in the AQR booth (#2507) at International Quilt Market in St. Louis. The complete schedule is included in the April 2017 issue of American Quilt Retailer (shipping to subscribers on April 24). Today we introduce you to The Whole Country Caboodle.
The Whole Country Caboodle specializes in fusible appliqué and their own fabric lines that coordinate with their patterns. Leanne Anderson is known for her whimsical characters that are sure to put a smile on your face. Leanne, and her daughter Kaytlyn, create colorful fabric collections for Henry Glass Fabrics. Each collection tells a story or is somehow meant to inspire those who use it.
Shops love the fused precut appliqués they produce as they serve as quick easy projects and provide great “Make and Take” classes. “Scatter Love throughout the Year” pattern is a wonderful project to do as a Block of the Month Class and they love working with shops to create the best product possible for their customers.
Trunk Shows are also available. Leanne prefers working with each shop individually; allowing them to put together the Trunk Show that suits their needs.
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If you’re looking for a get-a-way that will provide rest, relaxation and ridiculous fun, check out the “Sow in Peace” quilting retreat. The retreat is nestled at the end of a dead end drive and your front yard is the beautiful Cedar Lake. Workspace is set up in Leanne’s studio where you can sew and play 24/7. Check out all that is available through The Whole Country Caboodle and consider a trip to Sow in Peace today!
American Quilt Retailer printed the wrong manufacturer of Pete the Cat fabrics in our February 2017 issue. We strive hard each and every day to avoid these mistakes and regret any confusion with this wrong information. Please enjoy this more detailed explanation of the Pete the Cat collection:
He’s here!!! Marcus Fabrics is thrilled to present our newest licensed character, PETE THE CAT, under the Studio 37 division. He’s undoubtedly the world’s coolest, most laid-back feline! Created by artist James Dean over 13 years ago, Pete is loved by an international legion of fans for his mellow attitude, groovy style and his countless activities and interests!
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DIY enthusiasts will want to immerse themselves in Pete’s colorful style by decorating a room or sewing up fun fashions, toys and more… The panel is designed to create a quilted bedtime book, an easy cheater quilt, or other great projects. The cotton prints and flannels launch at an exciting time in the Pete the Cat merchandising mix, and they’re the perfect complement to Pete’s growing product line:
New BOOKS are introduced by HarperCollins multiple times per year, and some of them include music! New fans and readers continue to discover Pete with each series, and the addition of DIY quilts and other fabric projects is a natural fit. It’s no wonder Pete is loved by parents, teachers and librarians as much as the kids.
Other current PRODUCTS include soft dolls, socks, backpacks and totes, figurines and ornaments, puppets, craft projects and more.
Watch for the new animated TV SERIES, scheduled for Fall 2017/2018!
PETE by the Numbers:
*** 25 Million + hits on YouTube
*** 36 Book Titles to date
*** Published in 14 Languages
*** 15 Million Books sold in 6 years
Pete the Cat joins the Marcus lineup of contemporary licensed characters under the Studio 37 umbrella including Grumpy Cat™ and The Rainbow Fish™. View all of the collections at www.Studio37Fabrics.com
Independent Shop Owners: As your day comes to a close or as you sit down tonight, take a few minutes and review your Small Business Saturday. Ask yourself some questions:
Did my efforts to promote Small Business Saturday turn into increased traffic in the store? Increased sales? (Do you keep records to compare year-by-year? If not, you should.)
What in particular about today’s promotions or events do you think worked the best? What didn’t work?
When we do Small Business Saturday next year, we need to ________?
By spending a little time today you’ll be better prepared for next year! And, if you have any comments you’d like to share with other shop owners, add them below. We’d love to hear from you.
As pictured in AQR’s October article Holiday Glam by Anna Woodward, we compiled step-by-step instructions, complete with photos, for fat quarter Christmas trees and stars pictured in the article. These small gift giving items make perfect last minute pick-me-ups for the sewer that “already has it all.” Customers will be scrambling for those last minute gift exchanges and this will be the perfect gift. Be prepared with this easy how-to!
Triangle – Start here for both the star and Christmas tree
Fold Fat Quarter in half lengthwise, otherwise known as the “hot dog fold.” Repeat. (Photo 1)
Fold the bottom left corner up into a triangle. The triangle should be slightly higher than half-way. (Photo 2)
Fold down the top left hand corner to meet the bottom fold line. If your triangle isn’t looking quite like a triangle, you’re right on track. Go to the next step. (Photo 3)
Begin to mimic flag folding by folding the bottom left hand corner up to the top fold. Try to keep your corners as crisp as possible. Now we should be looking like a triangle. Continue to fold the top left corner diagonal to the bottom fold. Then take the bottom-left hand corner up again until you no longer have enough fabric to make triangles. (Photo 4)
You will reach a point where you have only a small tail left. This can be easily tucked inside the triangle. Repeat. Christmas trees will need two more. Stars will need one more. (Photo 5)
Stars
Place one triangle on top of another alternating points. (Photo 6)
Tie ribbon around to secure. (Photo 7)
Christmas Tree
Fold Fat Quarter in half lengthwise, otherwise known as the “hot dog fold.” Repeat. (Photo 8)
Fold the left side into the center. Repeat with right side. We do not want any raw edges to show. (Photo 9)
Repeat to make slender tree trunk. (Photo 10)
Slide top point of triangles inside of each other. After the third triangle slide the tree trunk inside the fabric to complete the Christmas tree shape. (Photo 11)For more display ideas and to connect with Anna Woodward find her on Instagram @AnnaWoodwardRetailDisplay and on Twitter @WindowsWork.
Quilt Market gives shop owners the opportunity to learn from a variety of instructors. The line-up of classes might give you ideas for new techniques to teach in the store or ways to create displays or longterm planning for your store. AQR wants to help you expand your knowledge. We’ll be presenting three Schoolhouse events, as well as, several of our contributors will be teaching classes. I recently asked Georganne Bender of Kizer and Bender to share with me what classes they are teaching and what you can expect. Here’s her response:
We are doing three programs at Quilt Market this fall; and all three are designed to help retailers thrill their customers, drive their competition crazy, and put more money in their pockets!
SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING FOR RETAILERS is a must for every attendee at Quilt Market. Keeping up with the changes to social medias is almost a full time job! We don’t just talk about what’s important in social networking, we show you how to do it, along with strategies to help you build a strong fan following. We’ll cover Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube. Attendees will leave this seminar armed with practical, real-world social media techniques they can use right away.
In DIGITAL IN DIAPERS: TARGETING THE MILLENNIALS & GENERATION Z we’ll share strategies to help you understand these two “new” generations, their personalities, the events that shaped them, things that motivate them, and most importantly, what’s required to connect with them in person and online. Millennials and Zeds are so different than Baby Boomers and Generations Z – they will require us to learn to do business on their terms. It’s important information every retailer needs to know.
One of the things many retailers neglect is the “lake front property”, the important selling areas of their sales floor. We’re not just retail strategists, we’re professional store planners. Our presentation, WHAT REALLY HAPPENS ON YOUR SALES FLOOR: HOW TO OPTIMIZE THE SHOPPER’S JOURNEY is the next best thing to bringing us to your store. We take you from the parking lot to the back door and every space in between. We’ll share how to set your sales floor to sell – and what retailer doesn’t want their product to sell itself?
Thanks for that information Georganne. We hope everyone visits Quilts Inc and signs up for both Schoolhouse and other classes today!
It’s a winner. Yes PC=QP. What does that mean, you ask? Precuts=Quick-Piecing. And, we know our customers like quick piecing to generate happiness!
Recently we’ve seen a trend to offer smaller groups of precuts. Benefits to the shop owner are lower retail price to grab customer’s attention. Benefits to the customer is less waste. Check out the Hoffman Bali Poppies 2-1/2” batik precuts are designed to let quilters “make it their own.” Each Poppy consists of 20 different, laser-cut strips of Hoffman Bali Batiks arranged in a color wash for use by itself in a project or coordinate with any in the 12-pack collection.
Quilters can mix and match Poppies to their heart’s content to set the light, medium and dark values of their projects, infuse direction and texture, and create dynamic color combinations.
Looking for ways to use precuts in your store? Check out these pattern options:
For a long time, wool, one of nature’s oldest fibers, was neglected by quilters. We were all “100% cotton or bust!” True you saw the occasional vintage wool quilt but it was likely a crazy quilt and hadn’t been quilted but rather tied. And old wool quilts were heavy! Even if they were colorful or interesting, hanging them for exhibition was a challenge. But some collectors adored wool, especially after being exposed to work like traditional Welsh quilts. See photos from The Welsh Quilt Centre to understand why Welsh wool quilts started to inspire quilters worldwide.
American quilters in particular were resistant to using wool. We thought wool’s tendency to shrink was a drawback and we assumed wool anything had to be dry-cleaned. But somewhere about fifteen years ago, the tide turned. Sue Spargo, a quilter/folk artist from Ohio but originally a South African, had no built-in prejudice about the fiber. Rather she welcomed the intense colors achievable in wool fabrics and used vivid shades like lime green and hot pink in her work. She explored embellishing wool and expanded the traditional embroidery lexicon with new variations of the bullion stitch. Now a respected teacher and author, Spargo’s multi-layer wool stitched work is recognizable worldwide.
In a parallel trend, primitive stitchery fans who had formerly been using wool threads in cross stitch and crewel–but not much wool yardage–discovered wool plaids and plains in dark homey colors like rust and deep green and took the fiber to heart. What ‘prim stitchers’ taught us was that wool didn’t have to be turned under neatly like traditional appliqué but rather its roughness and tactile charm could be used to advantage. While primitive-style projects turned up occasionally in quilt publications, the arrival of the primitive style in the quilt world as a huge influence began in 2010 and the following year, a magazine devoted to the style called Primitive Quilts & Projects hit the newsstands.
What is appealing about wool now is that it is available to quilt shops in smaller cuts. No longer do shops have to order enormous fat bolts of wool and hope it sells! Everyone can dabble in wool. When doing wool appliqué, the background fabrics don’t have to be wool as well. We’ve broken the fiber barrier! Quiltmakers are using flannels and even flat-texture cottons for their wool appliqué backgrounds.
Recently at the International Quilt Market I noticed in addition to wool fabrics, kits, and wool-inspired books, that batting companies have taken up the wool banner. Hobbs offers two different weights and textures of wool batting. Hand quilters in particular have taken the Tuscany batt to heart. A revived Mountain Mist batting company spearheaded by Linda Pumphrey who literally ‘wrote the book’ on Mountain Mist quilt patterns, is just now offering a very soft and springy wool batt that’s 20% polyester and 80% wool. And watch the AirLite Batting Company, which is poised to enter the wool batting market with a new batt this Fall. If your customers are already working with wool in the folk-art Spargo-style, I saw new sizes of bullion needles at the Colonial Needle Company that they will appreciate. If you love wool, 2016 is going to be a very good year!
Using the new Quilt Market app at the upcoming Spring Quilt Market in Salt Lake City
Although Quilts Inc., the entity that holds the trade shows for the quilting industry, has had an app for its events since Fall 2013, the Market app was always in flux and sometimes didn’t suit all mobile devices. The learning curve for developing an app for such a huge event and helping sometimes not terribly tech-savvy show attendees navigate the event has finally smoothed out. The Spring Quilt Market app looks like a winner! The app is now easier to download and use, works on all mobile devices as well as a website, and is available through either the Apple Store or Google Play.
If you plan to attend Quilt Market by yourself, you can certainly simply download the app to your smart phone. But if you’re attending with employees in tow, it would be a good idea to download the app to a tablet. That way, more than one person can view the maps and instructions and your group can plan what to do and where to meet.
Rhianna Griffin of Quilts Inc–the app minder
The app caretaker, Rhianna Griffin from Quilts Inc.’s marketing department, gave me some advice. She said, “I’d check out the About section of the app first. There’s tons of basic information there such as the main hotels and their phone numbers plus a few discounts that you can’t find anywhere else. Did you know that you can get a 10% discount on Super Shuttle (to/from the airport) when you book online and use the link from this site?”
The all-important credential requirements are also listed on this page and a complete schedule of Quilt Market events. Speaking of events: there’s a category for Schoolhouse, the sampler-type sales presentations that take place prior to the Market opening. All Schoolhouse sessions are listed by time and location as well as the title and sponsoring company. Under Classes/Events all the Take & Teach sessions, hour and a half how-to classes, are listed as well.
The Map section of the app is a godsend for those of us who are directionaly challenged. If you ask a local for directions, remember that every route in downtown Salt Lake is given in relation to the central location of Temple Square. And the convention center is a 10-12 minute walk south and west of Temple Square. The Show Map is a layout of the convention center itself and will be invaluable as you plan which exhibitors to visit and as you search for the nearest rest room.
Don’t think that downloading the app will give you every iota of information you might need at Quilt Market. One detail missing is noting which exhibitors are new at this Market. Experienced Market attendees know to search out the newest exhibitors first since bright ideas often come from fresh faces. That info is still in the printed program. Although the Exhibitors section lists each company’s website and phone number, there’s not an in-depth explanation of what goods/services each exhibitor offers. Since our industry adores cute names, you’re still going to have to refer to the printed program to find out what “Miss Bunny’s Farm Frolics” actually sells! When you click on the names of some exhibitors (especially pattern designers) practically all their products show up. But, many fabric companies withhold images of their brand spankin’ new lines since they want to make a splash at Market. You still need to visit the fabric companies’ booths to see the newest prints.
Market 2015 Fairfield booth
Don’t wait until you get to Quilt Market to download the app: do it now. Look over the information and get your game plan in place. If you like to post on social media while at Market, tell your peeps to watch your shop’s Twitter account. Twitter is listed on the Quilt Market app but neither Instagram nor Facebook since neither is app-designer friendly. And if you’re in the habit of being online 24-7, know that WiFi access at the Salt Lake convention center costs $15 a day per device. But, here’s my freebie tip of the day: there are some free WiFi spots at the convention center–try the meeting rooms and the lobby areas!
Looking forward to all of you stopping by the AQR booth (#1924). Talk with the staff and let them know what you think of the magazine and the app!
Recently while eating at a diner, my attention was diverted by the napkin holder on the table. Folded paper napkins were jammed upright into the metal holder. Something clicked! I envisioned that napkin holder as a model for a pre-cut selection. Call it a “Diner Six-Pack.”
A everyday item can take on a entirely new meaning.
At my next teaching venue I tested the theory and made up 72 Diner Six-Pack fabric selections. Each bundle contained six Fat Quarters sorted only by color. In three days of teaching I sold over 80% of my bundles. Only part of their attraction was the price ($15 for the bundle) but the folding of the fabrics where buyers could easily see all the offerings was another plus. When manufacturer-packaged pre-cuts are stacked for cutting, the top fabric is seen in full but the assortment must be rifled through to really see every pattern offered. How many times have your pre-cuts started to look ragged since curious customers cannot resist trifling with them?
How to make Your Own Diner Six-Pack Pre-Cuts
Choose six fabrics and cut into fat quarters. Make sure to include at least one solid (or a print that reads as a solid) in your Six-Pack color range. Fold as follows:
*Lay the fat quarter right side down with the cut 18” side toward you and the selvedge away from you.
*Fold the cut side in 1/3 of the way and follow by folding the selvedge edge over a third, covering the cut edge. Makes a long neat rectangle approximately 7” wide by 18” long.
*Turn the folded fabric clockwise on the table and fold again. Starting next to you, again fold a third in and followed by the third from the farthest side.
*The fabric is now a rectangle about 6” by 7”. Fold once in half like a little book, making sure all cut edges are neatly tucked in. Stack the ‘books’ of the different fabrics and arrange in a pleasing order.
*Cut a piece of card stock (recycled file folder works) in a rectangle 3” wide by 7 ½” long. Use a ruler to crease the card at 3” from each end. The 1 ½” (between the creases) in the middle of the card becomes the bottom that supports the fabrics upright, much like the bottom of the napkin holder. Stack the six FQ’s neatly within the card holder. You will need to also secure the bundle by cutting a 20” length of contrasting color ribbon or yarn, wrapping it around the bundle, and tying a bow.
We’d love to see your examples of folding fat quarters, whether this style or another. Post your pictures on our Facebook page.
Recently I attended and taught at a large quilting event in the Midwest. I realized while perusing the vendor mall that many vendors showcased practically the same fabrics! There were the usual pre-cut assortments from large fabric companies, duplicating book titles, and even look-alike sample quilts in several booths. I couldn’t help but think that vendors missed the chance to move their older fabrics by not offering pre-cuts they’d made up themselves. I talked to one shop owner who said it was easier to order current pre-cuts than to deal with slicing up old bolts. But, I opined, the old bolts will still be there when you get home…and that’s money already spent! Isn’t it time to get the older fabrics out the door? Time to take them on the road!
Then I remembered something Kizer and Bender had mentioned in their article in the last issue of American Quilt Retailer magazine. (pages 22-26, February 2016, issue #127). The business gurus suggested displaying lines of fabric in color progressions or rainbow-style.
You can’t miss this display of bright fabrics in rainbow-style, the blue bench is an added bonus. It’s a simple showstopper.
There’s something universally appealing about a rainbow-style display of fabrics. It’s orderly and yet inspires creativity as shoppers run their fingers along the top of the bolts until they reach “their” color. The display invites them to choose and, like kids in a candy store always picking the same sweet, they will haul a bolt to the cutting table for yet another slice of their favorite shade. Why not apply the Rainbow principle to a bundle of pre-cuts?
Most strip bundles (jellyroll) are 2 1/2” wide strips and number from 40-42 strips per bundle. How about offering eight colors (six in the Rainbow progression plus black and white) starting with a solid strip of each color? The progression is red-orange-yellow-green-blue-purple—that’s six—plus some blacks and whites at the “end of the rainbow.” Roll the strips with the black and whites in the middle and then the progression of colors, ending with red. Package the strip bundle with a paper collar printed with your store name and contact info. The Rainbow bundle just became a marketing tool. Rainbows are popular throughout Spring and Summer. Rather than asking the customer to choose from all eight color groups, you’re offering a selection that would have taken most people hours to pick!
The Rainbow idea might be the beginning of an in-store competition. Who can make a quilt with the Rainbow bundle? First person to make something and post a picture of their creation on the store’s Facebook page gets a prize…
The Whole Country Caboodle specializes in fusible appliqué and their own fabric lines that coordinate with their patterns. Leanne Anderson is known for her whimsical characters that are sure to put a smile on your face. Leanne, and her daughter Kaytlyn, create colorful fabric collections for Henry Glass Fabrics. Each collection tells a story or is somehow meant to inspire those who use it.
Shops love the fused precut appliqués they produce as they serve as quick easy projects and provide great “Make and Take” classes. “Scatter Love throughout the Year” pattern is a wonderful project to do as a Block of the Month Class and they love working with shops to create the best product possible for their customers.
Christmas Tree
For more display ideas and to connect with Anna Woodward find her on Instagram @AnnaWoodwardRetailDisplay and on Twitter @WindowsWork.
