It's a Mystery.

We all love a good mystery, well....do we have a mystery for you. We are so happy to be a part of the Quiltmania Mystery Block of the Month with Di Ford...starting in 2014, through 6 issues of the fabulous Quiltmania magazine.  We are now taking expressions of interest from anyone who would like to join in and receive Di's fabric choices for this mystery quilt...you can email us or call us at the shop and you will be on our list to receive all the info as it comes to hand...pretty exciting and something great to look forward to.

We have great new books in the shop this week...first of all, this fabulous, and totaly cute little diary. This "Agenda" is from Quiltmania, so you know that it will be good.

 This is the sweetest little diary and it just screams.."want one"...it is quite small, perfect handbag size, or even better...perfect sewing bag size, because every time you open it you will be inspired to book in another sewing day with friends.

 Every page has photos of beautiful quilts and projects that make you want to drop everything and start sewing...that is the purpose of a good diary, surely!

We don't want to upset anyone by using the "C" word in September but we do think that this little Agenda will make a great Christmas gift for sewing friends.

Another book full of inspiration is Barbara Brackman's "Civil War Sampler".

 As the title suggests it has 50 quilt blocks and comes with suggested lay out to make a stunning sampler quilt.

This is such a fabulous book, each page has one block and a story from the civil war years, so there is plenty of great reading as well as being a really good block reference. It is one of those handy books that you would find yourself using over and over again.

We hope you all have a great weekend, and enjoy some beautiful spring weather and lots and lots of sewing time...Sammy has had a huge week in the shop, he has been greeting customers all week and now he has settled down for his Friday afternoon snooze...ready for a big weekend.

What??? More Beautiful Fabric!

"Romantic Old Charleston"  is another new, "must have" range of gorgeous fabrics to lust after.

Such a great combination of pinks, browns, and greens, perfect together, and all fantastic if bought individually...very handy fabrics for the stash.


A big thank you to all our weekend visitors. It was a great weekend and it was lovely to see so many  happy faces and projects to share and inspire.  Last Friday night was a fantastic "Sit and Sew" with the Friday 5 to 10 girls.

Wow..Patty's finished quilt back from the quilters

Rachel's beautiful Pinwheels

With lots of sewing, chit chat and a really lovely dinner to share it was a great Friday night.

We also had lots of fun over the weekend with the girls from Essendon Quilters who come to Castlemaine each year for their retreat.

Cathy's FIRST applique quilt..The Caswell Quilt

Kerry Roe's applique quilt..Robyn Falloon design

Quite a few Essendon ladies are in love with Texas stars

It was great to have them visit the shop, and great to join them for their show and tell on Saturday night.

Barb Walker's Double Dresden

Barb Walker...beautiful colours

Sammy and Kurt joined in for a goodbye group photo with the Essendon Girls...

 And Sammy was ready and waiting to wish them a safe journey home.

Divine

New fabrics arrived yesterday, ''Amelia'' from the Mary Rose Collection. They are of course, beautiful, stunning and fabulous..the same words we always use..but for these fabrics we think we can also say...divine.

If you love Broderie Perse you will love these fabrics for their large scale floral prints...but also because they are just vintage floral perfect.

 We have four colours in the large floral print, a cream background, a soft minty green,a pale mauve and the softest of vintage pinks. The range includes beautiful border stripes in pink, mauve and cream,and a selection of smaller scale prints, all in the same beautiful soft vintage colours...so in conclusion...just divine.

When we had a sneak peak last week, of our newest book, Chintz Quilts From the Poos Collection, by Kay & Lorie Lee Trippett and Xenia Cord, we knew we were going to love this book, and when it was delivered we were not disappointed.  This is a big beautiful book full of amazing full colour pages and every page offers up inspiration, so we thought that now we have the book in the shop we would just show you just a few more pages to enjoy.

Probably too many photos for one blog but how else are you going to know how absolutely fantastic this book is.  We have already sold out of our first delivery but we are expecting more copies to be delivered in the coming week.

Kurt and Sammy are all ready to enjoy their weekend at Threadbear, although Sammy is already looking a little sleepy.  Wishing you all a very happy weekend.

Chintz..Chintz..Chintz

Wow...look what we have got.

If you are a fan of Dutch Chintz then you may want to take a seat, lest you swoon...we have real Dutch Chintz, just arrived from Holland....this is Petra Prins and Nel Kooiman's brand new fabric range...six colour ways and all absolutely stunning.  This is something to really get excited about.  These fabrics have only just arrived so the first thing we did after tearing open the box was to take photos to share with you...we dont even have a price per mt to give you yet, but that wasnt going to stop us showing you this long awaited treat.

We only have a very limited amount of each colourway to sell, so our guess is that these fabrics won't be around for long.  We should have a price per mt. by the end of the week, but if you are anxious to have some of these beautiful fabrics you can contact us by phone or email and we will reserve some for you.

With the arrival of our supply of Dutch Chintz it is a good time to remind everyone that Petra Prins and Nel Kooiman will be with us at Threadbear on October 5th for our Castlemaine Appliqué Group meeting.  It promises to be a great day with Petra and Nel speaking about their wonderful new fabrics and inspirational quilts.  We do have a few seats left as we have hired a larger venue for the occasion so if you would like to join us and have not already booked, please send us an email and we can advise you of all the details.  (email bookings are essential.)

And finally a huge thank you to everyone that joined us over the weekend for our Saturday and Sunday classes.

  We had a great weekend, with lots of sewing fun....Sammy had the best fun of all, lots of friends to chat with, and lots of pats.

Great big smile from Sammy...definitely not a yawn

Friday's Fabric

We have another newly delivered range to get excited about this week.  "Pin Money" by Pam Buda

for Marcus Fabrics.

It is a collection of 23 fantastic small, reproduction prints in a really great range of dusty tones.

You will love every single print in this range, there are deep, dusty pinks, murky greens, lovely soft blacks, as well as some mustards and soft browns, beautiful soft creams, reds, blues and two warm purples....oooohhhh, all so nice.

We are looking forwards to great weekend in the shop, with classes on both Saturday and Sunday.  On Saturday our friend Di Ford will be here to teach "Miss Porter's" quilt,

and then, on Sunday we have our very own Megan teaching her beautiful "Miss Matty's Parlour.

With two such absolutely gorgeous quilts, plus great company, we are sure a good time will be had by all this weekend.

We are all excited by the latest addition to Megan's "farm" this week, with the delivery of 3 gorgeous, cuddly Alpacas.  They are meant to roam over Megan's 20 acres to help keep down the grass, but we think they are way too cute for that....surely with those big brown eyes they will become much loved family pets.

Our spring sunshine has deserted us and even Sammy is rugged up against the cold.  He is looking forward to getting plenty of pats from all his weekend classmates.

 Sammy would like to send a special cheerio to Janet.  Sammy was thrilled to received some wonderful fan mail from Janet this week.......Sammy says thanks for your email and he looks forward to seeing you at Threadbear one day Janet.