My final day in Manhattan started with a trip to the fabulous quilt shop

The City Quilter

It is located at 133 West 25th Street  between 6th and 7th Ave.

When you enter the shop you see a great floor cloth with New York images.

The wonderful owners of the shop are Cathy Izzo

and her husband Dale.

They have owned the shop since February 1997. The shop is absolutely jam packed with goodies.

Everywhere you look there is something to catch your eye and interest.

This is just one of the samples on the wall.

Cathy and Dale have numerous fabrics that are exclusive to their shop.

Below is Statue of Liberty exclusive to them by Hoffman Fabrics.

I love this black and white!

Fashion District retro New York.

This is subway maps in three color ways. 

They also have projects pertaining to Manhattan.

This is a perfect trip memory quilt.

I was told that almost all of the employees are multi talented.

One is an artist, one a costume designer,  and one is a model.

Think of all that creativity! 

These beautiful ladies are two of their employees.

This is an example of a wool project that is a kit. 

Little wool creatures.

Wool cake and cookies.

A pillow kit and a sample of another quilt to make.

Cute quilt with bicycle embroidery. 

This is more of Cathy and Dale’s exclusive fabrics.    

It has vintage New York postcards on it.

This is a quilt made with the post card fabric.

What a great memory of a trip to New York.

Another quilt example to use Photos or photo style fabric.

A great little pincushion book and sample. What do you think about the bacon and egg?

Cathy stocks unusual ribbons for embellishing.

And a stash of silk fabric to make scrumptious quilts and table runners.

They will be carrying my Fine Dining pattern that is great done in silk with ribbon embellishment.

This is the classroom.

They even supply the sewing machines so you can take a class while visiting the city  Cathy and and another employee in front of a wall of fabrics.

Check out the classes they are offering for this spring.

Paula Nadelstern will be teaching as well as Kaffe Fassett and Liza Lucy.

     Below are some class samples.

A wall of books and patterns.

This quilt is going to be a pattern someday. I love it.Another little niche of patterns and samples.  

More wool. The colors look good enough to eat.  I simply adored these story book panels. Kaffe Fassett fabrics to drool over.

Cathy and Dale are now Bernina dealers.

Cathy also cuts 2 1/2” strips for their City Strippers kits.

While I was in the shop taking pictures and talking to Cathy and Dale,

Three couples came into the shop.

This is Brian and Susanne from Denmark.

   Maria and Elmer from Brazil.

I was unable to get names for this couple from Japan.

This is definitely an international store!

I loved this quilt that looks like a kaleidoscope of the Empire State building.

One section of the store is dedicated to fabrics from Japan.

I love it when the employees are happy and smiling even first thing in the morning.     

Dale took me to the basement to show me what was down there.

One thing was his desk with the first quilt he ever made. I think he did a great job. 

They have a long arm quilting machine and offer custom quilting.

More fabrics!

There is storage that goes all the way under the store.     There is also an appliqué group called the Appliqué Support group that meets in the basement.

All of the New York fabrics can be purchased online at The City Quilter.

I has so much fun at The City Quilter, I wanted to stay all day.

I did have to leave to go to Timeless Treasures Fabrics to see Emily Cohen.

She gave me a tour of their new space and I got to see what is new for spring

and a hint of what will be new for fall.

July 9, 2009

I hope everyone is having a great summer.

We are enjoying 100º+ days that are typical for July in Texas.

We just returned from 10 glorious days in Seattle, WA and Victoria, Canada.

The days were in the high 70s and the nights were in the high 50s.

It was perfect and very hard to come home.

I am leaving again next week to go to Jonesboro, Tennessee to teach three days at Tennessee Quilts Quiltfest.

If you are in the area it is a three day extravaganza.

Check out the website Tennessee Quilts.

On July 16 I will teach the Shooting Stars class.

This quilt has six different stars on a field to make a twin, queen or king quilt.

'No Diamonds / No "Y" Seams' ~ just half square triangles.

Easy but beautiful. You could do one star for a wall quilt also.

The Carpenter's Star is the class for July 17.

It is a timeless quilt that is beautiful in any style fabric from reproductions, batiks, brights, holiday, to juvenile prints.

The 'No Diamonds / No "Y" Seams' technique makes it a

good class for beginners to advanced quilters.

The Road to Success with Silk is scheduled for Saturday July 18th.

This is not an art quilt class but a guide to using silk in your quilts.

We will cover all aspects from what size needle to use to how to stop raveling.

The class project is a Table Art table runner or vertical wall quilt.

If you will be in the area I would love for you to join me in one or more of the classes.

Be sure to check out the Tennessee Quilts website to see the other great teachers listed.

Also check out the Spring/Summer issue of Quilt Sampler Magazine.

The Quilted Hill Quilt Shop in Yamhill, Oregon

showcased my Bali Sky pattern with a sample on their wall.

They also have a kit for sale in the kit section of their on-line catalog.

I hope to meet some of my readers in the near future.

Debbie

On day three of our road trip we went to The Villages, Florida.

Located close to Orlando, The Villages is a community of mostly retired people with 65,000 residents.

They drive golf carts for most of their daily activities.

The community is surrounded by restaurants, shopping, and medical facilities.

You would not have to travel far for any of your needs.

I did a lecture trunk show for the Quilting Guild of the Villages that night.

The next day I taught a workshop for Sew Cherished Quilt Shop of Fruitland, Florida.

We had a great time working on the Shooting Stars pattern.

There were 18 lovely ladies sewing and eating lunch together.

Here are some of their projects in different stages.

That night we were treated to a fabulous dinner at the home of my hostess Christine Brant.

She prepared an Italian feast for nine.

We spent the night with Christine’s mother Klementyne who told us wonderful and

sad stories of growing up in Poland and being sent to Siberia then immigrating to the United States. 

She was a very sweet and interesting lady.

The next day I did a lecture trunk show for The Quilting Sisters Quilt Guild of Leesburg, Florida.

After a lunch in quaint downtown Leesburg, we left to go to St. Augustine, Florida.

      Don’t forget to tell your guild program people and shop owners to check out Ami Sims’ new website.

Find A Quilt Teacher .com

It is a great resource for finding teachers and lecturers for your meetings and classes.

Several Friends and I went on a road trip to the Dallas Quilt Show.

We left Graham around 8:00, stopped in South Lake to pick up another friend

and arrived at the show around 11:30.

Just in time to eat lunch!

We always put the most important things first.

We beat the crowd and then started to shop and look at the quilts.

There were lots of beautiful quilts to see this year.

These are just a few of the quilts:

Bail Out

Liz Joe maker and quilter

Butterflies and Bloomers

Dee Ann Hodges maker Meri Pinner quilter

Corazones, Corazones y Mas Corazones

Sherry Evans maker Liz Coker quilter

Corks

Carol Morrissey maker and quilter

Dancing for Savannah

Nancy Howse maker and quilter

Deep in the Heart of Texas Childhood Home in Grapevine

Glenda Jones maker

Suzanne Louth quilter

Cranes in Stars

(made using my Chick ‘N Stars pattern)

Jolene Mershon maker

Susan Corbett quilter

This quilt is made from jeans. I am sorry I did not get the maker’s name.

This is my friend Gail

Glowing 9 Patch

Theri Dufour maker

Karen Nelson quilter

Glowing 9 Patch close-up

Jacobean Dream

Janice Bentley maker

La Vie en Rose

Eliane Bailey maker

Richard Larson quilter

Spring

Paula Baxley maker

Dana Goyer quilter

Urban Reflections

Lu Peters & Connie Akers makers and quilters

Vertigo

Kathy York maker and quilter

That is my friend Becky looking at the quilt.

Victory Garden

Sherry Evans maker

Lisa Coker quilter

Whose Woods are these

Jane Kennedy maker

The Diva and The Musician quilt made with my

Carpenter’s Star pattern for the center.

Kathryn Taylor maker and quilter.

This is made with Betty Boop fabric.

Betty Boop is quilted on it.

A Quarks Tale

Best of Show

Kelly Monroe maker and quilter

Broken Star quilt from my Simple Stars Beautiful Quilts book

hanging in the Prodigy Quilter booth

Evening Star quilt on a table in the booth of

Heirloom Quilt Shop from Fort Smith, Arkansas

Evening Star quilt in another booth.

Modern Art With Fabric

covering a table in the booth of

Houston St. Mercantile Granbury TX

Modern Art With Fabric

hanging in the booth of

Poppy Quilt and Sew from Georgetown, TX

Shooting Stars quilt

hanging in the booth of

Quilts With A Heart from Priddy, Texas

We had a great time at the show and stopped to eat at

P. F. Chang on our way home.

I am a guest blogger on The Quilting Gallery.

I am certainly honored to be blogging with the others in the group.

Visit the site to read all the great blogs.

There are some fabulous giveaways going on so be sure to read about those.

This is what I will be giving away.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine's day.

I received a beautiful card and we had a quiet dinner at home.

I am going to Florida in March to lecture for two guilds and teach at one shop.

The first lecture is on Tuesday March 3 at The Quilting Guild of The Villages.

Then on Wednesday March 4, I will teach my

Shooting Stars pattern 

at Sew Cherished Quilt Shop in Fruitland Park.

On Thursday March 5, I will give a lecture for the

Quilting Sisters Quilt Guild in Leesburg, Florida.

I am going to drive and a friend is going with me.

After my work is over we plan to go to St. Augustine, Florida and

Savannah, Georgia. We will then head for home.

My mission for you is to tell me about your

favorite quilt shops and great places to eat in these areas

or on the road there or back from Texas.

We will be going through Vicksburg, Jackson, and Hattiesburg, Mississippi to get to Florida. 

On our way home we will be going through more of Georgia and Alabama. 

Leave me a comment about any spots on the route or even off the beaten path. 

Also, dont forget the contest to win six fat quarter bundles which equals 9 yards of silk.

All you have to do is go to dellaQ.com and sign up for her newsletter.

She will draw for the lucky winner on March 1, 2009.

We have a winner!!!

She did her project called Jill's Quilt under the name jkozole77.

Be sure to take a look at it on Fabric Matcher.

This contest was so much fun!

We had lots of projects and great comments from everyone.

I think all had fun doing the projects on the Fabric Matcher website. I hope you will all continue to play on that site.

Be sure to look for the featured fabric Soiree by Lila Tueller for Moda Fabrics.

It should be in your local quilt shops soon.

Thanks again to all who played.

Hello!

My name is Lila Tueller, and I'm really happy to be featured on the Calico Carriage Quilt Designs Blog!

To introduce myself, I am a stay at home mother of seven children and grandmother to one darling little granddaughter. 

I have five of my children living at home, so I can relate to all of you young moms, and you grandma's too!

I am an avid lover of fabric, and have been sewing since I was a young girl. I have a huge collection of fabrics, which is in a constant state of flux.  I have been designing things for myself my children and my friends forever, and just recently decided to take it all a step further and landed myself a partnership with Moda fabrics and United Notions doing fabric collections twice annually, as well as patterns to feature those fabrics.

So far it has been more fun than I could have ever imagined!

Although I wouldn't consider myself a traditional quilter, I do enjoy making quilts, which are usually a little on the funky/nontraditional/out of the ordinary side of the spectrum. So far I have only two quilt patterns out, but I plan on making more!

I think what I really love doing is making bags, all sorts of bags. I used to make and sell them at specialty boutiques, and on Ebay. I soon learned that there weren't enough hours in the day to sew for all the people that wanted them; hence the turn to pattern designing.

Of course I still sew them for gifts and special requests, and for myself! But I love coming up with new bag ideas, and I'm sure I will continue doing that for a long time!

I hope you will enjoy sewing with my new line of fabric coming out in February:

 "Soire'e"

 It is a fun and fllrty mix of spring brights and pastels, and will be great for many of your spring and summer sewing projects. Here's a little sneak peek!

Thanks for reading, and keep sewing!

All my best,

Lila

Thank you Lila for sharing your journey with us.

Be sure to visit Lila's Blog.

The contest is still going on.

Visit the January 9 posting to see all the rules.

 (click on the 9 in the calender on the right)

We have new entries everyday and everyone is having a good time.

The Moda Fabric Matcher site is a lot of fun the play with.

We had one person do four projects!

It is contest time. Are you ready to have some fun?

Moda Fabrics has a wonderful tool on their website that anyone can play with. It is called Fabric Matcher. The idea is that you can use patterns on the website along with Moda fabrics to design wonderful quilts. What I want you to do is go to the Moda website, click on Fun Stuff to get to the Fabric Matcher and use one of MY PATTERNS and their fabric to design a quilt or quilts.

Here is what you have to do.

Step One ~ will earn one entry in the contest

Cick here to go to the Fabric Matcher site.

Sign up to use the software. It's free. There is assistance for the website if you need it.

Select one of my patterns by clicking on Calico Carriage Quilt Designs in the drop down menu under pattern selection.

Use any fabric on the site for the pattern.

Make your project public.

This is very important. You have to make your project public.

Go to my blog, scroll down, leave a comment telling me that what you did a project and give me the name you used on the Moda site when you signed up.

Do not give any personal information on the blog, just the name used for your project so I can track it.

Step two ~ will earn a second entry in the contest

Mention this contest and put a link to my blog from your blog

Step three ~ will earn a third entry in the contest

Go to my website Calico Carriage  and share my website with a friend.

You do this by clicking on the icon on the right side of the home page midway down.

Step Four ~ will earn a fourth entry in the contest.

Sign up for my email newsletters or let me know that you are already signed up.

Step Five ~ will earn a fifth entry in the contest.

Go to Lila Tueller's blog and leave her a message (please give her your email also so she can tell me who posted) telling her what you think about her wonderful

Soiree fabric line.

That brings us to the prize.

Moda has donated a big Fat Quarter pack of Lila Tueller's Soiree fabric.

It is pictured below.

As you can see it is a wonderful bright happy line of fabric. The really neat thing is this contest will run until midnight January 31, 2009. Whoever wins will be one of the first people to own this fabric. It does not ship to the quilt shops until February 2009. The winner will be chosen by random drawing.

Below is a picture of my Post & Beam pattern done in Soiree fabric.