I have been on so many wonderful teaching trips this year, I can not believe how

fortunate I am. I started my year in Georgetown, Texas where I taught

my ‘Shooting Stars’ workshop. I went on to Austin, Texas  to

teach ‘Road to Success with Silk’ and ‘Labyrinth’.

February took me to Little Rock, Arkansas to teach Labyrinth and Shining Star.

I met up with friends I made when I taught on the Caribbean Cruise sponsored by

 Stitchin Heaven quilt shop, and made more friends. The snow storms

cancelled my trip to Hot Springs Village, Arkansas but I will go there next year.

The end of February I taught at the Quilt Box right here in Graham.

March was Ponca City, Oklahoma; Wichita, Kansas and Great Falls, Montana.

I went to retreat at the Compass Centre in Mt. Calm, Texas for some

great R & R. Melissa who is the owner had done my Lyra quilt and has a kit for

it on her website. Compass Centre.com

April included Baytown, Texas; Tyler, Texas; Edmond, Oklahoma

and Tulsa, Oklahoma.

This month is San Antonio where I will teach my Labyrinth class at

Seventh Heaven Quilt Shop.

Call Dixie if you want to sign up for the class.  (210) 822-9980

Can you understand why I may be a little tired? I just want you to be able to

see how much fun we have in guild and quilt shop workshops, and

we also get a lot done.I forgot to mention my trip to New York in January

for a fabulous Martha Stewart Dreamers into Doers event.

I am adding new ribbons to my website for anyone looking for very

unusual ribbons to embellish quilts, table runners or whatever suits your fancy.

Shop owners contact me for information on getting patterns

or ribbons for your shop.

Debbie Maddy

940-549-4058

info@calicocarriage.com

Calico Carriage Quilt Designs

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.

Great expectations of what the offices would be like comes to fruition.

This morning was more fun than I could have imagined.

Group B met at the reception area to sign in and wait for our tour guide.

This is me in front of the official door once again.

Do I look happy or what 

Here is that famous logo once again with guess who is beside it.     The entire wall is covered with quotes and inspirational words.   Group B really hit the jackpot with our tour guide Hannah Milman.

Hannah is the Editorial Director of Crafts and is very passionate about her work. She took us to her office to store our coats and purses.

While we were there she shared some of her recent projects.

This is a wreath made from glittered acorns and leaves that she made to hang in

the Blair House in Washington, D. C. for Christmas.This bird is a decoration made using a copy of a bird in the wallpaper that was blown up,

glued to stiff paper board, and then glitter and gold paint was added. 

It was beautiful to see in person.

Hannah loves working with and glittering shells. (Actually I think she would glitter anything.)

This shell was glittered to make an ornament.

As we started our tour we met Lucinda Scala Quinn and Sarah Carey in the hallway.

Lucinda is the Editorial Director, Food & Entertaining

Sarah is Deputy Food Editor Martha Stewart Living. 

If you watch Everyday Food on PBS you know them very well already.

They were so kind to us, just talked to us like we were neighbors.

Lucinda has a great blog called Mad Hungry Feeding Men and Boys.   From there we went to the test kitchens. In this kitchen they were testing recipes for Everyday Food.Some of the things they were testing were - Feed your family of four for $10, healthy snacks, etc. 

      From the test kitchen went to a room called the cake room.

If you read Martha Stewart Living, Weddings, or the Wedding Cakes book, then you have seen these cakes. This  is another huge test kitchen. Wouldn’t you love to cook here? 

I am not sure what they were testing here but you can be sure it was good. These are cabinets in the hallway full of cookbooks. 

We then went to the Prop Room or ROOMS!

The beautiful ladies below run the prop room, and what a job it must be.

Please bear with me on the amount of pictures. You just can not imagine how much stuff is here.

 

   Stools & Chairs

  Candlesticks

Tables, stools, chandeliers 

Dishes and more dishes!!

Cutting boards

Linens

More dishes

Cake stands

Vases

Wall boards and floor tiles.  They sometimes create a whole room.

This is Fritz Karch. He is the editorial director of collecting.

He told us his office is Martha’s nightmare!  

This is the view of the river out of one of the windows.

We also got to meet Emeril Lagasse    He has a new television show starting in March.

Half of our tour was on the side of the offices housing the magazines where we met

Gael Towey.

Gael is the Creative Chief Officer. She was very friendly also and talked with us for a long time.

She talked about helping with the first Martha Stewart Living magazine. She has been with Martha for 20 years.

Gael also told us they are anticipating the arrival of the new Apple Notebook or iPad as we now know it.

All magazines are checking out alternative delivery methods.

Maybe someday we will be reading Martha Stewart Living on our iPad.

By the way Gael’s husband is Stephen Doyle. He designed the logo we love so much.

When you have a little time check out this video about Gael and Stephen’s collaboration on logos for Martha.

We could not take any pictures while we were in this area because they were working on future magazines.

The April issue of Living was spread out on boards. I was great fun to see what no one else has seen yet.

Hannah then took us to see the marketing area for furniture, out door items, linens, all things Martha.

On to the craft supply area. Oh my gosh!!

Glitter of every kind, color and size. Punches, punches, punches and more punches. Paper goods and tools.

I have never seen so many wonderful craft items.

We also got to see the corporate offices but those are private sanctuaries and so no pictures here.

Alas, after 1 1/2 wonderful hours we had to leave to go to the studios for the taping of a show.

It was a great joy to tour offices and meet wonderful, friendly and happy people.

Everyone seemed to love their job.

THANK YOU HANNAH!!!!!!

Check back tomorrow to read about the taping of the show.