JWD Publishing Blog

We want to let you know about two more shop hops that are taking place this week. One is in Ohio and the other is in Iowa. Below we have given you a bit of information about both shop hops.

2011 Jingle Bell Shop Hop fourth annual Quilters’ Fling Event

In Ohio the Jingle Bell Shop Hop is fully active. There are nine participating shops. We think you’ll find many interesting quilting items and projects in your wanderings similar to these shown here.

 This Ohio shop hop extends through Saturday, September 17th. If you want more information, go to www.quiltersfling.com. For those of you who are not familiar with shop hops, here’s a bit of information provided by this shop hop family:

Quilters’ Fling is a group of shop owners who have come together to make quilting and shopping more fun for area quilters while encouraging quilters to check out what participating shops have to offer! We host hops, events and educational opportunities for new and experienced quilters!

Quilt shop hops offer the chance for shoppers to check out shops they may not otherwise frequent due to distance or time constraints. Quilt shop hops take place all across the country (probably the world) and are all handled differently, but our Jingle Bell Shop Hop works like this: Each of the nine shops has been assigned a quilt block as part of a quilt. Each shop has the task of developing a quilt around the central theme, and producing a quilt using all 9 of the assigned blocks.

The participating shops are the following:

A Piece in Time                                 Akron

Bernina Store                                     Twinsburg

Cottonpicker’s Quilt Shop            Chardon, Ohio

JEllen’s House of Fabric                Lyndhurst

Mara’s Fabric & Gifts                      Eastlake

Quilter’s Source                               Parma

The Craft Cupboard                       Middlefield

The Polka Dot Pincushion           Richfield

Tiny Stitches                                    Middlefield

Fall Shop Hop in Northwest Iowa

Another shop hop is taking place in northerwest Iowa where six quilt stores are participating. They, too, will end their event at the end of the day Saturday. We’re sure you’ll find wonderful items.  We find a glimpse of Heart and Hand Dry Goods in Sioux City in the photo image (below). It looks like they have loads of surprises and treats galore.

If you visit all six shops, you have a change to win a grand prize, but we don’t know what that prize is. Additionally, a gift basket with a value in excess of $100 can be won at each shop.  Winning a prize is very nice, but seeing what’s new, fun, and inspiring is really more the point to a shop hop. The participating shops are:

Unique Fabrique                           Le Mars

Heart and Hand Dry Goods      Sioux City

Roelof’s                                             Sioux Center

Inspired by Times                       Storm Lake

Quilting on Main                         Pocahontas

Quilt ‘N Kaboodle                        Cherokee

Have fun participating in either of these shop hops.  We hope you find wonderful surprises to  get your creative juices going. Enjoy!

What a way to begin September—- with a glorious shop hop in the beautiful state of Connecticut

The Connecticut Shop Hop is underway and off to a great start. We hope you are one of the eager quilters on your way to visit the 16 participating stores to see what’s new, groovy, and fun. It’s a time to find special treasures, look for ideas, find ways to be creative, and purchase items you really want or ones you haven’t seen in your local quilt shop. It’s fun. It gets you revved up and invigorated for quilting this fall. A 10-day shop hop gives you time to see the different shops and find the ones that offer the types of fabrics, tools, notions, and patterns you really like. Then you can go back to visit in a more leisurely fashion.

Be sure to register at your most convenient quilt shop before heading out on your adventure. You’ll receive the Shop Hop booklet, along with other items. If you register, you will be eligible for some wonderful prizes.

This particular shop hop offers a grand prize of one $250 gift certificate to the shop of the winner’s choice. Now that’s a prize really worth winning! Who wouldn’t like a bit of a shopping spree at your favorite quilting store? It sounds like a quilter’s dream or certainly quilter’s heaven! There are also ten $100 gift certificates given to 10 winners to be spent at the shop of their choices. What a grand idea! In addition, if you visit all participating quilt shops during the Shop Hop, you can receive a $ 10 gift certificate from your shop of origin, which will be available for pick-up after October 9^th.  Also, each shop features an in-shop Gift Basket drawing worth $150. We wished we lived close enough to take part in this super shop hop. If you live in Connecticut or another nearby state, we hope you find the time to participate. These stores have great products and are ready to help you create wonderful quilt projects.

Visit Our Favorite Connecticut Quilt Shop—Quilter’s Dream in Willimantic

During this shop hop, be sure to visit Quilter’s Dream. There you’ll find lovely fabrics, some wonderful new flannels, a superb selection of patterns, and some exciting quilts on the walls including the ones you see in this post.

In a Pickle by Larisa Key, owner of Quilter’s Dream in Willimantic

Welcome Home by Alex Anderson

This year at Quilter’s Dream in Willimantic Larisa Key, one of our favorite quilt designers and shop owners, is dressing up her store with JWD Publishing patterns and quilts. We hope you will find a favorite pattern to purchase.  Enjoy the quilts too. Here are a few that you will see at Quilter’s Dream. All have patterns.

• Alex Anderson’s classic fall quilt Welcome Home, along with her latest version of her extremely popular Christmas tree quilt Holiday Lights.
• Larisa Key’s stunning In a Pickle quilt. It is one of the most beautiful traditional quilts we have seen using batik fabrics.
• Christine Porter’s Summer Breeze quilt, which will be surrounded by lots of Halloween fabrics because we think this quilt pattern can be easily converted to make a Halloween quilt. It would be a breeze to make this quilt with fun, happy Halloween fabrics.
• Joen Wolfrom’s Northern Lights quilt, an easy colorful quilt that is reminiscent of a rail fence design. Larisa would be very happy to help you select fabrics for this quilt.
• Teresa Field’s So Cool Hot Iron Bag, a bag that is soooooo wonderful to have when transporting a hot iron from a workshop, retreat, or class to home. You simply plop your hot iron into this bag and head home without burning yourself or harming your car. It’s easy to make. It is one of our most popular patterns.

After you visit Quilter’s Dream in Willimantic and view these quilts and many of our patterns, stop by to add a comment as to the quilt or pattern you particularly liked.

Teresa Field’s Sole Cool Hot Iron Bag

Have fun at this Shop Hop. Check out all of the participating stores:

Close to Home – Glastonbury, Orange, and Southington                      Colchester Mill Fabrics -  Colchester

Dot’s Quilt Shop – Prospect                                                                    Fabric Tree – Danbury

Lisa’s Clover Hill Quilts – Berlin                                                              Quilter’s Corner – New Milford

Quilter’s Cove – Durham                                                                        Quilter’s Dream – Willimantic

Quilting by the Yard – Vernon                                                                 Sew Inspired Quilt Shop – Simsbury

The Fabric Bug – Thomaston                                                                 The Quilter’s Alley – Ridgefield

The Yankee Quilter – Oxford                                                                   Yankee Cloth – Wallingford

Northern Lights by Joen Wolfrom

Have Fun Shop Hopping!

It’s hard to believe it’s almost time for the Jingle Bell (Shop) Hop in Northern California. Those of you in the East Bay/San Francisco should get your running shoes by the door, the car gassed up, and be ready for a spirited long weekend (Thursday, November 19 – Sunday, November 22). There are 14 shops excitedly getting ready for all of you California quilters.

Enjoy wandering through each of the stores, checking out what they have to offer. Participating stores are Always Quilting, Color Me Quilts & More, In Between Stitches, Ladybug’s Quilts, Quilter’s Cabin, Quilter’s Studio, Quilts & Things, Sew Central Quiltworks, Sew Ewe Quilt, Sew Many Quilts, Sisters ‘N Stitches, The Laurel Leaf, The Quilter’s Inn, and Thimble Creek.

Wow! The Jingle Bell Hop Grand Prize is fabulous. Check it out! The winner will receive a $100 gift certificate from each of the participating stores, bringing the grand total to a $ 1400 shopping spree. The second and third prizes are great too. Those winners receive a total of $750 and $370 (respectively) worth of gift certificates. To win, you must visit all of the stores.  Don’t just rush in, get stamped, and leave. That’s missing the point of having a shop hop. Pace yourself so that you can enjoy visiting 3-4 shops each day (it’s a hard job, but someone has to do it). Check out the fabrics each offers, the different patterns and books, and the different types of notions featured at each. In addition, each shop has a special goodie basket to be won. These prizes are superb quilter-friendly shop-hop gifts that any quilter would love to have.   Hopefully, you’ll be one of the lucky winners. 

We are pleased to support your local quilting shops in the Northern California area. We have sent each store a packet of complimentary patterns to give out as quilters’ prizes.  If you are one of our recipients, we’d love to hear from you. Have a great time at the Jimgle Bell Hop.

For more information and names and addresses of each store, go to http://www.jinglebellhop.com/shops.html

Tennessee Quilts, a magnificent quilt store in historic Jonesborough, is currently exhibiting the quilt Memories of Monet by Joen Wolfrom.  We think you’d love to take a quilt field trip to Tennessee Quilts to see Joen’s quilt and browse through the shop’s amazing 8000+ bolts of beautiful fabric. Tennessee Quilts is one of the best quilt stores in the U.S. You’ll love it!  They have also joined over 100 fabric and quilts shops in the FabShop Hop, a virtual shop hop offering some great prizes (more info).

BTW, Joen will be teaching a 2-day color class and a 3-day design class at Tennessee Quilts November 10-14, 2009. If you’re interest in either class, contact Tennessee Quilts or register online.

Tennessee Quilts
114 Boone St
Jonesborough, Tennessee
http://www.tennesseequilts.com
linda@tennesseequilts.com

Hope everyone had a great weekend. I spent mine at Nancy J’s Fabric Shop in Wabash, Indiana, promoting my new pattern, the Snap, Grab & Go Tote and Quilt Ensemble.  Nancy’s shop and 12 other shops in the surrounding area are having a Shop Hop this week.

First, let me tell you about Nancy’s terrific shop. Nancy J’s opened in 1980 and has grown to 4000 bolts of fabric! They specialize in tone on tone, bright novelties and contemporary prints. They have so many fat 1/4′s that they have a “Fat Corner Pickin’ Patch”…It’s great! They are open Mon-Fri 10am to 5:30pm and Saturday 10am to 5:00pm.

Now back to the Shop Hop. It runs till Oct. 24th, so you have time to participate. You pick up the free passport at any one of the participating shops. All 13 shops must be visited during the Shop Hop week and passport stamped at each shop to qualify for the prize drawings of gift certificates and baskets. The shops are :

Creative Stitch Quilt Shop, North Manchester, IN
Nancy’s Stitches, Kendallville, IN
Lowery Sewing Center, Warsaw, IN
Sewing Treasures, Angola, IN
Heaven On Earth, Wabash, IN
The Country Cupboard, Van Wert, OH
A Quilt Of Many Colors, Leo, IN
Edwards Sewing Center, Fort Wayne, IN
Caroline’s Cottage Cottons, Rome City, IN
Engine House, Berne, IN
Cozy Cabin Quilts, St. Marys, OH
Nancy J’s, Wabash, IN
Quilts N Gifts, Bluffton, IN

Now go out there and start hopping. See ya later.

Quilter’s Dream in Willimantic, Connecticut will feature a selection of Larisa Key’s quilts, including Ticonderoga Star, during the September 12-20 Connecticut Shop Hop.  If you’re in the area, be sure to pop in to see her wonderful quilts.

General Information

The Connecticut Quilt Shop Hop is starting up this weekend!  Join in on the fun of visiting 18 fabulous quilts shops throughout Connecticut between Saturday, September 12, and Sunday, September 20.

Visit all 18 shops and be eligible to win the grand prize of a $250 gift certificate for the shop of your choice or one of 10 $100 gift certificates also for the shop of your choice. Each shop will have a featured item on sale, in addition to a drawing for a raffle basket valued a $150. Registration is just $5 and gets you your passport, a commemorative pin as well as a wonderful tote bag, so stop in and register today.

Participating Shops:

Close to Home (Glastonbury)
Close to Home (Milford)
Close to Home (Unionville)
Coastal Sewing (Old Saybrook)
Colchester Mill Fabrics (Colchester)
Common Threads Quilt Shop (New Preston)
Fabric Tree (Danbury)
Lisa’s Clover Hill Quilts (Berlin)
Newtown Quilts (Sandy Hook)
Quadrille Quilting (North Haven)
Quilter’s Corner (New Milford)
Quilter’s Cove (Durham)
Quilter’s Dream (Willimantic)
Quilting by the Yard (Vernon)
Sew Inspired Quilt Shop and Studio (Simsbury)
The Quilter’s Alley (Ridgefield)
The Yankee Quilter (Oxford)
Thimbles (Woodbury)