Our New Education Center

It's almost done and will open this Saturday 11/7 with a Grand Opening Open House from 8-10AM. Our new education center will house our classroom (outfit to comfortably seat 8 now and more in the future); the APQS Longarm GPS Studio with Lenni and our longarm supplies; and a quilt gallery which will feature rotating quilt related exhibits. I'll also get a brand new office-yippee!

So, here are the important details:

Saturday 11/7 is Downtown Bath's Annual Early Bird Sales. We'll open at 6AM. Our Early Bird Special will be 20% off by-the-yard fabrics from 6-8AM. There will also be Early Bird Coupons available all day from 6AM-3PM. If you receive my shop emails, you'll get the coupons this week. If you don't, you can pick them up in-store anytime this week, or simply get them on Saturday. There will be an official ribbon cutting ceremony at 8AM to open the new space. We have lovingly named the new space Pollyanna's Parlor, in memory of our good friend Judy whose business, Pollyanna's Antiques, used to occupy the space. Between 8-10AM we will have some great events happening in the Parlor.

* Demos & Make/Take with Independent Stampin' Up Demonstrator Molly Barter

* Demos of Superior Threads' Texture Magic with Demonstrator Mary Chick

* Demos & Test Drives on Lenni with Deb Boucher

* After-Market New Product Showcase - samples of the goodies we brought from Houston

* Demonstrations of new market products with Marcia O'Donnell and Barbara Jo Belanger

* FREE GIFT to the first 25 people through the door

* Door prize drawings at each demonstration

* MCQS Family Quilt Exhibit

These are the last photos you'll get before the Grand Opening - if you want to see the rest, you'll have to come to the shop on Saturday 11/7!

It's Coming Along

Our new expansion is well under way and should be completed in time for our Grand Opening on Saturday 11/7/09. Here are some pics of the progress.

So - new doorway through the old classroom into the new! The stairs are built and the carpet will be installed on Thursday. Stop by to check on our progress! We'll have another post with all the details of the Grand Opening on 11/7.

Congratulations & MCQS News

Thankyou to everyone who participated in our fun market blog challenge. The lucky winner is DonnaCME (not sure who you are, so let me know...) and Donna won an autographed copy of Out of the Box by MaryLou Wiedman, a funny pin of MaryLou's artwork and 2 tickets to the Dash of Diva Girl's Night Out event in Portland on Thursday 10/29. Congratulations! Donna, please contact me to collect your prizes!

You can still purchase tickets for the Dash of Diva event by clicking on the link above. This is going to be a fun event with great vendors who cater to mostly women customers. We'll be there in a booth showing off our wares and educating people about quilting and our shop!

Our newest news is our expansion! We've begun remodeling the retail space next to our shop which used to be Pollyanna's Antiques. When Judy died in January we were left with a gaping hole in our little neighborhood and we miss her terribly. However, we believe that she's been following along from that great antique mall in the sky and has approved our move. We hope to have the new space open for the downtown Bath Early Bird Sales on Saturday 11/7. Our hours are still to be determined but we will feature an Open House/Grand Opening of our new space. The addition will be called Pollyanna's Parlor (in honor and memory of Judy) and will house our newly improved classroom, longarm studio, a gallery and my office. Sign up to receive our e-news and you'll get an automatic invitation to the event. Here are some pics:

Stay tuned for more photo updates and watch your email for an Early Bird invitation!

Market Photo Gallery

Thanks for following along - here's the photo gallery! We'll give you through tomorrow to make your comments and then on Thursday we'll announce the winner and give you details about another exciting event coming up at MCQS! Summary of photos below...

Photos in order:

Blue Moon quilt using the new Timeless batiks; Sexy Hexy quilt from Amy Butler's new LOVE fabrics; Magic Carpet quilt using new Australian prints; Amanda and Jayme Crow of Bella Nonna designs, the designer of the Down Under Wonder (still in stock at MCQS); Baby Chibi; our sample spree mother lode; Marcia enjoying a LOL moment after stealing Baby Chibi; the market floor compared with the earlier post photo; Amanda and Marcia toasting market at the 30th Anniversary cake and champagne party!

Thanks again for following. Check back on Thursday for an announcement of the winner and more fun happenings at the shop!

We made our list...

...and checked it twice and then headed for the final stretch. Marcia attended a fun class today on creating spiral log cabin blocks. Really a cool technique that you can be sure will be a future class. The Timeless Treasures rountable was really cool and we got to see fabric strikeoffs for possible future groups and gave our feedback on the color selection, pattern designs and whether or not we liked it. It's a very interesting process how the fabric is created from artwork done by someone who is an artist, not a quilter.
So - Amy Butler:ordered; M&S Australian prints:ordered; Timeless Blue Moon batiks: ordered. The Block of the Month search was successful and I'm really psyched abour our selection. More on the timetable for the BOM later. We stocked up on new patterns, bought fat quarters of fun juvenile-ish fabrics to make our fun new critters and (drumroll please)...WOOL. So many folks have been asking for wool lately that we've decided to give it another try. Now, this is wool in small manageable and affordable pieces intended for small and manageable projects. It should arrive in about 3 weeks. Our moda appointment was this morning and we ordered some fun new groups for spring 2010 deliveries. Moda told us that Wiscasset is due to start shipping this week, so no more hassling me folks! We made tentative calendar dates with McKenna Ryan for her visit to Maine next August (yippee!) and chatted with Heidi Kaisand about her return too.
We're ready to head home and as I scanned through the photos on the camera can't wait to show them all to you. Our shuttle arrives ar 4:05 AM for our 6:45 flight. We're looking foward to seeing our families and all of you! Thanks for following along!