April 27, 2024
Two Heavy-Duty Months
Dear Friends,
As you probably know, all of March and all of April were Texas Shop-Hop months. During this time, lots of quilters and people wanting to become quilters made their rounds to visit as many Texas quilt shops as they could. Several people made it to ALL of Texas’ quilt shops. Most were from Texas, but there were people from several other states as well.
People participating in the shop hop all had 8 x 11 ½ fold-over papers that were their passports. Opened up, there was a labeled place to put a stamp that each participating quilt shop gave to them, with places for 105 of Texas quilt shops. Not all shops participated, but that was a good successful number who did.
For this two-month event, we, as did many of the shops, extended our open hours to be from 9:00 am to 7:00 pm, Monday (We’re always open Mondays anyway) through Saturday. and for one Sunday for each of the two months, we also opened up from noon to 4:00 on Sunday.
For our shop, Fox Country Quilts, the shop hop was quite a success. Prior to the start, we received several attractive 5 ½ x 5 ½ inch fabric squares with our shop name and logo on it. For each of the hoppers who came into the shop, we handed out one of these squares as a way of keeping track of how many hoppers came in. Last Friday, we hit 700 squares given out! We estimate that of all the hoppers who came in, maybe something like 50 of them were people we already knew, while the rest were people who had never been in here before. Most were quite impressed with our shop set-up and retreat, something you’re familiar with if you’re reading this e-mail. Many of them said they would be returning for shopping, retreating, or classes.
Another happening worthy of note: Starting last week Tuesday evening, a group of retreaters started arriving so they could take a four-day class starting Wednesday morning. They were here to take a Judy Niemeyer class from a local certified Judy Niemeyer instructor, Tina Leuders. They were a great group! Tina set for them the goal for each person to complete at least the first quarter of their quilt. If you aren’t familiar with Judy Niemeyer quilts, take a look at her web site: https://www.quiltworx.com/ If you visit quilt shows with any frequency, you already know that it’s common for Judy Niemeyer quilts to take first place prizes. They all use a paper-piecing technique to accomplish the intricate designs with all their precise points.
That class left this last Sunday, and we had a new group in our retreat taking a 3-day Beginning Pro-Stitcher class from Donna and Kim. They were great group as well, and enjoyed their stay with us and the things they learned in class.
We have classes going on every week, so if you haven’t taken advantage of some of them, you really ought to scan our class listing to see the constant stream of learning available to you.
