Precut Standardization is here!

Precut Standardization is here!

We’re always getting phone calls and e-mails from you, our beautiful, lovely, patient, loyal, good-looking really good looking, wise customers.  You offer us many excellent suggestions and ideas (and thank goodness you do because we definitely don’t know it all).  As much as we can, we try to incorporate these suggestions into how we run our shop.  That is why we are pleased to announce the standardization of precuts!

As you know, MSQC carries a very broad selection (and growing) of precut fabrics from a bunch of different fabric providers.  The confusing part is that these companies all do the same precut sizes in different quantities.   Take charm packs for example; Riley Blake puts one of each print from a fabric line in their charms, so you could get 22 pieces … or 24 pieces …. or 27 pieces … etc  (you get the idea!)  Moda always puts 42 pieces in their charm packs, even if they have to double or even triple some prints.  Some companies include a flat 40 pieces (with some duplicates).  And other companies do it other ways.  Many of you commented that it was confusing when you watched a tutorial that used a charm pack that included a certain number of squares, and then bought another charm (more suitable to your taste and style) which included a different number of squares.  This also made it hard to easily compare prices of charms, to tell if you were getting good value for your money.  The same went other precuts as well.

So what we’ve done, as much as we can, is standardize the number of pieces that come in precut fabric bundles.  We thank our wonderful fabric providers, most of which have agreed to custom cut for us to make this standardization possible.  Here’s what we decided on, with your advice in mind (each precut lists the standard number of pieces it will include):

  • Charm Packs (5” x 5” squares) – 42 pieces
  • Layer Cakes (10” squares) – 42 pieces
  • Jelly Rolls (2.5” strips) – 40 pieces
  • Turnovers (6” half-square triangles) – 80 pieces
  • Honey Buns (1.5” strips) – 40 pieces

Remember, companies call the exact same precuts by different names (eg – 2.5” x 44” strips can be called jelly rolls, design rolls, rolie polies, roll-ups, stone-strips, etc), so always look for the measurements to ensure you’re getting the correct item!

A few things to note:

  1. This standardization is only starting to happen with newer lines coming out, so you will still see precuts available with a variance of pieces offered inside (our older inventory).
  2. Although most companies are on board with this change, not everyone is, so you should still check to see how many pieces you are getting when you buy a precut.
  3. Since many fabric lines have less prints than the number of pieces included in a precut, many prints are doubled or tripled.  We will be as specific as possible in our description to advise on the composition of what is inside.
  4. Some precuts (like fat quarter bundles and RJR Twice the charms, will still usually carry only one of each print from the line).

In case you’re curious, the reason we chose 42 pieces for the 5” and 10” squares, is because then you can make projects that are 6 x 7 squares, plus with the extra couple of prints, if you don’t like a few (and don’t want to use them in your quilt), you have more remaining squares to work with.

We hope that this change will benefit you, and look forward to implementing even more of your brilliant ideas in the future.  Thanks for being the best customers in the world!  We couldn’t have come this far without you all :)   Happy quilting!

Out with the old, in with the new – MSQC is getting a facelift

Out with the old, in with the new – MSQC is getting a facelift

Happy New Year everyone!!  2012 was an amazing year and we had lot of excitement at MSQC.  One of the things we’ve been focusing a lot of our time on has been a new version of our website.  When I say new version, I don’t just mean a new “look”, I mean we actually started over from scratch and made fundamental improvements   We started by asking ourselves “if we could build the perfect shopping experience for fabric online, what would be different?”  So we put a lot of thought into it and came up with something that we’re really excited about!  Now, it’s not perfect, and we’ll probably have a bunch of bugs for the first week or two, but it is a huge stepping stone to better integration with our community (forums and social media) and better shopping experiences.  So stay tuned over the next several weeks/months and we’ll show you a bunch of features we love (and hope you will too).  And, by all means, if you have any ideas for us, leave a comment or send an email to info@missouriquiltco.com … we’d love to hear from you!

In honor of the big upgrade, I thought we’d take a minute to look back at the road that has led us here :)

So, in February of 2009 we launched the first version of our site.  We had been open for 4 months in our tiny shop and were looking for ways to reach into the internet world.  Believe it or not, here was our version 1 -

The site we launched with

Can you believe it – that was all we had in the beginning!  Then we worked on it for a few weeks and went through a few more revisions.  Take a peek…

Front Page with Odd Header Daily Deal PageFront Page with Revised Header

That version of the site lasted us for almost a year and a half; it’s so crazy to look back!!

So after a while, we had a few more ideas to make the shopping experience better, and we upgraded to what we are now, which has served us well for over a year -

Current Front Page

Current Front Page

Current Daily Deal

 

 

 

 

 

 

And that leads us to today!  Here’s what we’ve been working on.  The front page is a bit cleaner, and hopefully a bit more personal -

New Site – Front Page

The categories that currently are on the front page are in the carousel now, but we also have them in a list view so if you know where you’re going, we can get you there fast -

When you hover over cateogries

And then on the browse page, we like what we currently have, but fabric by the yard is a unique challenge.  For example, let’s say you are looking for a very specific fabric print and our site has 5,000 different bolts of yardage to choose from; how can we help you find that “one” as quickly as possible?  Well, first, we built an awesome search bar (yes, we know the one on our site now is absolutely terrible), and if that doesn’t get you right there, you have categories to narrow down your results on the left, but even after narrowing your search down with those, you may still have several hundred results to browse through.  That would mean dozens of pages to click through, so we added infinite scroll (when you scroll to the bottom of the page more fabric will automatically keep on loading till the very end!).  We also hid most of the text and extra info.  It’s there if you hover over any product, but with info visible, we tripled the amount of fabric you can see on your screen at one time.  We’ve been using it for a while to test it, and we love it!  Hope you will too -

New Browse Page

And then when you actually click on a product, you will get some neat features that were direct requests from users like you.  For example, we show you coordinating solids right there, we pick them in the shop (it will take us a little while to get them chosen for everything, but we’re working on it).  Also, the collection collages below the products let you easily see what else we have in the collections, related products, products that are commonly bought together, and so on (hopefully a lot of helpful suggestions while you shop).

New Product Detail Page

So, we hope you’re excited, cause we sure are!!  If you see things changing over the next few days, don’t be surprised, just know good things are coming.

As a help, if you have items saved in your cart, make sure you make a note of them, because those won’t be saved in the transition, but all of your customer data (including Quilter’s Cash points) and so on will follow you right into the new site, no problem!

Thanks again for such a fun ride, we love building things for people who care, so thank you so much for the emails, the cards (you sent us Christmas cards!), and the calls.  They mean the world to us!

Happy Quilting!  :)

Quilts For Kids – A Baby Quilt from the Heart

The PDF pattern for the Quilts For Kids Youtube Tutorial is now available (please read details below before downloading): 

Recently we released a YouTube tutorial where Jenny showed a group of children in Nebraska how to make an adorable little project for premature babies.  The pattern and kits she used were kindly donated by the amazing Lincoln, Nebraska Chapter of Quilt’s for Kids, who started a project called Quilts For Kids, By Kids in Nebraska, where they are aiming to involve Consumer Science programs around the state to get involved.  To learn more about this dedicated chapter of Quilts For Kids and about their project, visit these links:

Quilts For Kids, By Kids in Nebraska - an article outlining their awesome project.

Facebook Page for the Lincoln, NE Quilts For Kids Chapter

For those who would like to make this project, the Lincoln chapter has kindly shared with us the free PDF pattern (see below).  Because of the strict standards at hospitals for donated quilts, we ask that you’d adhere to the instructions given on the PDF.

Click here to see the PDF Pattern for the Preemie-4-Patch

Finished quilts can be returned to:

Lincoln Quilts For Kids
2925 N. 42nd. St.
Lincoln, NE. 68504

Or please send to your local Quilts For Kids chapter.

A special thanks goes out to the Lincoln, Nebraska chapter that introduced us to this very important project, and took the time to create the PDF.  Feel free to leave kind words for them by commenting on this post.

Happy Quilting!

Almost a month….

Almost a month….

Where in the world have we been?? I can’t believe it’s been almost a month!  We have been busy as ever over here!  We have been adding fabric and pre-cuts and sewing samples, decorating the shop, we went to Quilt Market (that was a blast) and on and on…..

This week we are gearing up for our BIG BIRTHDAY BASH!!  Can you believe we are 4 years old!?!  I can hardly even believe we’ve been living this dream so long!  Things have really been picking up and we couldn’t be more grateful.

We have so much planned for the bash, we will have $1 fat quarters (we have been cutting them like crazy.  you are gonna love the selection) and lots and lots of specials and prizes!  I sure hope you are planning on coming.  We can’t wait for it, and hope you are as excited as we are.  All this week, I will post pictures of our preparations  so you can feel like a part of it, even if you aren’t able to be here!  Keep an eye out here on the blog, and on facebook!

Have a lovely day!

Sarah

Spooky windows..

Spooky windows..

What is the scariest thing you could think of as a quilter!??!?  Well, us girls talked about it and we came to the conclusion that the scariest thing we could think of would have to be not having enough time to sew that your machine had spider webs all over it!  **GASP**  So, we recreated a scene right out of our very own horror movie…. We call it “The lonely machine” and we almost shed a few tears in creating this scene for you.  I hope you realize that we would never want this to be a reality in your life, cause the pain would be too much to handle.  So, please for the love of all us quilters DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME!

Please keep your machine in good working order, with only the dust from all the fabric you are pushing through it!!

 

One more thing…If your gonna go all spooky, we feel like a pink glittered skull is the way to go!!

Hope you enjoyed the little peek of our windows in progress!!  Come see them for real, if you can!  We’d love to meet you!