I have been so busy lately I forgot to mention to you all that Moda asked us to give a school house at Market. Well, I have no trouble at all talking your ear off in person, but put me in front of a crowd, and I get nervous! (like, knees shaking-forget everything I am supposed to say-nervous!) Luckily, we only had 15 minutes to fill, and I don’t have to tell you that Mom can fill up 15 minutes just getting warmed up! LOL!
Basically, we gave some tips on how to use online resources to help customers in your shop! (like using our youtube videos for classes or demos, using Moda Bakeshop patterns, and all the other free resources that are out there!) It was fun to see so many people and share a bit about what we know. (or are at least learning about, more and more!)
Then after we were finished we got to stay and see the Moda Designers and hear all the buzz about Moda! It was such a blast! Here are a few pictures of a few designers that we saw.
Here is the Lovely Jan Patek showing her new line and adorable basket pattern!Here is Jan’s adorable new block of the month! Don’t you just LOVE it?The cute Sweetwater girls, sharing a table runner project!Pat Sloan shows off her first line of fabric ‘Eat your fruit and Veggies’Bonnie and Camille share a new pattern and new fabric line ‘marmalade’. SO cute!Isn’t this gorgeous!? I love it!Check out Vanessa Christensen’s new line. We love the colors and the Ombre`is drool worthy!
I hope you enjoyed the little sneak peak into our day at School House. We had a blast! (thank you Moda for the opportunity!) I’ll have more pictures from Market to show you soon! Have a lovely day.
So I really should have named this post ‘Buying an old building and trying to remodel it in an efficient manner’ is a NIGHTMARE! I have kept you up on some of the issues we’ve had with our new place, and some I’ve just kept quiet on. I really, really want to to be moved in already!
But, now there is an issue with the carpet. Several issues. I am only going to focus on one….after the seams were all matched together (some off by a bit) we noticed that the carpet was different shades of color. One more brown and one more grey. Really? They swear it’s from the same dye lot. The flooring place we are going through couldn’t believe it either. They want to fix it and make it right, however this puts us weeks behind. We are waiting for them to finish the install anyway, and then when they get the decision back from the carpet mill we’ll decide what to do from there. So potentially, what we are looking at is moving everything in, setting up shop, then moving it all again while they replace the messed up carpet. OH BOY!
So anyway, I know it will all work out eventually….won’t it? I am however really, really excited about what I am about to show you! Dad and Al built this amazing thread display! We got the shipment of thread in and couldn’t wait for the dumb carpet to be done! We just had to put it all out! (thanks, Spenser for making it look so pretty!)
Isn’t this amazing!!?! LOVE all this gorgeous thread!
Hello, rainbow of color! So, so excited to announce we will be selling the entire line of Omni thread from Superior Threads! We are also going to have every single color of King Tut variegated thread, too!
So excited and I just CAN HARDLY WAIT TO BE IN OUR NEW STORE!!! I’m hoping it will be sooner than later!
The rest of the week we will be off to quilt Market! Can you believe it’s that time already!? I can’t! I am so glad that Market is in Kansas City, this time! (just an hour away!)
We are presenting a school-house for Moda. To say that I am nervous would be an understatement! I am SCARED silly! Al and Mom, both aren’t nervous one bit. Why did I have to inherit the ‘chicken gene’? LOL. Well, wish us luck! Hope you have a great-amazing-fun filled-weekend!!
So much fun stuff has been happening and going on and I am quite excited to share it with you all!
Last week was a week full of progress! We got the walls painted, shelves painted, bathrooms painted, tile started, and even the awning painted! We also got 60 tons of rock spread out on our parking lot and un-covered the old brick sidewalk!! I KNOW! BRICK! So exciting!
Here are a few pictures to keep you up to speed on what is happening!
Adorable!!! Right!?
I chose this great turquoise color for the awning stripe, because I liked how it complimented the brick! I was going to do a pink, but when I started ‘auditioning’ colors I just liked the turquoise better! It’s a bit sloppy, though. We were leaning over it (it is much bigger than you expect!) We even rigged up our own painting stick with duct tape!
We will be finishing it up and getting better lines, soon! LOL (you can see in the pic below!)
Painting and painting! Mom and Dad working on the check-out area!
This was a really late night, trying to cram as much as we could get done. Painting the center check-out island! Trying to bust it all out before carpet install begins!
This week we are getting carpet,new doors and windows and the main light fixtures up!
So, here you go! A little peak into what has been consuming us for the past two weeks! Throw in Mom and Dad’s crash, and you’d be safe to say we are exhausted!
Life just keeps getting more interesting, no doubt!
I do know one thing though, and it’s that we all feel so blessed!
Hey everyone, this is Al, Jenny’s son. I’m the computer guy here at the shop, so you may know me for good or for bad, depending on your experience with the site, but I wanted to stop by real quick and share my Mother’s Day thoughts, hope that’s okay.
As you all know, Mother’s Day is coming up, and I wanted to let you know that I am grateful for my Momma Doan. I think I’ve always been grateful for Mom and Dad, though I do sometimes take them for granted without realizing I am. It just happens, I don’t mean to, but it does.
It is in this spirit, the spirit of remembering how precious life and family are, that I’m writing today. We all had an experience this last week that kind of shook me up a bit, and made me realize I need to appreciate the wonderful people in my life more and not take them for granted, and at the very top of that list is Momma Doan.
About a week ago, Mom and Dad left Hamilton to drive down to Kansas City to get some supplies for the new shop, it’s about an hour drive, and we do it several times a week for the last 17 years. It was raining pretty good, but it’s Missouri, nothing was out of the ordinary, seriously, we do this all the time. Well about 20 minutes after they left, I got a call that went something like this – “Son, we’ve been in an accident, we’re on the highway, come quickly, we’re okay, just come as fast as you can”
Mom wrote the following excerpt sent in an email to us kids after this which tells it better than I (she said I could share it with you all) –
“First let me say that we are OK, but we were in a car wreck today. We had borrowed Grandpa’s truck to go to the city to pick up vanities for the new shop. It was raining really hard, the kind of rain that soaks you when you walk from the house to the car…Dad was going slower, about 60, as visibility wasn’t very good. A semi truck blew past us washing us with water and we started to fish tail … Dad was worried that we were going to hit the semi. But we headed for the ditch and he was relieved as he thought we would be able to drive out of that, but we hit the other side and rolled. The ditch was swollen with water about 10 feet wide and 4 feet deep. When the truck stopped, we landed on the top of the truck upside down.
We were hanging upside down and some how Dads cell phone was still in his shirt pocket. He grabbed it and called 911. I asked him if he was ok and he asked me. We were both surprised that we were alright. I wanted out of my seat belt but I couldn’t get it unbuckled so I asked Dad if he could unbuckle me and he reached over and did it. All this time he is talking to 911 and trying to describe where we are. When he unbuckled me I fell straight down on my head and somehow managed to get turned around and sat Indian style on the roof of the car. I zipped up my purse and tucked it up into the floor board above me head.
All the sudden i noticed that Dad’s voice was sounding panicky. He tried the door and it wouldn’t open…He yelled at me not to open my door and for the first time I looked around and noticed that the water was over the window on my side and the cab was filling with water. I looked at Dad he is still talking to 911 and the water was at his forehead. The Door wouldn’t open so he started to roll down his window. He got it about half way down and unbuckled himself held his breath and pulled himself out the window. He reached his arm back in and rolled the window down the rest of the way and pulled me out. We were glad to be out of the cab and able to breath.
Then Dad yelled Run Jenny and the water started to roll the truck. Dad was trying to hold the truck to keep it from rolling on me and I was trying to stand up in 4 feet of rushing water and suddenly I just let go and the water carried me down the ditch. I knew I was in trouble as I couldn’t stop and started grabbing at the grass along the sides of the ditch. A car stopped and I yelled “help me” They came down into the dtich and pulled me out of the water. I looked back at the truck and the water had rolled it on it’s side and Dad was up on the bank. He came running to me and we just held each other. We are still amazed that other than a sore neck and back we are are OK. By this time we climbed up out of the ditch and a van stopped and I sat in his car. Our clothes were soaked and Dad and I were shaking badly. I was also covered with debris from the water in the ditch. Shortly after that the ambulance, firemen and highway patrol came. Dad’s phone that we just got yesterday was toast so we called Alan on a phone that belonged to the man in the van…he didn’t answer the first time but the second time he picked up and came right away to get us.
We feel very blessed to be alive…there are so many things that could have happened and it could have gotten really bad really fast. If the window hadn’t opened Dad could have drowned, if the water hadn’t carried me away, the truck could have rolled on top of me. But we were watched over and protected.
We just want all of you to know that we love you and you just never know from one day to the next how things can change. So hug each other and and your children.
We love you! Mom and Dad”
Pretty crazy stuff. Right after I got the call and was heading down there, my mind was racing with all the things that I hadn’t done yet in my life that I wanted them to see and know about, everything from marriage to kids, to talents and hobbies that I’ve developed but not shared. So much of who we are revolves around our family and most of that starts and ends with Mom and Dad, and out of the blue I just got a call that both of them were very close to not being here like I was used to.
A lot of people get this wake up call with much more serious circumstances, things like cancer, other life threatening diseases, and death are all wake up calls. I’m extremely grateful our wake up call was in the end, nothing more than a totalled pickup truck and some wet clothes, but it was enough to wake me up, one more broken window or the car sliding a different direction and this could have been an absolute tragedy.
So on this Mother’s Day, I hope you’ll look around and give one more hug to people that matter to you, be kind, let them know you love them, because honestly, you just never know what will happen, so make the most of it while we can.
Mother’s Day is just around the corner – and if you are like me – you want to surprise the special Moms in your life with a unique gift. And we’ve got the perfect solution! Gift a seat on our 2nd annual Quilters’ bus trip, June 8-9. You’ll get to shop at seven “All Star” quilt shops plus the Kalona Quilt Museum. Price of the 2 day trip including transportation, lodging and meals is only $139!
And if you feel you are too far from Missouri Star Quilt Company, you can catch a ride in Brookfield or Jamesport in Missouri or in Iowa at Mt Pleasant, Kalona or Williamsburg. Contact Carolyn@quiltersdailydeal.com and she’ll help you get connected!
