MSQC | Missouri Star Blog

August 13, 2015August 13, 2015

New Friday Tutorial: The Hashtag Quilt

Such a fun quilt for you this week! Whether you call it a pound sign, a number sign or a hashtag, this design is just so fun and would be a great quilt for a recipient of any age!

This quilt features the Kona Cotton Pool Party Ten Squares that are just so gorgeous!

Click on the button below to WATCH THE TUTORIAL and find everything you’ll need to get started!

June 10, 2015June 10, 2015

Sew Glamperous: A MSQC Glamping Retreat

There is something so exciting and empowering about being around people who are just as passionate about quilting as we are! Every time we have an MSQC Retreat, we get to be a part of that and it just invigorates us! Last week, we had such an amazing group of women here for our ‘Sew Glamperous’ Glamping Retreat and we had the best time! Here’s a little recap.

First, you may be wondering what ‘glamping’ is… well it’s basically glamorous camping… a style of camping with amenities and, in some cases, resort-style services not usually associated with “traditional” camping (according to google). So while most people stayed in the retreat center, we had some people bring their ‘glampers’ and they were amazing! Here are just a couple.

You can’t have glamping without flamingoes!! 🙂 Don’t they look right at home??

This glamper lined her awning with lights that were wrapped in jelly rolls! They looked so cute at night!!

This mother and daughter duo (below) is from Paducah, Kentucky, home of the American Quilter’s Society Annual Quilt Show & Contest. Last year they wore their Missouri Star t-shirts to the quilt show and people kept stopping them, thinking they worked for Missouri Star! Eventually, so many people stopped them that when people would say how much they loved Jenny and the tutorials, they just started saying, ‘Thank you!’ and went along with it! 🙂 We loved hearing their story and were so glad to have them with us for the week! It was so great to meet you, Lisa and Laura!

Mr. Jenny did some extra special construction for this retreat… he built the most adorable glamper photo prop! Here’s Jenny and Ron having a little fun! 🙂

A photo posted by sarahmsqc (@sarahmsqc) on Jun 5, 2015 at 9:10pm PDT

This is Hope from Nebraska (below). She came across Jenny’s tutorials when she was trying to make a Jelly Roll Race Quilt as her first quilting experience ever. At the retreat she was doing her first piecing and did such an amazing job!! Look how perfectly all of her seams match up! You’re a pro already, Hope! I think it’s safe to say that you’re officially a quilter! 😀 (Hope’s son was with her for the week and was just as quiet and well-behaved as anyone could’ve hoped!)

Some of the activities included one of Jenny’s amazing trunk shows, a mystery quilt class taught by Jenny, antiquing and lots and lots of sewing!! They even had some visits from Mr. Jenny (Ron) and Rob Appell from Man Sewing, who was in town filming tutorials. Our retreaters didn’t seem to mind (see photo below)! 😉

We had such a great time and can’t wait for our next glamping retreat!! 🙂

If you hope to participate in one of our future retreats or events, you can find more info on those here: Missouri Star Quilt Company Events

February 26, 2015February 26, 2015

Throwback Thursday: Pinwheels!

We had a fun first week of our MSQC Throwback Thursday! We loved seeing so many Summer in the Park photos!

Here is one in particular that we want to share:

This quilt was shared by ANTIQUE1950BE on Quiltsby.me.

If you want to be featured on next week’s post, upload your photos to Quiltsby.me in this week’s featured Throwback Thursday pattern!

This week we’re going back to a classic block that Jenny made super simple: the Pinwheel! We always love reading your comments on our tutorials and here are a few that stood out to us:

“Easiest way I’ve ever seen to make a pinwheel block! I haven’t tried it yet, but this makes me want to :)” — Arielle Masters

“Thanks so much for doing this tutorial! So much easier than what I’ve been doing! :)” — Kare Flanagan

“I’m a visual learner, so having you show me how to do this makes it SO much easier! My nieces will get the pinwheel quilts they wanted for Christmas for sure now! Thanks!!” — Shanna Dallmeyer

We love this Giant Pinwheel that Elisabeth shared on Quiltsby.me!

So post your photos of the Pinwheel block to Quiltsby.me using the hashtag #msqctbt and we’ll pick a winner or two in next Thursday’s post! 🙂

July 17, 2014July 17, 2014

Nostalgia and Warehouses

Today’s post is a heartfelt one, written by Al. We hope you enjoy it as much as we have.

——-

Growing up brings about so many nostalgic moments.

This weekend was a huge one for our company. HUGE, I tell you! HUGE!

Almost six years ago, we started our company in a great big 5,000 square foot building at 100 N Ardinger in Hamilton, Missouri. It was way too big for us! We refinished the front 1,000 square feet to be our shop and went to work refinishing that space.

We tore out the paneling and put up some fresh paint and a new floor and that room was great.

We got our first internet orders there and we would all package the 3-4 orders a day right up and send them off right from the cutting table.

As we continued to grow, we built a little shipping department in the back, then a machine quilting room.

Once it became more than just Becky and Jackie answering the phones, we moved our customer service into their own room.

Eventually, the shop moved to the main street (where it remains today) and that 100 N Ardinger building became strictly shipping and customer service.

And then it wasn’t big enough for that, even! It was crazy, but we needed more space for our customer service team and a loading dock. Ammon (our warehouse manager) made a great forklift, but his arms were getting tired!

About a year ago (August 8th of last year, actually) we decided it was time to build our own custom warehouse for our shipping and customer service. We had all kinds of cool stuff that needed to be in there. We needed a way to get fabric cut in the shops and then connected back into your orders so they get shipped out in a timely manner. We wanted ways of organizing products so that we could always find them, even when we were down to that very last charm pack. But mainly, we needed space.

So we got building! Winter came and snowed us out for a few months, but we kept going.

This last weekend, we finally moved our shipping over to the new warehouse.

There were so many moving parts to this move. Did we think of fire extinguishers? What about chairs for the breakroom? (sorry everyone!) Carts for the pickers and bins for the carts? We got bins for the charm packs and layer cakes, but what about notions? What do those go into?

The move got more and more complex, and was a pretty stressful time for a lot of us. And now (making sure no order was lost in the mix) we are working hard to get everything up to snuff. Now we have the room to finally hire a few more shippers and get our feet back under us. Our goal by the end of the month is to be back to getting your orders out the day you place them. We are excited!

With all that hubub going on, I was a little surprised at some of the feelings. Sarah, Natalie, and myself were sweeping out the 100 N Ardinger building on Saturday night. After everything had been moved out of the front rooms and it was just a few empty shipping tables and shelves, we tidied up the floor and then all sat down and were overcome with this nostalgia. We’re definitely not sad. This is exciting! We have needed more space for so long!

But it’s weird, you know? It’s weird to grow up.

We were laughing about the early days there. How every package that has ever been shipped from our company had gone through that tiny room we were all cramped in. Hundreds of thousands of orders have been fulfilled from there. (!!)

We recalled the days the A/C unit would quit and we’d just sweat and ship. We remembered how (even before that) we had the Friday night sews, with people sitting on top of people.

It’s also where the first tutorials were filmed with a little camcorder!

Just to have those walls remember such wonderful times choked me up a little.

A lot of companies have a garage that is their very, very beginning. Ours is that building on Ardinger. It’s that small room in the front where it all started, with Mom and a long arm machine and two shelves with a half dozen bolts of fabric. And it’s great to remember that, I think.

I asked Sarah what we should do with that building now. She’s not sure, but one thing is for certain. We’ll keep that front room just like it is. No matter what else we end up doing, we need to be able to walk back in there and remember those feelings that keep this business so exciting.

I’m definitely not sad to be moving on from there. We are excited to be growing, but there’s a big part of me that will just miss walking in there every morning to tackle the day.

That being said, it’s nice to finally have room to park! 🙂 Thanks for the journey, everyone. Here’s to another great era in our new warehouse! Thanks for sticking with us while we improve and learn. I promise you’ll like what we have up ahead!

-Al

March 1, 2014February 28, 2014

Easy Hot Pads in a Day!

HOT DOG! An opportunity to hone your quilting skills with this one, fantastic project! Jenny will share tips and techniques for color design, quick piecing (chain sewing and nesting your seams), how to square a block, machine quilting and binding ALL IN ONE DAY!!

Hot Pads

Check-in for the event opens at 9 a.m. on Monday, March 24 so you’ll have plenty of time to visit the store, purchase your supplies and get your sewing space all set up. Class will begin at 1 p.m. You can sew all morning and stay until 5 p.m., if you’d like!

QUESTIONS? Contact us at retreats@missouriquiltco.com or call 888 571-1122 from 8:30am to 5:00pm (Central), Monday through Friday.

Looking forward to seeing you!

Kate