Birthday Bash 2017 Recap

The gang's all here for our traditional employee photo before the start of Birthday Bash 2017!

There’s no party like a quilting party and our Ninth Birthday Bash was no exception! What better way to celebrate 9 years in business than with fun, games and fabric and a game show theme to keep the show rolling throughout the celebration?

The best way to start a Birthday Bash is with a Dinner with the Doans! The Doans, plus 200 of our quilting family, joined us for dinner, dessert, and of course, a little friendly family competition. This year the Girl Doans squared off against the Boys for an entertaining version of Family Feud. The Boys earned the victory on this night, but we know the Girls will be ready for a rematch! 

Birthday Bash 2017

 

Before birthday festivities officially kicked off, we snapped our traditional all-employee family photo in front of our newest mural in Hamilton. We think the gang looked absolutely electric in the lime green t-shirts!

The gang's all here for our traditional employee photo before the start of Birthday Bash 2017!
The gang’s all here for our traditional employee photo before the start of Birthday Bash 2017!

All three days were bursting at the seams with games and activities for the entire family! Our “Win, Lose or Dance” on the patio was a happening spot, where participants could show off their finest moves for a chance to win some fabric!

Guests from around the globe boogied around the patio for a chance to win fabric prizes!
Guests from around the globe boogied around the patio for a chance to win fabric prizes!

We busted out some Couch to Quilt “suitcases” for our Sew Case Showdown game on Friday morning! It was a huge hit!

Friday night featured our first ever BINGO night hosted by Man Sewing’s Rob Appell! Rob donned his referee uniform and called numbers, up and down, across and “on the bias”

Birthday Bash 2017: Man Sewing Bingo

We know a good quilty party wouldn’t be complete without some trunk shows! Jenny and Man Sewing’s Rob Appell shared their quilting journeys in memorable presentations throughout Birthday Bash.

Jenny Doan displays a quilt during one of her trunk shows at Birthday Bash

Rob Appell shows off one of his quilts during his trunk show at Birthday Bash

Giving back to our community and those in need is very important to us, and this year we hosted a Charity Quilt “Bake Off” with help from the Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild to create 32 full-size quilts! These quilts were designed, pieced, quilted and bound by some amazing volunteers over a two-day period, and best of all, 16 quilts will be donated for disaster relief and 16 will be given to local Kansas City charities. 

Charity Quilt Bake Off at Birthday Bash

Through some of our “ticketed” events, we were able to collect hundreds of paper products and dozens of peanut butter and jelly packages for our local Caldwell County Food Pantry! Money raised during our daily quilt raffles went to support this organization as well.

One of our favorite parts of Birthday Bash is the Sew-lebrity Sew-off, where Jenny and Rob go head-to-head for a 45-minute sewing competition! This year Jenny created a shiny lamé championship belt and cape, while Rob whipped up a batik seascape! With almost an hour of sewing, stories, and entertainment, it’s clear that the true winners of this friendly competition are the audience who watched Jenny and Rob’s sewing skills in action!

Jenny and Rob went head-to-head in the Sew-lebrity Sew-Off!

With our Ninth Birthday Bash in the books, we want to take a moment and express our sincerest thanks to all of those who came together to make this celebration possible. Our amazing guests, those who visited us in Hamilton and online, fantastic employees, and wonderful vendors and sponsors all deserve a round of applause for helping us make our birthday the best one yet!

Birthday Bash 2017

Row by Row License Plate Zipper Pouch!

Sometimes inspiration just hits you when you least expect it! Jenny was signing a few of our Row by Row license plates at a Meet & Greet this week and thought, this needs to be a zipper pouch for quilting and sewing supplies! Maybe you bought two just in case or had every intention to visit all those shops to make a quilt and win a Row by Row prize, but just in case, we thought you might like this. 🙂

Make a zipper pouch with your Row by Row fabric license plate!

Jenny used one fat quarter from her stash, which was plenty of fabric, once you add in the license plate! Isn’t it so fun?

Make a zipper pouch with your Row by Row fabric license plate!

Simply follow Jenny’s Zipper Pouch tutorial (sizing may be slightly different) and try it out! #dontfearthezipper

Make a zipper pouch with your Row by Row fabric license plate!

Missouri Star’s 7th Birthday Bash & J.C. Penney Days!

Missouri Star Quilt Co. hit a big milestone, turning 7 years old as a company this year! It’s all thanks to our fans for helping us make it this far, and that’s why we planned a big celebration for you all! A lot has changed since day one, but family and friends is still at the center of everything we do, and that’s why we were thrilled to see so many of you visit us in Hamilton this past weekend to help celebrate, not to mention all the love and support that we had online from those of you who were unable to attend. Here’s a little recap for you!

Wednesday Night: We kicked off our Birthday Bash with an intimate dinner at Blue Sage with the Doan Family and guests. It was a wonderful night of laughing, storytelling and incredible food! Check out the awesome photo booth that Ron (A.K.A. Mr. Jenny) made us!

Dinner With the Doans

Did we mention laughing? So much laughing!!

Doan Family at Dinner

At the end of the night, there was a slideshow of the first 7 years of MSQC focusing on family and growth. It brought everyone to tears and was such a beautiful end to the night. Here’s a group photo of those in attendance!

dinner group photo

Thursday is when the party really started here in town! We had tons of giveaway contests, including a “Layer Cake” walk, and the Traveling Riley Blake Quilt Show was set up in the patio are as well!

birthday bash 2015 thursday

Meet Sue! She was the big winner at the Quilter’s Cash Grab Machine! (You know those machines where the wind blows the cash up everywhere and you have to grab as much as you can? Yep, we had one!) She can buy a lot of fabric with that! 🙂

Sue Big QC Winner

All of the MSQC employees got a 7th Birthday T-Shirt to sport throughout the event. Here’s the customer service team showing it off with Josh Doan, Jenny’s son, from the Wholesale team! (Is it really work if you’re having fun?) 😉

As part of our 7th Birthday Bash we had $0.77 Fat Quarters in the local shops! It was a Fat Quarter Frenzy!

fat quarter frenzy

We held a quilt raffle each day of the Bash and all proceeds went to the local Hamilton Chamber of Commerce. Jenny wrapped up in one as we were drawing the winning ticket, even though it was 80 degrees outside!

jenny raffle quilt

Friday evening the Penney Hornets football game was projected on the big screen in the park for all to enjoy! Go Hornets! And look at the beautiful view of the patio all lit up at nighttime! Ah, we love this small town life!

Football In Park

The Birthday Bash continued into Saturday, and J.C. Penney Days was celebrated in the town as well with tons of fun for the whole family!There were blow ups for the kids, a flea market area for the adults and much more. The kids got to take a swing at our “7” pinata full of Auriful Thread! That’s better than candy, right? At least if you’re a quilter! 😉 (We did throw some candy out for the kids as well, so everyone was happy!!)

Saturday Day

This celebration wouldn’t have been what it was without our amazing Local Events Cruise Director, Meg (on the right) and our excellent DJ for the event, BJ Scott (left)! Here they are with Sarah, Jenny’s daughter, after a LONG, tiring, wonderful weekend of fun! 😀

BJ-Sarah-Meg-2015BirthdayBash

Lastly, Saturday evening a couple of live bands played for J.C. Penney Days, and there was a J.C. Penney Look-alike contest! This little cutie was the only contestant, and won a $100 Gift Card to the J.C. Penney’s Store!

Penney Look Alike

We thank you all for making these past 7 years so wonderful and for celebrating our 7th Birthday with us! Here’s to many more! 😀

 

Kona Days in Hamilton, MO Recap

 

In mid April we hosted a wonderful event here in Hamilton!  Robert Kaufman Fabrics was celebrating the 30th Anniversary of their Kona Cotton solids fabric line, so they selected 30 amazing quilters and invited them each to create an original quilt using Kona Cotton fabric.  For more information on the history of Kona and a complete list of quilters contributed, Robert Kaufman created a fantastic Lookbook, which you can find here

Kona Cotton Lookbook: 30 Quilts for 30 Years

kona 30th

There were so many quilts that they filled our Sewing Center as well as a couple of our shops!  They are just gorgeous and we loved having them here!  This photo shows just some of the quilts that were in our Sewing Center, where we host frequent quilting retreats!

kona quilts

This quilt by Shea Henderson is gorgeous!  We love the colors and it’s such a fun, memorable pattern!

shea henderson kona quilt

The detail and color of each quilt was so impressive and mesmerizing!

kona quilt detail

Along with these incredibly meticulous and artful quilts, we had a few great events to add to the fun!  Our very own Jenny Doan was signing copies of Block Magazine and gave one of her fabulous trunk shows!

 

jenny trunk show

We also had book signings with Shea Henderson for her new book, School of Sewing, as well as with Angela and Cloe Walters for their new book, Get Quilting with Angela & Cloe.

 

get quilting angela walters school of sewing sh ea

We had a super fun Cars & Quilts event that weekend, where people brought in their vintage cars and lined them up all along downtown Hamilton, then went inside to view the 30 Quilts from Kona!  There was nowhere to park in town!

Screenshot 2015-05-06 15.26.23

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Screenshot 2015-05-06 15.32.23

We love to look for opportunities to serve those in need, so during Kona Days we created kits for people to come in and sew pillowcases to be donated to a local women’s shelter.  We also were accepting food donations to the local food pantry!  Peanut butter and jelly are a treat for those receiving assistance from the food pantry, so we asked for those specific items when attending Jenny’s trunk show and got an amazing response!

konadays foodpantry1

 

konadays foodpantry

We had a blast and can’t wait for our next big event in Hamilton!!  Thank you to everyone who attended, participated and donated!!!