BOGO 50%

For the next few days the "detail man" in the life of Heirlooms & Comforts will be at work on the front of the shop. You may have to walk around his ladder and bucket, but I guarantee that when he is finished with his project we will have a prettier face. Bobby's motto seems to be "never hire a job done that you can possibly do yourself without harm to the object or the craftsman." Several of the ladies in the shop thought that if you all hadn't seen Bobby suited-up for the job at hand that you just might get a chuckle out of this photo. Bottom line - excuse our clutter while Bobby paints the front of the shop.

Sara

H&C Feature of the Week: BOGO 50%
At Heirlooms & Comforts this week we will feature BOGO 50% which means that you can buy one item at regular price and get one "same kind" item at 50% off. That means that one yard of fabric qualifies you to buy another yard of equal or lesser value at 50% off; or one pack of machine needles at regular price and another pack of machine needles at 50% off; or one ruler at regular price and another ruler of equal or lesser value at 50% off; etc. The rules are that you purchase one item at regular price and qualify for a second item of equal or lesser value of like classification for half off the original price. No limit to the number of items you may purchase in pairs. Exemptions include sewing machines and sergers, cabinets, and embroidery software suites (Dept 975).

Sewing Camp for Kids
Grandmother, are you expecting a grandchild to spend time with you this summer and you don't know how you will keep her busy for a few days? We have the solution at Heirlooms & Comforts. Every summer we offer Kids Sewing Camp during the last week of July on Monday-Thursday. For 2012 those dates are July 22-26. There is a morning session for beginners and an afternoon session for kids who have previously attended our Sewing Camp. The morning class is available for eight kids at this time; the afternoon class is closed already. Look at the Classes page on our web site to see details for dates, times and cost.

Holiday Hours

At Heirlooms & Comforts our special hours are as follows:

• Closed: Independence Day Holiday July 4,5,6,7
• Reopen July 9 for regular hours
• Carolina Shop Hop: July 13-21 9:30 AM to 6:00 PM with the exception of Saturdays (14th and 21st) close at 5:00 PM.
• Monday, July 23 resume regular shop hours 10:00-5:00 M-F and 10:00-3:00 Sat.

Prepare for Shop Hop
We encourage you to prepare for Carolina Shop Hop 2012 now. You become more eligible for larger prizes when you visit more of the 14 shops participating in the shop hop. This year there are four Grand Prizes - sewing machines for quilters - to be given away. In addition there are 14 baskets of merchandise for quilters and sewers that are valued from $400 to $600. Young people aged 16 and under can qualify for one of three baskets of prizes suitable for youths. All in all the 14 shops participating in the shop hop will give away in excess of $20,000 worth of prizes and you can be among those who qualify for those prizes. Go to www.carolinashophop.com to review the rules, the prizes, and the passport that you can print from that site. We at Heirlooms & Comforts look forward to seeing you during hop time and renewing old acquaintances! If you are in Central about lunch time, Main Street Deli will have a special for you - dine in or take out. Drive carefully.

A Woman's World?

Sometimes we refer explicitly or incidentally to the genre of quilters and quilting as a woman's world. That is not necessarily the case. Celebrating Father's Day this weekend causes me to think about the men who have touched the quilting world with great positive influence. There are male designers of quilting fabrics and designs. There are especially good sewers and quilters who are male. One of the funny things is that men even design floral fabrics and patterns while most of us refrain from using flowers in quilts for men. Go figure. Men are quite often Master Gardeners who love flowers as much as women. There is, you know, a male designer of fabrics who is now popular in the quilting world who felt there is not enough "masculine" fabric available so he has designed a line with men in mind. (See the fabric from Parson Gray at Heirlooms & Comforts.)

When I think of Father's Day and quilting I instantly think of my dear father. He was quite an example of a man who knew his responsibility to his family and community and who loved beautiful nature and art. He was, in his youth, a physical worker who was strong of body and mind. The timeline of his life put him in a place when formal education was difficult for a farm boy in this part of the country. However, he sought learning and knowledge and made all efforts to see his offspring educated. In the process and in his compromised health the last 22 years of his life he began to appreciate the process and art of quilting. He precisely marked and cut the pieces for Mom to sew into quilts. He never intended to use a needle and thread and made jokes about wearing a skirt if ever he began to use them. He did, however, have a great deal of input into the choices of fabrics for many of the quilts and the patterns for those quilts. We in the family especially appreciate those quilts that we know he participated in making. One winter when it was cold in Florida and he couldn't get out to walk on the beach he cut out eight quilts in six weeks time. Mom couldn't keep up with the sewing that winter.

All quilters need "appreciate-ers" and quite often those are the men in our lives. Mom used to say she had never seen a man who didn't love a quilt. Thank you, guys, for being inspiration and appreciators of our art and craft and for your contributions to our processes. Happy Father's Day.

Sara

H&C Feature of the Week: Pattern & Fabrics
This week at Heirlooms & Comforts we will feature a free pattern available from Timeless Treasures Fabrics that will help you get ready for the winter holidays -
Tonga Poinsettia. Print the pattern out at home. Bring it in and we will help you select beautiful batiks to construct this design at 20% off regular price. You can get a jump on preparations for celebration or for gift giving. The newly arrived styles will be great in this pattern.

 


Diamonds are Best Friend
Was it Marilyn who sang it? Diamonds are a girl's best friend, especially Designer Diamond sewing and embroidery machines. Right now we have a pristine DD just traded in for a DDD-Designer Diamond DeLuxe. Bobby has had another "moment" and this machine is priced very reasonably! It will not remain on the Previously Owned list for very long. If you don't have a Diamond, you'd better check on this one.

Remembering, Again!

Why is it that sometimes you just get "flashbacks" of former times and the ease of living then? That happened to me in the process of thinking about what I would write this week.

When my brother and I were kids, not a hundred years ago, we had such freedom to be curious about what lies beyond the rise in the hillside. We lived "downtown" Clemson with undisturbed woodlands in our backyard where our Uncle Paul took us squirrel and rabbit hunting sometimes. Mom grew a garden there and had flowers blooming all around the house. We played with the six other kids in the neighborhood making towns and houses by sweeping up the pine needles into walls for our structures. Chairs were rocks; sticks created other structures. We played barefoot and had to extract stickers and briars, etc. Life was good and fun. And to top off summer there was the Clemson A&M College Farm and Home Week on Bowman Field. Oh, my! There was a huge tent on the edge of Hwy 93 in front of the Holtzendorf YMCA building (which held Clemson's only swimming pool). The field was littered with tractors and other big farming equipment. Families came from all over the state to see what innovations were available to make farming and farm living more efficient and easier for the family or business operation. We were allowed to walk from home through town to the field to see all the exhibits not totally unlike a state fair. There were animals in pens that were being fed by new methods of presenting the food; chickens being hatched by new kinds of incubators (I can almost smell the fuzzy baby chicks and feel their softness now); new canning and freezing information for the homemaker; newly developed varieties of okra seeds that produced pods without spiny barbs! We collected brochures and samples and balloons and went home and had a "show" of our own in the "pine needle village" in the backyard.

Oh, my. One of the things that has triggered these memories is a web site www.tigerpregameshow.blogspot.com which includes historic photographs of old Clemson. It is fun to go to that site and look at the sidebar on the right of the screen. You can look at a series of pictures each day with regard to former times in Clemson. Granted, many of them have to do with sports, but there are some really fun photos of the town as it was long ago.

Thanks for indulging my reminiscence!

Sara

H&C Feature of the Week: Books
At Heirlooms & Comforts this week we will feature 25% off books. Whoa! That is a great savings for you, our special customers. Choose your favorites or the ones that you have been watching for a while. The discount is on in-stock books only and does not apply to special orders. For this week, get 25% off your choice of books, no limit to number that you can buy.

Pre-Owned Machines
At Heirlooms and Comforts we have several previously owned and well-loved machines available for purchase. There is the Topaz 30 which have all the Exclusive Sensor System features that one hopes for and is a sewing and embroidery machine. We can sell this machine for less than $2000.00. That is a great buy for a machine that is less than a year old with few sewing hours logged. Check this out for a primary or second machine for someone who loves ease in sewing!

Hard Times

Sometimes it seems life just hands you hard times. Those can vary from day to day, thank goodness. Here at the quilt shop, though, hard times are those when you can't think which project you want to start next. There are so many points of inspiration that you hardly know which to pay attention to this time. We get intriguing patterns and books about new and innovative methods of cutting and sewing geometric shapes together. We get new fabric lines and designs. We get renewed methods of making a project in an old technique (for example, English paper piecing). There are so many ways to look now that it's a good thing to have the great staff that we have at H&C to help you chart your course toward the next project. You haven't challenged us lately to help you find a project? Hey, come on in and give us the opportunity. We are ready and willing.

Sara

H&C Feature of the Week: HV Inspira Stabilizers
At Heirlooms & Comforts this week we will feature Husqvarna Viking's Inspira stabilizers. These are the nicest stabilizers we know about and at a 20% discount this week you can stock up on the ones that you have neglected to add to your collection of stabilizing products. No limit. No restrictions. Inspira stabilizers at 20% off.


 

English Paper Piecing
The technique called English Paper Piecing is a handwork technique using a stiff paper as a form for the shape that you are using to make a pattern. Grandmother's Flower Garden is probably the first pattern that comes to mind for this technique because it is solely made of hexes sewn together with color being the defining factor in how the design looks. You can achieve a pattern with a "path" around the flowers of the design. There are other settings that can be achieved with the hexes of Grandmother's Flower Garden as well. Another fun design with a slightly more difficult assembly because of the curves of the shape is the Apple Core. Kathy White is experimenting with this shape just now and is finding this portable project to be an enjoyable challenge. She is in the shop regularly on Tuesdays and Fridays, so check in to see how she is progressing. Also check out the books we have recently received about this technique. There are also several "shapes" of English Paper Piecing pieces to entice you.

A Rare Opportunity
It is rare for us at Heirlooms and Comforts these days to get a Designer SE traded in; most owners just keep them when they are ready for a Designer Diamond Deluxe or a Designer Ruby. There is now one Designer SE that has been traded in and it is ready for a new, appreciative home. It has been well-treated during its lifetime and has been cared for by our own super technician, Bobby. Check this out if you have been wishing for a previously owned Designer SE!