QKO Notebook

February 4, 2010

Maywood Veranda

The UPS guy pulled up a couple of days ago, and dropped off a big box from Maywood Studios containing their newly-released “Veranda” fabric line.

Veranda by Maywood Studios

Veranda by Maywood Studios

Veranda is a fantastic new line of retro florals with large prints and medium and small coordinates in reds, blues, greens and golds.   We’ve selected 11 fabrics from this line that can be freely mixed/matched to create stunning effects.

Maywood describes this as having Tuscan and retro influences, etc. Don sez it reminds him of Hawaiian designs.  Whichever way you look at it, these are stunning, beautiful designs and will make wonderful projects for your home or gifts.

As usual, these are printed on the top-quality goods you’ve come to expect from Maywood Studios.

This line, along with a half-yard collection, is available now in our web store. Click here to go to the Veranda product listings.

New Wolf Song Kit(s)

We finally got some re-stock on Exclusively Quilters’ Wolf Song fabrics, and they’re up on our website in two different modes of availability. Our special collection features a panel, a yard each of the two large-repeat feature fabrics, and a half-yard of the other fabrics.   Sorry, no fabrics are available for individual sales at this time.

Jordan's Wolf Song

Jordan's Wolf Song

The other, more exciting mode is Cindy’s new wall-hanging/lap quilt. She just finished this literally yesterday, and it’s gorgeous!   It’s a totally new design and has some very unique features.   She’s calling this “Jordan’s Wolf Song” because when it’s finished it’s going to our son Jordan, a long-time fan of all things wolf.

Cindy’s new exclusive QKO design features the striking wolf-head center panel, four corner vignettes, and some really nifty diamond effects.

We’re offering this quilt in two sizes;  the basic wall-hanging is approximately

Wolf Song quilt added borders

Wolf Song Quilt with Added Borders

51 x 52 inches.  If you want a larger, 66×67 inch large lap quilt, you can add the optional inner and outer borders. The 6 inch border uses the fantastic “woodlands scene fabric”  and Cindy’s instructions show you how to cut it so the tree trunks and tops line up around the quilt to give a pleasing effect. Because of the repeats on the fabric, a lot is required for these borders.

The kit is suitable for advanced beginning quilters and up, and will make a beautiful statement for your home, or a wonderful gift. As usual, our kit contains all fabric needed for the top and bindings, our fabric xref and Cindy’s exclusive pattern. We’re also offering our free pre-cut binding strips option on this kit.

This is a unique kit, available only here at QKO.  Enjoy!  Click Here to go to the kit product listing, as long as they last.

January 26, 2010

It’s been Awhile…

Wow, I just looked and it’s been three weeks since our last Notebook entry! And beside that, we haven’t sent out a newsletter since then either.

It’s probably due to the fact that we’ve been trying to work on a lot of stuff for the web store.  Cindy’s been working on new projects, including an exclusive new kit for Wolf Song fabrics,  I’ve been updating the store software, and together we’ve been working on getting our accounting in shape for tax time.  (Yuk).

We’ve also been working on moving our mail list to a new software provider, one that will give us a little better look to our newsletters, and we’ve also been trying to make sense out of the new fabric orders coming in soon.

Oh ya, and we’ve also been filling your orders during this busy time of year, and we’ve mailed out the updates to our Celtic throw kit as well as the newly re-written pattern.

So, in the absence of real posts here, a couple quick items:

We’ve added several new Daiwabo prints to our lineup, and plan to order a bunch of new ones in the next few weeks.

A couple of new fabric lines will be arriving soon, including the exciting new lines Flutterbright and Pansy Bright from Fabric Freedom, and of course we’ll have new kits for those.

Look for a newsletter coming soon!  (As soon as I get the hosting straightened out).

December 31, 2009

Happy New Year and Blowout Specials

Filed under: General QKO Info, Random thoughts and ramblings... — Don @ 10:24 pm

Happy New Year to all of you, our friends and customers!  We hope your Holiday celebrations were fun and safe.

We look forward to 2010 with the expectation that things will improve in the world and in our industry.  It’s been kind of a tough year, but we have high hopes for the next one!

The Blowout sale ended tonight, but we decided to keep a semi-secret Blowout Sale section going anyway.  We’ll only document it here and in our infrequent newsletters so they’ll just be for people who read our Notebook and our Newsletter.

You can access our Blowout Sale section by clicking HERE.

If you lose track of this link, you can also find it by clicking on the Browse Store button on our web store and scrolling to the bottom of that page.

This section is in addition to our regular sale section, with even better deals.

Cindy and I are thinking of making major store changes in the next few weeks to our pricing and shipping structure, so stay tuned for more exciting news.

Again, Happy New Year!

p.s. If you’re out bunny hunting – you can always find a clue here in our Notebook.  Check out the Page menu to the right, and have a great Hop! ==>

December 23, 2009

Merry Christmas to All Our Friends!

As this year draws to a close, we want to wish all our friends, old and new, a very Happy and Blessed Christmas and Holiday Season.  We also hope that you and your families will have a happy, prosperous, and joyous 2010.

Best Wishes from Cindy, Don and "the girls"

Best Wishes from Cindy, Don and "the girls"

Thanks again for patronizing our little business here, and for all the kind comments you have sent our way.  We treasure each and every one of them, and each and every one of you.

All the Best,

Cindy, Don, Sassy and Princess

December 11, 2009

Tribute to Vincent

Vincent van Gogh was one of the 19th century’s most influential and prolific painters, especially after he was introduced to the impressionist style. In only a few short years he produced over 900 works of art.  Eight of his most famous and well-known paintings are reproduced in this great new collection from

Tribute to Vincent Panel

Tribute to Vincent Panel

Exclusively Quilters/Classic Cottons.

We’re a little late getting this fabric line on our site for a very good reason.  UPS, who delivers here almost every day, couldn’t figure out where our shipment of this fabric was supposed to go.  Go figure.  So they held on to it for awhile, then sent it back to South Carolina.  Then Exclusively Quilters put it in the wrong warehouse and didn’t notify us that it had been returned.

Anyway, our well-traveled (but still in perfect condition) Tribute to Vincent fabrics finally arrived the other day, and we now have it on our website for your

Vincent - Fabrics and blenders

Vincent - Fabrics and blenders

shopping pleasure. We have our fantastic half-yard collection with attendant discount on the focus panel when you buy it with the collection, as well.

So, about the fabrics! Tribute to Vincent is a fantastic new collection from EQ, who is well-known for their lifelike prints on great cotton goods.  The main panel features reproductions of 8 of Vincents most famous paintings. The panel has plenty of black space around the paintings to facilitate cutting/sewing. (Just a note on the panel picture shown here and on our website; the picture shows 1-1/2 panel sets, the actual panel is eight pictures.)

Additionally, there are four main fabrics and 9 additional blenders in various color combinations.  The blenders are a large brushstroke print pattern. Two of the main fabrics are “starry night” brush stroke patterns, in light blue and darker blues. One of the main fabrics is based on Vincent’s painting “Irises” and is an overall Iris pattern. The final fabric is “Starry Night.” It has a continuous reproduction of the painting of that name and is in about an 8 inch repeat.

This is a beautiful collection and will be prized by art lovers and anyone else who likes creative, unique fabrics.

See these wonderful Tribute to Vincent fabrics by clicking here.

Update: Since we have such a limited supply of panels, we’re now only selling the panel along with the half-yard collection, and it is included in the half-yard collection rather than being an optional purchase. The panel pricing is considerably lower than if sold along and we now have special pricing on the half-yard collection.

December 5, 2009

New Serenity Daiwabos

11106-C Serenity Daiwabo

11106-C Serenity Daiwabo

We’ve added a couple of new Cara collection Daiwabo prints from Maywood this last week and they are, like the others, really beautiful and of the highest quality. The first, 11106-C, is a multi-layered print done in soft greens with back-tones of beige and mauve. A pussy-willow branch is overlayed by a willow leaves done in white dots, and there is a soft green cross-hatch pattern overall. This is a beautiful fabric that pictures can’t do justice to.

The next new print, 11484-O,  is a

11484-O Serenity Daiwabo

11484-O Serenity Daiwabo

blue/gray print with undertones of soft green. It’s the same stylized light brush-stroke print as the 11484-E which is in cream/beige tones.

These two prints extend our Daiwabo offerings to 16 different prints, and these two have also been added to our half-yard collection.

We’re in the process of adding a bunch of patterns that go great with our Daiwabo prints. Several of them are already available and more are going up daily, so stay tuned!

Click Here to see all our lovely Cara Daiwabo Taupes from Maywood.

December 3, 2009

Christmas Squares

With the plethora of patterns available these days based on 10 inch squares, known by some as “dimes” and others as “layer cakes,”  we’re going to start offering more cuts in this size. Cindy got busy the other day and came up with

Christmas batiks 10 inch squares

Christmas batiks 10 inch squares

a special, Holiday Edition 10-inch square pack using all 15 of our Hoffman Christmas Bali batiks and 5 really nice color-coordinated 1895 Bali Watercolor blenders.

This is a great collection, and will go really nicely in most patterns designed for 10 inch squares. It’s a blend of several color combinations, including reds, purples, blues, mint, hunter and gold, with a lot of blended colors thrown into the mix.

This pack is a QKO exclusive and is available in limited quantities.  And, it’s at a really attractive price, especially for hand painted Bali batiks!

These would also make terrific gifts!

Check out all our great holiday fabrics, collections and projects, including this great 10 inch square collection today by clicking here.

November 30, 2009

Rainbow Garden Quilt Kit Now in Cool

Rainbow Garden in Cool Colors

Rainbow Garden in Cool Colors

Several people have asked us to do the Rainbow garden quilt kit in cool colors, and now we have it!  The oranges and reds aren’t for everyone, a lot of people prefer blues and greens.  Since Rainbow Garden comes in, well, lots of colors, we were happy when we got the alternative pattern.

OK, so what we’ve done is put it as an option on the regular Rainbow Garden kit. You can see the blue-green quilt pictures by scrolling the photos on the kit and the enlargements.  The price for both kits is the same, but now you have to pick which color set you want as an option.

We think this one is just as beautiful as the warm kit.  See what you think!

Click Here to see the Rainbow Garden kits on our website.

November 29, 2009

New Poppy and Poppy Spot Kits

We’ve just completed putting two new kits on our website, both using the new Poppy and Poppy Spot fabrics from Fabric Freedom.

The first is a small lap quilt or largish wall hanging, finished size 46″ square. This quilt

Poppy Spot Quilt

Poppy Spot Quilt

creates a stunning geometric effect, contrasting the  large poppies and more open small poppies with the red on red and darker prints. A few white on black small spots and large red on black spots provide depth, while the wavy stripes provide an illusion of motion. Surrounding it is a border of strawberry Perfect Palette.  The quilt was designed by by FF’s Sally Ablett and is made up in quite a number of Poppy and Poppy Spot fabrics as well as FF’s Strawberry Perfect Palette. We’re using Maywood’s Black Magic for the black parts.  This is a very visually interesting quilt and will make quite a bold statement, wherever it appears.

Click Here to see the Poppy Spot quilt kit on our website.

In the second Poppies quilt kit, Cindy has used the Elles pattern by Lynn Kraus of Fiber Flies Designs

Elles Quilt with Poppies

Elles Quilt with Poppies

along with several Poppy and Poppy Spot fabrics by Fabric Freedom, and the Maywood Black Magic for the background.

The red/white/black wavy stripe is used here as an effective and really visually interesting contrast to the large Poppies red on white fabric, both standing out boldly from the black background.  The small Poppies with black ground is used for the binding.

This 54″ x 64″ throw or lap quilt is very easy and fast to make and is suitable for all levels of quilters.  Lynn’s clear directions are easy to follow.

Click Here to see the Elles in Poppies quilt kit on our website.

For both quilts, our kits contain all fabrics necessary to complete the top and bindings, the patterns, and our handy fabric cross-reference.  As with most of our kits, we offer to die-cut your 2 1/2 inch binding strips at no additional charge.  We also offer on each of these kits a selection of matching backings at savings off our usual yardage prices.

Check out these two kits today.  They’re really red! :-)

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