Pages

Friday, January 13, 2012

My favorite LQS is....

I was recently able to visit my favorite quilt shop of all time in Janesville, Wisconsin. Pat Riley's Life's A Stitch is a fantastic shop located in a 100-yr old home she remodeled.  She even painted her barns with quilt blocks, which I guess is fairly common in the midwest.




She also does amazing work. Here she is showing me her Farmer's Wife quilt, which is really beautiful. Have any of you done that quilt? The blocks are larger than the DJ blocks and I don't think there is any hand piecing. I find it pretty tempting, especially after seeing hers!




Pat does a lot of group block of the month quilts, which are also very tempting. She ran a program a few years ago, before I knew her, on a pattern called Dipped in Chocolate. There are a zillion 4-patches which finish at 1-1/2". I think it's really cool!!




She's hiding behind the quilt top! All these pictures were taken in her new classroom which she also uses for sew-ins a couple of times a week. When I was there, she'd set up a machine for me and I got to join in with all the women from the area and sew on my Ocean Waves quilt, which I'm vowing to finish before July!! And my sweet friend DarLynn pressed my hsts for me, all the while commenting on my (not so great) choice of fabrics, since it was completely random and scrappy. But that's another picture.












I did get to see darling Ryan this week and here he is being fascinated by the ipad! Such a sweet boy!


Hope everyone has a great weekend. Mark and I are headed to Chicago (yes, I realize it's winter and snowy) for the long weekend! 


See y'all next week!



7 comments:

  1. I started working on Farmer's Wife with a group of friends over a year ago. We originally started meeting on Friday nigths to work on just those blocks but eventually turned to other projects so it's one of my WIP's. It's not a quick quilt to do since there is no repitition in it and it is challenging. If you have EQ6 you can buy an accompaning cd and get paper pieced directions as well as the templates. It think the paper piecing helped on some of the blocks. It's definitely a fun quilt to do with a friend. Some of those blocks you need moral support on! :) Life is a Stitch sounds like a great shop. Someday I'm going to take a driving trip around the midwest and visit all these wonderful shops I hear about.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Looks like a very fun shop, Randy. I love Pat's version of the Farmer's Wife quilt. I have toyed with the idea of doing that one, but I already have too many other long-term projects hanging over me. : )
    Chicago is an interesting choice for a winter get-away. Do you have family there?

    ReplyDelete
  3. I am slowly working on the Farmers Wife quilt. A friend joined the BOM class and never started it so I purchased it from her. It is challenging but well worth the effort. I hope to complete the top this year though. I am about half way done with the blocks. I do love the colors in the quilt Pat made. Will you be heading to Green Bay to watch the Packer game this weekend? Whatever you are up to stay warm and have fun.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I sure wish Pat had more of her shop online!! I would love to visit it one of these days.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Funny you should mention farmers wife quilt I was thinking this year I should make a few blocks a week, challenge myself to use the scrap basket and fabrics I already have, would be great to have the quilt done this year. Love the other quilt you showed, I am making little nine patches now , making 4 patches would be easy to add to the pile too!
    thanks for sharing this does look like a shop I wish I lived close too!!!!
    enjoy Chicago, snow and all!
    Kathie

    ReplyDelete
  6. That shop looks like one that I would love too. I will have to make a trip there soon.
    Enjoy Chicago.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I'm surprised how many blogs I follow closely, but I'm not a "follower." I thought I was a follower for yours, but I wasn't. That's updated now, and I'm #500. Congrat's on having so many followers in such a short period of time. You always have something interesting to share.

    ReplyDelete