Bee Quilting

After teaching for a delightful group of quilters at the Quilters Plus guild in Glenwood, IL this past week, I needed to drive back to the motel where I was staying in Indiana before heading home the next day. My new friend Sandy told me to take a different route there because of traffic at that time of day. She sent me by way of a quilt shop which was supposed to have closed before I got there, but the lights were on because they were holding a class. Hooray!

I’ve been in many quilt shops and had started to believe that racks and racks of bolts were the only way to set things up. But Bee Quilting changed that. It is a VERY UNIQUE quilt shop in Munster, Indiana.

As I entered I found quilted mats on the floor.

I loved that they were displayed where they were meant to be, but that wasn’t really unique. There were loads of notions, books and patterns all around.

And that’s as it should “bee” 🐝. So what was so different? The fabric display! Instead of having row after row of bolts ~ a square of each of the fabrics they carried was hung from a ring on the wall!

Then I met Meghann, who co-owns the shop with her mom. I asked where the idea came from and she gave her mom complete credit. She said their customers like it because they can lay out fabric for their projects in a way that gives them a better feel for how the fabrics will work together, rather than stacking bolts.

Plus, it’s a lot easier to carry things around! Truly a unique idea!

The bolts are stacked in a very orderly fashion in the back, away from the customers, and once a quilter has found the fabrics they want, Megan can go back and pull just what is needed for cutting. This leaves plenty of display room in the shop for other things.

I wish I’d had a project in mind to choose fabrics for ~ I’d like to put this concept to work. But alas, I’m a 3 1/2 hour drive from Bee Sewing. In case you’re wondering where Munster is, simply find Lake Michigan on a map and look down to the very bottom tip.

To visit their website click here.

Maybe it’s on your way to somewhere ~ like the AQS show in Grand Rapids that’s coming up. If you make it to the show, don’t miss the Ultimate Guild Challenge competition – the ThreadBenders “Progressions” quilts will be there (click here to read about them, and here to read about how I made mine)!

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And one more thing…

My friend Sue commented to last week’s post about diagonally seaming a quilt back. She included a recommendation that I wanted to share, in case you missed her comment. Here it is:

“With the availability of 108″ fabric (which by the way MUST BE WASHED BECAUSE IT SHRINKS, WITHOUT FAIL!!!) method Number One using two layers of fabric probably isn’t as useful as it once was. Unless you have 42” fabric you really, really want to use.
Method Number Two, however, can be particularly useful, particularly for smaller quilts.
Sue from Aunt Susie’s Machine Quilting”

So, remember to wash your large quilt backings!!!

Thanks Sue!