This shot was taken at night...it's a great time to take pictures in Paris, since
most of the foot traffic is off the streets.
This shot is relevant to what I am going to talk about today...PRESENTATION!
How things look is very important to me, and I know that I am not alone. As I am known to tell people, I was trained by architects, and my mind hasn't been right since. Even with my not-so-great vision, there isn't much that I miss.
This brings us to one of the little brainstorms that I came up with for a Spring Quilt market promo...
You'd think I was trying to sell tickets to the lunar shuttle...It has turned into a labor of love!
The Back Story...
Sandy, our local fat quarter bundle guy retired
right after last market...panic ensues. We needed some sort of
promotional product, so that, before our 1st big fabric shipment
arrives, quilt shop owners would have something in their stores to show
their customers, say a project or two, to get a buzz going about the
order coming of new LakeHouse fabrics.
At LakeHouse Dry Goods (LHDG), we're all hip to the "people are buying kits" thing...so I thought, what could we do that is not fat quarters, and that we could have made up for this purpose?
Needing some packaging for this idea, I called my friend Rose from the Cloth Envelope Company...she is resourceful with a capital R, and she's full of ideas.
She gave me a whole list of websites that had neat packaging...
That's how I found the French Candy Boxes!
I got prototypes of the different sized boxes and figured out what sort of kit that could be made, given the limitations...
So that is how I came up with the idea for the Sweet Retreats TM Kits...Sometimes, as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions...Suffice it to say, to have a thousand or more kits made up of a bunch of different fabrics is a huge job, and we met with resistance at just about every turn...
We premiered our kits as a one-time promotional offer to Independent Quilt Shop Owners ONLY at the Salt Lake City show. Our hope was that with our fabrics and our free online sourcing info, that our IQSO would want to replicate our kits in their own shops and in turn, offer them at retail prices in their stores and booths at quilt shows. A lot of shops placed an order for a prototype kit at market, I assume with the intent of selling the kit in their own shops. I will say this...what I thought was fairly simple and straight forward idea was apparently not so easy. Based on comments at the show, most of the women sales people and shop owners "got it"...that is that this was a pretty little gift-style kit, rather than a kit in a generic ZipLoc bag, and they seemed to see the value in it.
In addition, we are happy to announce that several top retail catalogs and online shops loved the kits as much as we did. (Can you spell vindication?) These retails sources will make the kits available in late summer/early fall. I'll give you more details on this in subsequent blogs as things are firmed up.
Without further ado, here are some pictures of the Sweet Retreats TM Strip Quilt Kits...
The pattern to make the three quilt tops above is called "Three Wishes", and is available NOW! It is designed by me, published by LHDG and sold separately from the kits. All three colorways above are included in one pattern.
The Sweet Retreats TM Kits were offered in the following ways:
Quilt Kit
Strip Quilt SQ 01 Pastel
Strip Quilt SQ 02 Multi
Strip Quilt SQ 03 Black
SQ Kits include enough fabric to make a 49" square quilt top, and consist of a rolled up set of 6" x WOF strips. The quilt border fabrics are all LakeHouse stripes...they are not included in the kit.
These are some pictures of the Sweet Retreats TM Charm Square Kits...
The Charm Party Bag pattern by Pretty Penny Sturges of Quilts Illustrated is available NOW, and is also sold separately from the kits.
Charm Square CS 01 Pastel
Charm Square CS 02 Multi
Charm Square CS 03 Black
CS Kits include 35--5" charm squares & 1 yd of fabric for the lining and handles.
So that's the whole story on the kits...2 different style kits, 3 colorways each, patterns sold separately.
Quilters, ask your local quilt shops for the kits and patterns. Shop owners (who have time to read blogs)...all patterns mentioned are available through Checker, Needlecraft & Schenk.
We will make the complete Kit "how to" information available on our website for the shops some time in June...
I understand if in some markets that the extra expense of the box and
ribbon might add too much to the total cost of the kit, but I also know
that there are plenty of other gift-style kits in the marketplace that
are selling for over $20.00 more per kit (for the same sized quilt
top)...M2 keeps me on top of all of this.
Your favorite shop may not have the kits made up exactly as shown, but you will still be able to make the same beautiful projects as above with the fabric and patterns we are offering.
It looks like this blog is getting a little long in the tooth, so I'll sign off for now.
Back in two shakes...H2
