Soon I’ll be transitioning to a new full-time job, so I don’t know how often I’ll be able to post here. The new job is exciting, but it also adds a significant commute time, which I don’t relish. Anyway, one of the fun things that I’ve gotten to do at The Fabric Shop Network was to create a banner for the Visit Your Local Quilt Shop Day campaign. The banner was based on this graphic that FabShop’s talented designer, Crissy, created:

I Love My Quilt Shop

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And here’s the banner I created:

Grainy phone photo taken of me holding the banner up in the office.

What’s cool is that this banner hung in the FabShop Fall Quilt Market booth, and it was held up by many people over the course of Market. My favorite part was recreating Crissy’s patchwork heart and finding the right fabrics to match her color scheme.

I did the heart in reverse applique with two layers. The letters are fusible applique with hand stitching around the white outlines. The double layer of applique and the fact that I quilted around them makes them really poof out nicely.

I’m sharing all of this with you guys because I know most of you sew and take great pictures, and I want you to enter the Quilt Shop Day photo contest. Hop on over to Facebook and check out the contest. If you have a local brick-and-mortar independent quilt or fabric shop you frequent, all you have to do is take a picture of your quilt shop and enter it before January 24. I can think of some fun ideas to do with this, but I can’t enter. I do know that it’s important to convey the “quilt shop love” and include people. The prizes are amazing! The winner gets a sewing machine and $500 to spend at their LQS. There are also 10 awesome runner up packages, so go enter! (I’m talking to you Sara, Jacey, Jessica, Nicke, Michelle, Evelyn, and anyone else who reads this that I may have forgotten.)