What's New

Newsletter No 14

Well, hello to all of you.

I bet you are all thinking that I have disappeared because here we are almost at the end of March and this is the first Newsletter for the year. Those of you who receive your newsletters by email will know that I am still here as I sent you all a test message to see if I could still remember how to do it and if it still worked. Well I must say a huge big thankyou to all of you who responded to let me know that you had received my email and that it was not floating around in outa space still looking for a martian mail box.

As you will all know we no longer retail patchwork fabrics at Stitchworks, well that was sort of true for a little while but like my Mum always said “As one door closes another one opens” Do you know how much I miss all those lovely patchwork fabrics and the fun it was helping people to choose their fabrics for their quilts? Heaps and Heaps. So I have embarked on a new venture which still involves fabrics.

We are now SPECIALISING IN WIDE BACKING FABRICS. Click for the link! And it's great. Wide whole cloth backers on your quilts are just the best. No Joins!!! Giving a very nice finish to the back as well as the front of your quilts. At present we have over 120 fabrics for you to choose from up to 110 inches wide or 2,8 mtrs which is usually plenty wide enough for most quilts. These range in price from $12 to $30 per metre and I feel it is a very good option to take for backing your lovely quilts. We have another 20 or so designs due over the next couple of months and will be continually adding to our selection. We have set our web site up to cater for mail order customers (click here for an order form) and we also cater for personal shoppers so why not check it out. www.stitchworks.co.nz or call out and visit at our workroom. The web site should be updated by early April so it would also be good to receive any quilt photos fairly soon.

The quilting is going fairly well at the moment and I am managing to turn out 6 or 7 quilts a week on average with the turn around time being no more than 6 weeks and sooner if you need something in a hurry. I am helping Russell with his hire business now also by answering his phone and dealing with the customers and paperwork which is interesting. Some of his customers must wonder if they have rung the wrong number when I have a blonde moment and forget which telephone I am answering, it can be pandemonium sometimes. But it’s a new challenge and one which I am quite enjoying.

Did you know that we now have black cotton blend batting in stock, a really good choice if you have a dark quilt. Cotton is now my favourite batting to use in my quilts. We also have a new Hobbs batting in stock called Polydown. It is about 2.8m wide which is about the widest batting I have seen, which is great for larger quilts. NO JOINS. It has slightly more loft that quilt 85 but is more stable than the usual 2oz batting. It gives a nice snuggly feel to your quilts and the shrinkage is less than cotton or wool batting. A nice choice for your quilts if you like polyester batting.

At Stitchworks it is my intention to offer you a total quilting service for finishing your quilt, from basting quilting and even binding your quilts if required. We can supply battings and backing fabrics but we are also happy to use your battings and backings when you bring us a quilt to be quilted, the choice is totally yours. I often get asked how much it costs to quilt a quilt but that is something I can not answer until I have seen your quilt and discussed all the options with you . Every quilt is an individual and it is so nice to be able to offer you choices and options for YOUR quilt and I would never be offended if you decided that what I could offer wasn't what you wanted and you wanted to take it somewhere else for a second opinion. I would like to think that I am quite user friendly.

Any way on that note I think that that’s about all the news for now. Please call in and see me sometime even if you are just passing as its great to catch up with what project you are working on.

Bye for now

Kind Regards Jenny @ Stitchworks