Friendship Blues
( aren’t those toes the cutest?)
This quilt is the perfect feature to talk about as I introduce you to a dear friend of mine, Alison Dale. Alison owns Fabric Expressions in Littleton, Colorado.
Alison was the sports photo editor for the Ft. Worth Star telegram when one day she walked into The Old Craft Store in Carrollton Texas where I worked at the time. We immediately became life long friends. Alsion’s worked at several different newspapers moving throughout the country. We always stayed in touch and even meeting up at Quilt Markets if it was close to the town she lived in at the time. Her job took her to Denver, Colorado and she soon learned of a quilt shop for sale. She dove in head first teaching classes, writing books, managing inventory, waiting on customers and sewing samples.
I am fortunate to work for Moda Fabrics, where the President Mark Dunn’s focus for over 40 years has been supporting the independent “mom and pop” shops. He knows how hard they work and I have also seen how hard my friend works.
She is doing the cutest snow globe block of the month now. For info, click the link.
One other thing I want to add to this post about my Friendship Blues quilt is that the name of this quilt has a double meaning. Friendship because my friends shared their fabrics with me, the fabrics were blue and also because I included a few blue squares from a denim jumpsuit that I remember my mom wearing when I was younger.
My daughter and mom were taking care of me as I recuperated from the seizures and brain surgery. During this time my mom got ill and didn’t want to worry anyone. One night she was rushed to the hospital and a few weeks later passed away. Now , my daughter had two patients she was carrying for. Checking in on me constantly making sure I ate, took my meds, got plenty of rest and rushing back and forth to the hospital to pray my mom would wake up became her daily routine. We have the blues without our Gammy but her stories, wit and compassion lives on in all she met.
Back to the Oh Scrap blog hop.
Friendship Blues quilt was made from several of my friends sending me a square of blue fabric. So I am going to pass along their generosity and give away some blue fabrics.
GIVEAWAY CLOSED- WINNER CONTACTED
To be entered in the giveaway, follow Alison on FB/fabricexpressions or Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/fabricexpressions/
Also leave a comment here about where you shop for all things quilty.
I will announce the winner drawn at random on March 24th.
Disclaimer: this is not enough fabric to make the entire quilt and it has not been prewashed.
March 16th- Pat Sloan
March 17th- Corey Yoder
March 18th- Barbara Brackman
TODAYS STOP
March 19th-Alison Dale of Fabric Expressions
March 20th- Melissa Corry
March 21st- Carrie Nelson of Moda Fabrics
March 22nd- Sherri McConnell – A Quilting Life
March 23rd-Kimberly at The Fat Quarter Shop
March 24th – Teresa Silva- Quilting is my Bliss
March 25th- Jane Davidson – QuiltJane
March 26th- Martingale Publishing
Support your quilt shops!
-modalissa
For all things quilty, there’s no where else but Aunt Nell’s Quilt Shop in Tioga, LA (across the Red River from Alexandria) owned & operated by my buddy, Allison!
She’s great at picking fabric for quilts, coming up with ideas I might not have considered. There’s always something going on at her shop and her fabric selection is amazing.
But most importantly, if you’re guaranteed to laugh THAT much at one place, why not spend time there? I pretty well count on spending about 3 hours when I visit. Customers come & go & we get in all our fun & fabric selection & quilt talking in between – and I come home with glorious goodies & fabric to touch, love & cut into tiny pieces! No better place to spend an afternoon!
I have a couple of local quilt shops. I have to be honest, I like to travel to the ones who support our guild’s annual quilt show by being a vendor there. It’s expensive for them to be a vendor and I like to show my appreciation by supporting them.
I see you have been blessed with a gem of a daughter. Quite a touching story and I appreciate you sharing it.
I love the blues too. I just finished our guild’s raffle quilt. All blue and white medallion quilt. My blue fabric has dwindled so I’m psyched to win some . Thanks
A few local shops in Central Iowa as well as a little shop in southern MN when traveling to see family. Each has something different from the others, which makes it fun!