Accent Sewing -- Murrells Inlet SC

Just a little ways from the beach in scenic Murrells Inlet, Sheryl and Bob Smith opened Accent Sewing four years ago. I remember all of this because they had been open exactly three days when I arrived to teach a machine applique class for their customers. The shop wasn't quite ready for a large class so Sheryl rented a room out at the Army base, brought a bunch of supplies so that customers could shop for things they needed, and class was held! They get my vote for being the bravest store owners that I know!

Before the workshop started, I walked around the store taking pictures of the quilts on the walls; most of them, such as "Shadow Star" above, are classes offered at the shop.

"Multi-Hooped Santa" is a machine embroidery class taught by Aira Kekale. Sheryl and Bob bought Accent Sewing from Aira, but she still does a lot of the teaching. She was in my Borders & Bindings workshop today and made a beautiful small quilt in black, gold and red -- a change from what she told me is her usual black and white!


Loved the red and white star quilt and had fun playing with the fabrics....

Everybody was telling me that the tall bolt, a red background polka dot, wouldn't go, but I'll bet it will.....

Another machine embroidery workshop, "Audrey's Roses"

This is the embroidered piece on the restroom door!


I know it sounds odd that I take my camera into quilt shop restrooms with me now, but some of the most fun things are displayed there -- like these three quilts and the tea towels!

This machine embroidered piece would be beautiful at the center of a table; it is rectangular and has various grape varietal names embroidered into the border along with the grapes and vines.


Most of my class squeezed in here to show off their fat quarter quilts. They learned how to measure, cut, pin and sew various types of borders to their fat quarter of focus fabric.

Some of the ones in back were hidden, so we took another picture....

...and, last but not least, the dear lady who has a broken foot in a cast and pedaled around on her scooter all day. We had her set up so that she could cut and sew with a minimum of moving around, but still, she definitely had her game on!

Accent Sewing is located at 4410 Highway 17 Bypass, Unit B7, Murrells Inlet SC (ph: 843-357-3228). To go to their website, click here.

Load the car, get some dinner, and head out to next stop -- Wilmington NC!

Creative Sewing, Charlotte NC

Wednesday's class was held at Creative Sewing in Charlotte, the second shop that I've visited this week owned by the two Lee sisters, Lynn and Tammie. The third store, in Shelby NC, is not on my agenda this year, but it sounds like a place I might want to go -- Lynn told me that it is located in an older building in Shelby and is decorated in an elegant Victorian style, so I'm sure it's worth a trip!


One of my favorite quilts here was the appliqued Christmas tree skirt at left....

...and the appliqued ornaments and striped border and binding really caught my eye on the Christmas star quilt on the right....

After class, some of the people from class gathered around to help Ruth, at left, pick border fabrics for her quilt. She's a new quilter and we all helped her pick a beautiful gold for her inner border and a leaf print for the outer. You know how quilters are -- we all had an opinion to share!

A Harley-Davidson quilt was draped over the ironing board, waiting for somebody to bind it!

I snuck a closeup of one of the blocks...

We had a full class of 20 people for "Free Motion Boot Camp", too many to fit in the shop, so Lynn held the class in a vacant space a few units down from her store. It was a lot of work for Lynn and her employees to set up and tear down all of the tables and lay all the electrical -- it's a very hard working group and they did a great job!

Creative Sewing & Vacuum are both BERNINA and Brother dealers and also carry the Miele line of vacuum cleaners. They are located at 7868-D Rea Rd., Charlotte NC (ph: 704-542-8760). They have a website that represents all three locations owned by the Lees. To go to their website, click here.

After class, it was back to the rental car for a four hour drive to Murrells Inlet SC. I could enjoy the view for about half of the drive before nightfall and then still had plenty to look at. There was a small fair with brightly lit rides and a ferris wheel outlined against the evening sky; Wednesday night is probably Bible study night as I drove past several churches with open doors, softly glowing stained glass windows and white steeples bathed in light. Truly a beautiful night to be out and about.......

Lee Sewing Center -- Hickory NC

This morning dawned sunny and cool and after a short drive from my hotel, I arrived at Lee Sewing Center to teach free motion machine quilting to 20 of Lynn and Tammie Lee's customers. This was a very full class and people were sewing at tables in the classroom, at tables out in the main part of the store and at machines set into cabinets in another part of the store. So after the lecture/demo portion of the workshop, I ran around like a crazy person making sure I checked in with everyone to look at their work and answer any questions they had.

I really don't mind big classes at a store -- it's really hard to tell somebody no, especially when a teacher won't be back for a year or so; I think it's better to open the doors, even if it's a little crowded, and we'll all make do.


I like to take pictures of things I haven't seen anywhere else, such as these seasonal wall hangings that are displayed high up on the walls above the notions. They not only observe holidays; there is one for a new baby and a couple of other unusual ones, too.

Probably half of the store space is occupied by the demonstration area for the various machines sold here; there is a separate area for sewing room furniture.

The fabric is located toward the back and one side of the store. For inspiration, books and patterns are located on racks all over the store.

Of course, Halloween always catches my eye; I think I have to have the kit for the blue and orange table runner on the left.

The pumpkin guy at right was sitting on the counter...

On the wall behind that same counter was this pretty Christmas quilt -- nothing wrong with getting into the holiday spirit early! Gives us time to finish these things, right?

One lady is setting up her machine before class; everybody else got theirs out and set them up and then wandered off to shop until I was ready to start the class.

After class, everybody stayed overtime -- we recessed for a half hour so that I could get all my quilts out and get them arranged in order; then I did a lecture and trunk show of the quilts, half entertainment and half education, with some question and answer time afterward.

Then back in the rental car for the hour's drive to Charlotte to get a good night's sleep before tomorrow's class!

Asheville Cotton Company -- Asheville NC

It's always great to return to a shop where I've taught before and see what's new, what's changed and how everybody's doing! This is the third time I've taught for Robin and Chip Culbertson at Asheville Cotton Company and also been able to enjoy the company of their store manager, Michelle.

Michelle now has a pattern company -- the above quilt, "Gabriella" is a "pattern by ME, Michie Lee"....

Robin also publishes patterns under the "Asheville Cotton Company" brand. At left and below is her pattern "George and Cornelia".







Even though the purple and gold goes with my house better, I liked both of the colorways, so took pictures of both to share....

The "George and Cornelia" pattern is described as "An Oriental rug quilt in two sizes". "George" is the larger size, 89"x102"; "Cornelia" is the smaller size, 61"x70".

The project today was "Positive/Negative: Bringing Color to Trapunto by Machine"; here are some of the workshop participants hard at work....


Still working! At left on the wall is another of Michie Lee's patterns.

These pictures were taken at the end of the day when everybody had their tops pieced and most of their trapunto set-up work done


It was a pretty big class and there was a lot of color variety....

Last year when I was here the whole store was decorated for Halloween -- this time the theme was fall and harvest. This is a display sitting on the floor in a corner of the restroom -- there is not a bit of space in the store that doesn't just pull you in to take a look!


What I bought: Two patterns: "Gabriela" by Michie Lee and "George and Cornelia" by Robin. The fabric above is for the smaller size, "Cornelia", in the colorway that totally goes with my house.

Goodbye, Asheville -- hopefully, we'll do it again next year!

Driving Day -- Winston-Salem to Asheville

Driving days always give me lots of time to daydream, often with interesting scenery as inspiration. Being alone with one's thoughts give the mind freedom to wander, which isn't at all the case when we are travelling with others.

When Dan and I were in Vancouver, for instance, we had a couple of comical misunderstandings that were caused by homonyms, words that sound the same but have different spellings and meanings. At one point, Dan said what sounded to me like "Korn! Korn!" I reached out and turned the volume up on the car radio, expecting to hear "Make Me Bad", "Chutes & Ladders" or another song by one of my favorite bands. He looked at me sort of oddly, said "Korn!" again and pointed past my face out the passenger side window to a corn field on my side of the road.

A couple of days after that while he was driving straight for a puddle (On purpose! To see the water splash! Do they ever grow up?) I saw some deer out the window, got all excited and yelled, "Deer! Deer!" and he thought I was yelling "Dear! Dear!" at him and couldn't figure out what in the world I was upset about. Then it was my turn to point out the window and show him what was on the side of the road....

There may be fewer misunderstandings when driving alone, but it's not nearly as much fun!

Sew Original -- Winston-Salem NC

Every fall for the past four years has brought me to shops located in Bernina's District O, which encompasses the states of North and South Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee. Usually in the spring, Lyn Lackey, the District Manager, will send me an e-mail to double check the dates we've set and then signs up her Bernina dealers for my visit. Every year I fly in and teach for a couple of weeks, making new friends and revisiting others.

Sew Original has two locations, the one in Winston-Salem where I taught this trip and another in Boone. I taught at both stores four years ago, so it was good to come back and see all the changes. For one thing, the store has moved and is much larger!

I liked the Sew Original banner hanging on the wall in the picture above...


I always like to browse the notions racks to see what's new that I have to try....

A nice relaxing place to ponder purchases -- or to park a husband!

This was something I hadn't seen before and would be a valuable addition to an embroiderer's sewing area -- a storage table specifically designed for the Master Hooper. I am totally sold on this hooping helper, which is a weighted base with clips designed to hold the bottom half of your embroidery hoop so that it doesn't skitter all around when you are trying to fit the top half into it. I am not the world's best hooper, so this device makes the process easier and more accurate.

The storage unit, with a tray on top to hold the Master Hooper, opens to show divided spaces to hold hoops, stabilizers, adhesives and all the other stuff you need to have, all in one place. If you look to the top left of the table, there is a dowel there so that you can keep a roll of your favorite stabilizer at hand. To see better pictures of this table, you can go to the Master Hooper website -- click here.


Near the Master Hooper station and behind those comfortable chairs are more samples on the walls and an ironing board with a lot of space around it where I could do some of my machine applique demonstrations.


A finished Floral Visions quilt -- can't wait until mine gets to this point!

Sew Original's Block of the Month for this year, in two colorways.....

It was explained to me that for $5 per month, everybody gets the patterns for the pieced chain blocks. Then they can purchase the additional pattern packs for either the paper-pieced star blocks or the applique blocks or both. All of the applique blocks were done by hand by Holly Alloway, who teaches and works at Sew Original.

Susan Tuttle took a different approach -- her applique blocks are done with Paintstiks! When she told me about it, I begged her to let me see it, so she had her daughter bring it to the shop.

Here's a closeup of one of the blocks -- I can't wait to see it quilted and asked Susan to please e-mail me pictures when it is finished!

So I have to play with this technique -- one more thing on my "bucket list"!

It's Sunday morning and a driving day; I'll get everything packed up and take a scenic two hour drive to Asheville where I'm having dinner with my friends from Asheville Cotton Company!