Fun at the Farmhouse Quilt Company

A big, beautiful sage green farmhouse sits on the south side of the Main Road in Southold with lots of land stretching back beyond it.  Head down the eastern most driveway and you will happen upon another large building. This is the Farmhouse Quilt Company.  There's a chicken coop to your left, and two rabbit hutches on the west side of the building.  Stroll up the brick pathway past the white picket fence.  On the porch, rocking chairs are waiting for you to sit a while and admire the quilt that's hanging there and the mums that decorate the doorway.  Did you die and go to heaven?  

This is all the creation of Janet Heins, who owns the farmhouse with her husband Eric, and has a thriving long-arm quilting business as well as the Farmhouse Quilt Company.  Beautiful fabrics are everywhere and Janet's quilts hang on the walls.  It has lots of windows and the late autumn sun streams in onto the big worktable,  just perfect for classes.  There's coffee, tea and apple cider and a homemade pumpkin cake -- made by Janet's husband!  Can it get any better?  Yep.

Janet's prize winning quilt 

Happy hookers

Candy for quilters

Hard at work

Janet's daughter Lindsay, who is her mom's right hand woman, lives upstairs with her charming family and their puppies -- yes -- two puppies!  A 5 month old yellow lab named Chase and a brand new black lab whose name I can't remember.  And I can't forget Gregory, the gray cat with gorgeous green eyes.  (The chickens and rabbits are Lindsay's, too).  I am in heaven.  But it doesn't stop there!  Later in the day Janet's youngest daughter arrives with a toddler and a brand new baby boy named Mason. And I got to hold and feed him!

More eye candy

Such serious students . . . 

Lindsay and Janet hard at work

In between all this fun stuff, I taught a rug hooking class.  It's such a pleasure to share my love of rug hooking with people who want to make rugs too, and the students yesterday were all quick learners.  Lindsay hooked the most perfect letters I have ever seen.  She's a natural, as is her mom.  We're already planning another hooking class, and a needle punch class, too.  Can you tell I was thrilled with the day?   I am hoping to teach many classes at Janet's shop.  I felt so welcome there.  I felt at home.  Thank you, Janet!

Medici Thread

I have been concentrating on needle punch lately.  Several years ago I was lucky enough to purchase a large lot of of Medici thread, just before DMC stopped producing it, and just before the rest of the world found out about it.  It is a single-ply wool thread, wonderful for needle punch. You can use a single strand for details or multiple strands for background.

I sold the small skeins at shows, and they didn't last long.  I tried selling the larger hanks -- at a really great price, I might add -- but no one seemed to want to deal with them.  The hanks are rather unwieldy, and if you aren't careful you can end up with a snarly mess.  Because I bought an odd lot, the colors were rather limited.  So I over-dyed some of them and I'm making them into skeins.  Aren't they pretty?  They have yummy names like Bing Cherry, Vanilla Bean and Georgia Peach.  Look for them in my etsy shop soon.

New Year, New Work

I'm here!  I was sick for Christmas -- a nasty head cold -- and we were away for New Year's weekend, so I don't have a lot to show for myself.  It's time to put the iPhone down (my husband gave me one for Christmas and I have been playing with it) and get back to work!

I designed a couple of heart patterns for Valentine's Day and need to get the prototypes finished.  I ran out of blue floss, so there's a trip to the store for that in the very near future.  I'm finding the heart a little too bright, even for me, and I may age it with some black walnut tea.  I was thinking of an analogous color scheme in cotton floss for the circle, but this morning I am looking at my hand-dyed wool Medici thread -- Bing Cherry, in particular.  

Some punch needle designs just lend themselves to wool thread.  It is has a warmer, fuzzy look to it and resembles miniature hooked rugs.  The cotton floss, however, tends to produce crisper lines and has a beautiful sheen to it.  Decisions, decisions . . . . .