Quilt Shop: Quilted Owl; New Orleans, LA

It was a rainy day in New Orleans yesterday, as it is today. We're expecting rain most of the day today. It just might turn into a sewing day. We have a short trip to the grocery store planned, but then nothing else...just a day to chill before moving on tomorrow.

Since there wasn't anything else on yesterday's agenda, we headed over about 10 miles from the RV park to the Quilted Owl quilt shop.

It's in what was formerly a private residence (apparently). Behind the sign is this metal owl sculpture.

There is ample parking to the left of the store. There, she's hung some pretty quilt blocks.

A few of you have mentioned this place to me, and so it seemed like it was worth checking it out. They have an online presence, and the owner has designed quite a few patterns for hand embroidery. Click right here, and scroll down to see her hand embroidered "Crescent City Charm," which honors iconic scenes from New Orleans. Walking in the front door, it looks like this:

The store owner met me here at the door to give me some information. When I'm confronted by a store employee as I enter the store, I always ask if I can take pictures. The store owner here seemed to say something on the order of "no, um, yes, but I won't like it", and so I limited my picture taking to the areas where I didn't feel watched. When she walked away, I took a picture of her quilted owl quilt.

Above it and to its right are some of her other hand embroidery designs. The one at the top also uses crayon.

I know some of y'all are interested in the antique sewing machines, and so I grabbed a couple of pictures of those.

Also, I've seen these little rulers (below) from Creative Grids all across the country. I was gifted one when I took my first class from Ann Shaw, and it's such a great little ruler. It's 2-1/2 inches by 6-1/2 inches. They're especially useful for drawing patterns for the Ruth McDowell style of quilts, but I use mine all the time for all sorts of things. It seems quilt shops can get them custom made with their name printed on the ruler. I only bring this up to encourage you to snag one of these from your LQS if you ever get a chance.

 
They also had another nice supply of Creative Grids rulers.

On the left side of the door in this foyer is a good sampling of the kinds of fabrics you'll find at this store. She features mainly civil war reproduction and traditional quilting fabrics.

Passing through the foyer into what might have been the living room at one time, one passes a door leading to a hall on the right. Entering the hall, there are three ways to go. To the left leads to the room below.

Straight ahead leads to this small, but bright room...possibly a laundry room, at one time.

To the right leads to this next room.

So, let's start there. As I said, it's mainly darker civil war style prints.

In this room, she had a nice supply of batiks as well.

In a moment of insanity, I fell in love with this little pillow and decided to purchase the pattern. It includes 60 of those little paper-piecing templates. The blocks are about 2 inches square. If I ever make anything from this (a big "if"), I'd use it for quilt blocks. Can you see a rainbow scrap quilt from blocks like this? Yes, I could probably have figured this out on my own, but with insanity also comes laziness, so yeah. I bought the pattern.

Also in this room, a nice supply of these indigo blue fabrics. Sometimes it's hard to find this shade of blue.

She also had remnant bins stationed all around the store. I drew liberally from these as you'll see in just a minute.

In the middle room were some nice bright calicoes and children's fabrics.

I love that criss-cross stripe there. It was tempting, but I passed on it.

When I turned around, I noticed these nice light neutrals shelved below the cutting table. These are great embroidery background fabrics, and they too are sometimes hard to find. I looked very carefully at these.

And since I'm often asking to have a fat quarter cut,  signs like this one are always a welcome sight.

In the room to the left were more civil war style prints. They were rich in their depth of color. I love those reds.

And these beautiful browns.

The store catered to hand stitchers, and so there was a nice supply of needles and thimbles.

On one wall were a quite a few patterns, mainly, traditional quilts.

This here, now. This looks suspiciously like paper piecing to me, and you know how I feel about paper-piecing.

In the back room were threads. Here there was also a full kitchen and a large room with large tables. It probably served as a classroom. There were several women in this room, and with the owner being I-can't-decide-how-I-feel-about-you-taking-pictures there, I curbed my picture taking for the remainder of my visit.

Except for these New Orleans and Mardi Gras fabrics. I was on the hunt for more of these.

For my regional fabric from this store, I picked up this fat quarter.

From the batiks, I asked for a yard of each of the next two. I just liked them.

There was a large remnant bin next to the cutting table, and so I rifled through that while she cut my two yards of fabric. I came out with this one...

and this one...both batiks...

Also, this white on white polka dot. This one makes a great embroidery background for winter or Christmas quilts.

Also, this natural muslin. Another good choice for an embroidery background. All the remnants were 25% off.

So there you go. That was our day. But let us paws a moment here for equal time on kitty feet.

Like I said...it's probably a sewing day. I'll tell you what I get accomplished in tomorrow's post.