Welcome Simply Lovely Things (and a giveaway)!

I am very happy to welcome Simply Lovely Things as a new sponsor on my blog.  Colleen has written a lovely introduction to her shop and is offering a generous giveaway (more details at the bottom of the post).  I am increasingly shopping from smaller shops with curated fabric selection, and Colleen has done a wonderful job stocking her shop with beautiful fabric.

I'm so excited to be part of the Kitchen Table Quilting community! My name is Colleen Regan and I am 51 year old kind of crazy, a lot of OCD, list making, fabric lover, oh and of course quilter/sewer! After being a nurse for 30 years I really wanted to do something fun in my life. Although retirement is down the road, we thought that now was the time to start something and try and grow it into a retirement hobby business. 

My story is probably similar to many, I taught my self to sew at age 15 (I still have the dress pattern) and grew into a quilter. I totally love my sewing machine and really do all kinds of sewing. My favorite things are making small blocks into big quilts. I really love making free motion feathers! You can see my big Urban Beauty quilt here.

It's hard to see, but the entire small square borders are all free motion feathers with silk thread. I really love taking something traditional and making it look fresh and new, maybe a modern vintage feel that seems so popular. I see myself continuing with free motion quilting and owning a long arm in the near future.

So for my shop, I hope you love what I have to offer. I love that little bit of shabby, feminine, whimsical and fresh feeling. I am in the process of making an account with two new fabric companies, Moda and Maywood. I also am extremely interested in what the international market has to offer. I'm looking at Tilda fabrics, Lewis and Irene and carrying Jen Kingwell products.

I am also traveling with my quilt shop and have applied to 4 Mancuso Quilt shows for 2018.  I would love to hear about the items you love most and would love to see more of. I do carry a little bit of wool, felt, patterns and specialty threads. I know I don't carry 5,000 bolts but my goals to keep it a size where I can handle it myself. I personally stopped buying from fabric.com because my fabric was poorly packaged and folded strange and thrown in a box. So when you buy from me I promise its just me pulling that bolt, cutting it on my old hoosier cabinet(which by the way is a perfect height for cutting, mine is without the top), folding it, and saying that is so pretty I wonder what it will be? it's just me, crazy 51 year old Colleen!

As for my personal life, I have been married to my husband for over 30 years! We have 3 children, Sam the oldest is in his second year of med school, Jacob our second is serving proudly in the Army, ( please pray for my baby boy as he is slotted to go to Afghanistan and is special forces) and my daughter is in her last year of college and applying for med school as well. I have been a nurse for 30 years and currently work part time in the Pediatric Emergency Department. 

Other than my sewing machine, I love transforming anything ugly into something beautiful, I am always doing something and if you're not careful I will throw some paint your way and see what I can do! In the year I hope to continue growing my business and working on my blog, I have so many ideas but honestly blogging is very time consuming. I have finally done several projects on my home that I hope to include. 

So Im super excited to be here, Im super excited to see what I can for you and hopefully you just don't shop but check in on the blog, simplylovelythings.com to see what I'm up to! I have many ideas and so far there are a couple free patterns as well, 

Thank you coming on over to my Etsy shop,  https://www.etsy.com/shop/SimplylovelythingsCo?ref=ss_profile

Im grateful and honored and look forward to hearing from you!

Colleen has generously offered a giveaway of 7 Fat Quarters from Nancy Halvorsen's Bree collection. To enter the giveaway, visit Simply Lovely Things and take a look around. Then head back here and leave a comment letting us know what your fabric item(s) are.  

The giveaway will go through Sunday night.

The giveaway has ended, the winner is Kathy.  I will send you an email so that we can get your fabrics to you!