A quick look at the store

Here are some pictures of the store July 2011

Looking at Hester's first quilt from my class, she is on the Right. :) Me in the middle and Mirrium my manager on the left. I wish I could say I have a thatched hut in the middle of the desert as my store but that is closer to my 5yr dream. For now I have a cute store in a lovely location called The Craft Market. My second store will be thatched with a Lappa for classes and coffee outside with warthogs walking through. Never stop dreaming.

Here is our upside down Mowana (Baobab) tree that holds our threads from the ceiling with fairy lights.

MAP Wall Quilt

So you may have seen my Crazy Cobblestone quilt, well this is a peek at it again. The story behind the story. I was on my last day of work (a Sat) before leaving for the nice 3 week vacation we just had in California and Vancouver. Mr Taylor came into the store and we chatted about this wall he wanted a quilt for. No problem right? Well I went in to see this monstrosity the day before I left and WOW was all I could say. And when is this due? Mid October (I was only to be back Sept 8th with jet lag and all) OK I will do it. I had already started another of these quilts for my store so if he liked it 1/5 of the work was done before I left. Before I had even put the picture on the table he said....Thats the one, thats what I want, just like this but bigger....Thank you God, or I would never have gotten it done. We arrived back on Thursday night and Friday morning I was to work. I clocked in 72hrs this week to get the patchwork and design part done. I have just today taken it to make sure this monstrosity fits on the wall and it was PERFECT. I have handed it over to my main quilter Lorato to organize the quilting. We do ALL our quilting by hand on these. It will take 3 people 3 weeks to quilt it by hand. Lorato is the large quilting job manager (we do this at my moms house so she can look after her kids....and my mom hahaha), Lydia quilts in the store and is such a hard loyal worker, and KT our right hand MAN....yup, man. He has the best quilting stitch of all and he also does all our driving as well as helping me with school pick up when I have classes. We should have one week lee way on this in case of problems and also to figure out how to hang such a large quilt, basically a double queen size.
I am exhausted but happy and proud. I have not shown a complete view of the design as we want a bit of a surprise when its done and will wait for the grand opening of the Library for unveiling of this. Now I need a good name.....any suggestions other than monstrosity?

MAP Library wall 3M by 5M

This is the Library wall I have to make a quilt for, 3M by 5M WOW.
Let me introduce you to Andy Taylor the Headmaster of Maru-a-Pula school, my lovely old High school. Mr Taylor was a teacher, while I was there and now he is an inspiration to me as well as the one who pushed me to make these works of Art. The first quilt made for anyone outside of my family was for Mr Taylor. He needed a gift for his sister and when it was completed he said sorry Jenny I can’t give her this, it belongs on my office wall, you’ll have to make me another one, sorry. Well as the years have gone on he is the biggest collector of my quilts both for him and for gifts. He inspired me to start the business and thanks to him when my husband passed I had Kalahari Quilts and I LOVE WHAT I DO.