Kangaroo Studio Sets

Looking for a great holiday present for that sewing enthusiast closest to your heart. Check out our Kangaroo Kabinets Sewing Studios on sale this December. Guranteed to have everything you need - Large airlift cabinet, Deluxe cutting table with 9 drawers for storage, Sewing chair with lumbar support back, and custom made filler insert specifically designed for your machine.
All of this AND free shipping straight to your home (some assembly required). These are the lowest prices of the year and you can order them at almost any of our online retailers specifically http://www.homespunhearth.com/ or http://www.embroidery.com/. Catch this deal before it "hops" away!

Quilt Market Winner!

At the most recent International Quilt Market in Houston Texas, Arrow Cabinets teamed up with Mighty Bright, Elna and AccuQuilt to sponsor a give-away promotion to one lucky contestant. We handed out "passports" to all the willing participants, they then had to go to each of the sponsor's booths and get their passport punched. At the last booth the contestant handed in their passport. We had hundreds of participants but we selected only one lucky winner: Terry Schuld from Zoe's Trunk Quilt Shop in Chandler Arizona. Terry was fortunate enough to win a Elna Sewing Machine, an Accuquilt Go, a Mighty Bright Floor Lamp and an Arrow - Pixie Cutting Table (shown right). Terry was extremely excited to win

"I am still in shock to have won such a wonderful gathering of
products! I am already using them all and it’s been fun to unpack each one
and get to know it! What a treat! I’ve taken a couple of them to
meetings and groups to show and share with the quilters there so they can try
them out too. That was my first experience at Quilt Market and that alone
was so outstanding that to find out later I had won a prize was
amazing."

No doubt we will be running the same kind of promotion next year at the International Quilt Market in Houston. If you get a chance to go, check out our booth!

History in the Stitches

Recently we found out that one of our coworkers, Jo Jacobi, had a quilt published in a book titled Wisconsin Quilts: History in Stitches by Ellen Kort. Jo used an Appliqued Floral Medallion quilt created by Alice Huebner Besau in the late 1800's or early 1900's as inspiration for her quilt, Jo's Garden (left). The original quilt was a family heirloom that was passed down 8 generations and still is in possesion of the family to this day! I got a chance to bother Jo for a few questions (I kind of felt like a reporter interviewing a celebrity):

How long have you been quilting? I began quilting in the late 70's so that makes it about 40 years.

What made you decide on this pattern? I was reading the First edition of the book, Stories in the Stitches at the same time I had volunteered to make a raffle quilt for Wisconsin Quilters Inc., the statewide quilt guild. I fell in love with the original quilt because it was a very artistic piece with an unusual layout and the color combination was spectacular. I felt compelled to make my interpretation of it.

How long did it take to make this/how long did it take Mary Besau Leanna to make this do you think? I had a year to make and deliver the raffle quilt. I did most of the work in 4 months after I finishing the plan and finding the fabrics. I did the layout on graph paper to keep the proportions correct and hand drew all the floral pieces. I changed some of the elements to suit my style rather than simply copying all of them. I would imagine that it also took Mary Besau Leanna a year or more to create her quilt.

What (if any) are the main differences between your two quilts? Mary's quilt was entirely made by hand, needle turning the edges of the appliqué patches as she laid them on the top with tiny hand stitches. My quilt has the appliqués fused to the top and every edge was stitched by machine using a tiny zig zag stitch. I made each section separately and then machine stitched the pieces together. The sections of Mary's quilt were stitched together by hand because the sewing machine was not invented until after the Civil War in the 1860's. The quilting stitches which hold the layers together are done by hand on Mary's quilt and on the contemporary version the quilting was hand guided and moved under the needle of the sewing machine by a very skilled quilter, Penny Gerds on her household sewing machine.

Do you prefer to quilt designs in a historical fashion or more contemporary? I really enjoy making traditional quilts and I plan to reproduce another historical quilt that I saw pictured in a magazine. I am inspired by the fabric and the colors.

To beginning quilter's and quilter's to be (like myself), what advice would you give them to help them start this great hobby? I suggest that anyone beginning to sew or quilt should take a class and get a good reference book for help and then just start making things to see what you like to do. Also having a good sewing machine will make the experience easier and more enjoyable.

The book was written with material collected over a 15 year span by the Wisconsin Quilt History Project and published by KP Publishers, a Wisconsin company in 2008. Proceeds from the sales go to help build the Wisconsin Museum of Quilts and Textiles in Cedarburg, Wisconsin. www.wiquiltmuseum.com. Copies of the book for purchase can be found at Amazon.com.

Halloween Part, eh?

This last weekend was Halloween, the one day a year where you can dress in any outfit imaginable and still fit in. This year Hether had a little custom party at her house and it was a blast. The setting was perfect, an old three story victorian styled house on a cold dark night in Wisconsin. The outside was secured by ravens and mummies and the inside was riddled with spiders and ghosts. As you walked through the entrance you were greeted by the hosts Morticia (Hether) and Gomez. There was food and drinks, group Pictionary, Wii bowling and scary decorations. There were all sorts of customs, all very creative and well planned: Bob Marley and a Titanic non-survivor; M&M (Jo) with rowdy Sailor; 80's couple (Phil). Even the dogs were dressed up, Puglsey and Wednesday, to match our hosts. One of the coolest things was the cake. It was made by the local baker and it was a fake dead blackbird with red cake in the middle. It was very delicious as well, but it turned your mouth green from the black frosting. Our friend Bonnie sewed her own costume, she was a maid. It was very well done and congrats go out to her for being so creative. Her partner came as a blind referee, hilarious. We didn't even think about it but we should have had a contest on best costume. Which costume do you like the best? Our guests did a great job preparing the party. One of the funniest decorations was the motion sensing, rocking picture frame that cackled at you when walked by it. It scared anyone who dared to go in front of it. It looked so realistic to which made it even funnier, because you would look at it real close and then it would go off. I can't tell you how many people almost ran out of the room in fright. Too funny. Send comments of which costumes were the best and if you had any interesting costumes of your own.

Time to plug

Looking for a Holiday gift for someone close to you? Is this person a sewing enthusiast and already has a sewing machine? Ask yourself, does this person have an adequate place to put their machine or accessories? We might have something for you. Arrow Cabinets is having a sale on all of its cabinets (including Kangaroo) from November 11th through December 23rd. Our brick and mortar dealers (excludes internet dealers) will be offering these cabinets at prices lower than they have been all year. This is by far the best chance to buy. Now you might say "Well I don't want to have to find a store and shop for what cabinet to buy, then have to put it together before the holidays." I also have an answer for that. Find our list of internet dealers at our website and look at Kangaroo Kabinets. We offer to ship your cabinet fully assembled to any room in your house. How easy is that? Just click, wait 2-3 weeks and presto... you have a sewing room ready to go! That might quite possibly be the easiest present you ever bought. Oh and guys, I'll tell you a little secret. You can also put your new flatscreen T.V. you got as a present on the cabinet when it is not being used! Its win, win. Just be sure to move it before you start sewing, otherwise you will end up with a broken T.V.

Quilt Market 2009

So we returned from International Quilt Market last week in Houston and it was just as fun as years past. Our fun little giveaway this year was the cool Arrow/Kangaroo pink t-shirts that had a picture of a treddle sewing machine on the front and "You Sew Girl" or "Its Hip to Hem" on the back. We couldn't have gone through them any faster. Then on top of a free t-shirt, we walked the show every hour and picked a lucky contestant who was wearing the shirt and they won a nice little sewing accessory to go with their machines. We had people circling the booths like sharks around prey. You can see a picture of the t-shirt worn by Hether with a nice Australian lady, holding the "kangy", we met who just loved the Kangaroo Kabinets. She wasn't the only one to drool over some of the cabinets we had brought. I can't tell you how many people went crazy over our green Olivia cabinet, which we had front and center for everyone to see. You could actually take a pin to every person's thought bubble as they walked by imagining themselves sewing in Olivia, it was so funny. We also had a guest appearance by a certain Eleanor Burns, author of Victory Quilts and T.V. show host "Quilt in a Day." It was very cool. We had to get a pic with her just to prove that met her. She even lucked out and got one of our cool shirts. Unfortunately I had to take the picture so I'm not in it, Hether and Jo are though and you can see how star-struck they are. Come on we live in Wisconsin, besides Tony Romo every now and again, there are no celebs by us. Overall we had a great show and a fun time. I love coming to Houston everytime I go, even though we never saw the sun once because of the clouds. Next year be prepared because we will be armed with more t-shirts and we'll be slinging them out a passer byers like peanuts at a baseball game. Stop in a say hello.

Our modest little champion

So I was surprised to find out that one of our coworkers, Sheri, has quite a little secret she's been keeping from us. She was awarded the Grand Champion in the knitting competion at the 160th Walworth County Fair a few weeks ago! Now if I had won I would have been running all through the office congratulating myself, but that's not Sheri's style. She just modestly kept a little secret from the rest of us. Well sorry Sheri but I'm not so modest and I had to give you a "shout out" for your excellent job. Take a look at the cool things she made to win her numerous awards:

This is the first purse she knitted. She used a flexible hard plastic to keep the shape. FYI, it holds two bottles of wine perfectly! First Place.

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This is one of my favorites, if you look closely you'll notice that each little piece is a plastic grocery bag that was knitted together to make a large bag. Going green, I love it.

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This purse was felted with a really neat flower pattern on the inside.
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Lastly, the Grand Champion article... the Quilt. This quilt took her over 9 months of solid work to perfect. It took the home the number Ribbon of the whole fair! How cool is that.

So when I found out about all of these cool little projects I made her bring them in so I could take pictures and show to everyone. Next year she is going to knit me a Chicago Bears sweater :)

Congrats Sheri!!!

Free Thread Anyone?

For the month of September Arrow is offering a FREE 50 pack of Coats & Clark thread with the purchase of any Kangaroo Kabinets. This is a great value for all of you sewers/quilters who are starting to use your machine more now that it is starting to get cold outside (it was below 40 this morning here :( Not to mention Halloween is coming up and your kids/grandkids might need some new costumes. My daughter is 18 months and this will be her first actual Halloween for trick-or-treating. Last year we did it the easy way and bought a cheap costume at Walgreens, but this year I am thinking of making a one for her. Does anyone have any ideas for me? Keep in mind my sewing skills are beginnner at best. So pillow case ghosts might be my best bet. Any help would be great. Oh and here is a picture of my daughter so you have an idea of what i'm working with :) Can you tell she has my "corny" smile

National Sewing Month

September is coming up and it is National Sewing Month. Who out there has any big projects coming up? We are looking for a nice simple little project to occupy us the next few weeks. We finished our quilt runners a while ago and now we are craving more! If anyone out there has any ideas please let us know. We are open to anything. Oh and please, don't make it to girly... :)

Brett Favre

This isn't sewing or furniture related but I don't know if you overheard the big news (well its big news in Wisconsin), Brett Favre is now a Viking! This is the ultimate disrespect for any cheese head. A treachery of this magnitude hasn't been felt since Benedict Arnold betrayed our fledgling country to the British. For any fellow Favre haters out there please comment with any jokes or pictures of your favre dart board and win a nice little prize from Arrow Cabinets.

"Brett Favre signed with the Vikings today. He looks forward to retiring a 4th time"
-Steve Hofstetter's National Lampoon Sports Minute (C)

Our Quilt Runners

Hether, Alisha and I finally finished our quilt runners last week and surprising (especially for me) they all turned out really well. Jo was our teacher and she did a great job. Take a look at our great little quilts. For all three of us this was the first time we had quilted and we were a little green around the gills. Jo, who has years of quilting experience, gave us a little history of quilts and why/how they were made. We spent 30-60 minutes each day piecing our quilts together under the guidance of Jo, who had us do a lot more seam ripping than we all would have liked :) But it was necessary. After a few weeks we sewed our last stitch and we were finished. We all gave a sigh of relief at the end, but now I kind of miss that half hour a day of getting away from calls and emails. Shhh don't tell anyone. Hopefully we can do this again.

My first experience with Quilting

Whoever knew quilting could be so fun? My first few weeks learning
the basics of quilting was fun! And since we got to use Jo's Viking Designer
sewing machine I totally felt like a spoiled beginner! Selecting our favorite
squares was quite chaotic because we ended up with a table runner
that looked way too floral and 'busy'. So we clipped some more solids--and
stole what we could of Phil's--so all in all we now have some pieces we love.
Can't wait to keep going and see how this turns out!

We are on week 2 of our quilting class with Jo. I now finally understand why quilters need so many rulers.... and thank God for the person who invented the rotary cutter! By the way I am a really bad rotary cutter (secretly I have been pawning the cutting off on the others! "Is that my phone? Jo can you finish that up." :) We have used our Pixie table and the top of the Dingo for all our cutting and spreading out. We have used Fiskars mats, Arrow mats and Fiskars scissors and rotary cutters. Sewing has taken place on our Gidget table. All great tools to have.
It certainly gives you an appreciation for all those ladies years ago cutting with regular scissors all the squares and triangles needed, not to mention hand sewing the whole thing together! I will cherish my grandmother's quilts more and stop letting the dogs sleep on them after this class that is for sure!
Lastly Alisha and I both learned not to be so greedy. I bought a layer cake from Moda for us to cut up and make our small table runner quilts. What is great about the layer cake is all the fabric coordinates, what is bad is Alisha and I loved every piece. We left poor Phil with all the solids and what we considered the uglier fabric, what man wants a quilt any way...right? Well in the end when we laid our quilts out before sewing, Phil's was awesome because he had far more contrast in fabric. Thus Alisha and I had to go back and cut more solid pieces to make ours not look so patterned. One could spend hours moving squares here and there, inside and out.

Long time no blog

Hey everyone its been a long time since our last blog, but man has it been busy for us. Kangaroo Kabinets are taking off faster each day. Our poor builders are working overtime to get them ready to ship. We have had some extra time to do a little crafty quilting project together however. Hether, Alisha and I are quilting our own table runners and they are really looking good... even mine :). Check these out! Between Hether, Alisha and Phil can you guess who is making which one? Guess correctly and we'll mail you an Arrow craft bag.

Facebook

Are you a fan of Arrow Cabinets? Check out our new page on Facebook and become a fan of us. Post comments or questions, or just enjoy our lovely pictures.

Boomerang giveaway!!!

For those of you that don't already know, Arrow Cabinets and Fiskars is teaming up to give one lucky fiskateer a brand new Boomerang... FREE! Check this out:

http://www.fiskateers.com/blog/2009/06/06/its-big-its-beautiful-and-it-could-be-yours/

This highly versatile piece of furniture can be used for pretty much anything, including scrapbooking, crafting or even as a piece for your office. Matter of fact, I have one of these in my office. So get out there and win that contest.

I wanted to welcome the Fiskateers to our blog. Blog ladies blog!
Hether

Watching TV the other night, a preview for a new movie came on, Julie & Julia. The premise of the movie was Julie a young woman would prepare one meal a day for 365 days, out of the Julia Child's cookbook and blog about her experiences. This idea intrigued me.
So starting in July I have challenged the staff here at Arrow & Kangaroo Cabinets to do a new crafting project each month and then blog about their experience. Our first project will be taught by Jo , our resident quilter guru, she will teach us all the art of quilting by making a small quilt runner. The following months will be cross stitching, punch needle and scrapbooking. Poor Phil! Just what every sales guy wants to do, learn a new craft project once a month. We will try and "man it up" for him! Please follow along on our summer adventure. We would love to hear any suggestions for small crafting projects an office environment can do.
Hether

Sew Your Colors- Patriotic Quilt

Sew-ists and Quilters love patriotic holidays because they give us a reason to make a new quilt for the season! I am calling this design my Medal of Honor quilt and hope to share it with you.

The two blocks will be paper pieced and anyone interested in the blocks and instructions can email jo@arrowcabinets.com for PDF copies.

The 5 pointed star would be appliqued or fused onto the white rectangle which ever is easiest for you. I personally like using fusible web because it is quick!

There is an interesting story about the 5 Pointed star in American history. According to legend and probably fact, Betsy Ross was approached by George Washington to make the first American flag. George wanted her to sew the stars with 6 points because of the mathematical difficulty of creating an 5 pointed star. Betsy simply folded a piece of paper and with one snip of her scissors, created the star! If you don't believe me, read about Betsy at http://www.ushistory.org/BETSY/flagstar.html and you can even get the directions for your own One Snip 5 Pointed star.

I will be posting more about my quilt as I try to have it done by the 4th of July with pictures to inspire and amuse you!

As The Bobbin Turns...

Hello from Arrow Cabinets to all our fellow sewing bloggers! Just a reminder to finish up those last-minute Memorial Day quilts or projects. We just received our new sewing chairs in and wow are they flying out the door! If you have yet to see this new fabulous creation I have attached a pic to show you. Is'nt the fabric unlike anything you've seen? Brightly patterned, fashionable but with a retro look, which I love.

And its comfortable as well, the ergonomics is great--try one yourself!

Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend and as always, Happy Quilting!

Boomerang

Check out the newest piece to be added to the Arrow/Kangaroo lineup, the Boomerang. This multi-purpose piece is great for sewing and crafting, but the juicy little detail that people don't know is that it can be used for just about anything. The Boomerang can be used as a piece of office furniture for the work at home businessperson, or is a great wall piece for any student. The Slide-Away Table opens up to give you 29 square feet of work space and allows room for 3 people. The shelves are adjustable to allow for storage of just about anything from
clothes to journals, files and computers to electronic equipment and, of course, fabrics and sewing and craft equipment. There are 3 large drawers for even more storage that roll out to add more work space. This piece is truely a universal wonder. Some might even call it a "Magic Box" And at a reasonable price who could resist. In fact, our own employees are buying these for themselves because it is just "too nice to pass up."

Happy Mothers Day!!

For all the great moms out there that never get the recognition they deserve I say to you, "Thanks for being so such a great mom" Enjoy these Mother's Day jokes :)

Three old ladies were sitting around a table. The first says, "I'm getting
so forgetful­ I was standing at the top of the stairs and I couldn't
remember whether I was going down or had just come up."The second lady says,
"You think that's bad? The other day I was sitting on my bed and I couldn't
remember whether I was going to sleep or getting up." The third lady smiles
smugly. "Well, I have no memory problems at all, knock wood."She raps the table.
"Who's there?"

There was an elderly lady whom was waiting in the waiting room with her daughter.The nurse entered the waiting area and announced for the elderly lady to go on back to see the doctor. The nurse spoke louder but still she could not hear.
The elderly lady's daughter leaned over and said, "mother let's turn your hearing aid up." Then she yelled in shock,"That's not your hearing aid, its a suppository!
The elderly mother replied,"Well, now I know where my hearing aid went!

A state trooper pulled a car over and told the man driving that he was going 50 mph in a 40 mph zone. "I was only going 40!" the driver protested. "Not according to my radar," the trooper said. "Yes, I was!" the man shouted back. "No you weren't!" the trooper said. With that, the man's wife leaned toward the window and said, 'Officer, I should warn you not to argue with my husband when he's been drinking."