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| Persephone's Creations, Soddy Daisy, TN |
Through the woods and over the bridge at Soddy Creek [a tributary of the Chicamauga Lake and the Tennessee River], quietly tucked within a small town north of Chattanooga is
Persephone's Creations, an on-line quilting supply shop. This in-home quilt shop, owned by Betty and Jon Wojtowicz, might be small on space, but it's big on selection--quilting fabrics, precuts, wide backings, threads, patterns, notions and more.
I know many of my fellow Chattanooga area quilters follow my blog (thank you!) and have had the opportunity to personally visit the local shops I have blogged about on my
Blank Quilting Fabric Rep Trek. For those who follow my blog from afar,
Persephone's Creations maintains an excellent (and quite organized!)
web site from which you can "peruse and procure" fabrics by type (various pre-cuts), collection name, manufacturer, color and holiday as well as items in other categories such as notions, needles, patterns, thread, and of course,
Specials. And here is a peek at what's behind the scenes.
Pre-cuts—such as Blank Quilting's
Fabrications 2.5" pre-cut strips and Fat Quarters—are quite popular at
Persephone's Creations.
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| Pre-cut strips and fat quarter fabric collections. |
Betty sells pre-cuts on site, through her on-line shopping cart, and on Ebay. With so many
patterns, books and ideas available for these ready-to-sew collections, it's no wonder quilters can't get enough of them.
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| Fat Quarter bundles are available on-line at Persephone's Creations. |
From the bolt, the selection of fabrics include beautiful prints in both vibrant and soft tones, florals, blenders (such as
Splash) and inspiring modern prints like RaNae Merrill's
Radiant collection. [See my blog post about what you can do with
Radiant,
here.]
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| Florals, blenders, and prints. |
There is a good selection of batiks, including
Sumatra ...
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| Batik prints. |
... and blender batiks ...
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| Blender batiks. |
... a variety of the cutest children's prints, funky stripes, dots, bubbles,
bugs,
dinosaurs, and coordinating prints ...
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| Cute juvenile prints with bugs, dinosaurs, dots, bubbles and stripes. |
... and quilters' cottons for the dog and cat lovers ...
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| Dogs, cats, collars, bones and paw prints! |
... reproductions and coordinating solids.
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| A selection of reproduction prints and coordinates. |
Persephone's Creations is ready and stocked for the seasons and upcoming holidays.
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| Fall prints, coordinates, holiday collections and holiday blenders. |
I've used her Christmas Joy panel (with 8 different motifs) to make holiday placemats.
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Make placemats with the Christmas Joy panel.
Service for 8! |
And, to jump start your creativity, there are patterns for quilts, bags, totes and more. Two of my favorites are
"Easy as Pi" by the Franklin Quilt Company and
"Oasis," designed by my friend, Chris Hoover, of Whirligig Designs.
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| Patterns for quilts, totes, table runners and more... |
Oh, and if you are a
thread connoisseur (or thread junky) like me, you'll love the selection of threads by Superior, Auriful and others. I like both Superior's Masterpiece 50 wt. and Aurifil's 50 wt. cotton for piecing and free-motion quilting.
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| Masterpiece and King Tut by Superior Threads |
For you machine quilters—and all of
my free-motion quilting students!—Persephone's stocks King Tut on cones (more thread for your buck!). And, one of my latest, can't-do-without quilting staples is
108" wide cotton backings. There are several colors available in
Splash, and
Sparkle. (Yes, I even use wide backings for wall hangings, long table runners and bed runners. Oh, I'm so spoiled!)
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Left: King Tut threads on cones.
Right: packaged battings and wide backing cottons. |
Speaking of wide backings... just in time for those holiday quilts and festivities, Persphone's has the new Sparkle
Christmas red (cherry) color and a black metallic wide back (black with gold swirls).
Are you thinking holiday table cloths? See
this blog post for my write-up on
"Wide Backings and their Many Uses."
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| Sparkle cherry and black metallic wide quilt backings. |
I hope you visit
Persephone's Creations—either virtually through their
web site, or in person. The shop is open Monday, Friday and Saturday (see their web site for
hours) or contact them for a drop-in. They also offer embroidery services. The shop's tag line is,
"Making quilting affordable." So, check it out and tell them Veronica sent you.
