As we continue to prepare for the Charlotte Quilt Week, we are making up new kits of Laura’s most popular patterns. Mr Laura and Dave (my trusty minion) are such bad hiders, I mean, “so talented”, that we can’t seem to stop being promoted. I have now been named Director of Kit Creation.  This involves cutting the correct fabrics to the appropriate size (one yard, yard and an eighth, etc) and gathering the various other notions and webbing and placing it all in the correct sized transparent plastic bag. I have been able to delegate much of this work to Dave and his crew (Stuart and Mini Stuart). In return I allowed Dave to pick out his own title. Dave has named himself the Chief Imperial Officer of Awesome Kit Assembly. This division of labor allows Laura to sew her little heart out making the samples.

Black Batik Mini Sample

Dave Stuart and Mini Stuart at work

While they can handle many of the tasks, I do the cutting and fusing myself as the minions have short arms that makes it very time consuming to cut fabric even when using a roller cutter. They can only cut about one and a half inches before they have to walk forward and start again. You can see plucky little Dave below trying to help Laura cut black batik pattern pieces for the Mini Pro Tote sample.

Dave does his best

Dave is also too light to depress the mangle when fusing even if he jumps up and down. So I guess for the foreseeable future these tasks will continue to be handled by myself.

Dave is just too little

Now that the Mini Pro Tote Kits are done I will move on to cutting the Professional Tote kits. Laura has selected the fabrics below. From top to bottom they will be lining, main and contrast fabric with the dark brown leatherette used for the base piece. I see it as a World Traveler sort of theme and I can’t wait to see a finished sample. Laura has a great eye for fabric combinations. I am pretty sure of this, because while there is no way in the world I could pick out the fabrics, I think I know a winning combination after it is done. If it was just me saying Laura has a great eye we could probably discount that but at the shows a lot of fabric reps, shop owners, and retail customers tell me the same thing. You can decide for yourself when I publish the pictures of the completed Pro Tote sample.

Pro Tote Fabrics

After the Pro Totes are done we will start some Town & Country Backpack kits. I will keep you updated as we progress. The new kits are also available for order on the website and I add the latest ones as they are completed.