Block Party Studios

Monday, December 26, 2016

2017 Block-of-the-Month Quilt!

Happy New Year, Block Party Friends!

We wanted to let you know about our Block-of-the-Month Quilt for 2017! This one-of-a-kind quilt has been designed exclusively for Block Party Studios by the talented Isobel Meekins! The finished size of the quilt is 58.5" x 72.5". Take a look!

Here are the details:

1) $8.00 + tax */month or $90 + tax* PREPAID for the whole year. (*tax for Iowa residents only)

2) Kits can be mailed but must be PREPAID. Prepaid for entire year is $120 + tax*.
   Mailing area is out of Story and Polk, IA counties.

3) Finishing kit $65 + tax* (Includes sashing, border and binding fabric) will be
     available October 2017.

Call in to sign up at 1-515-382-3150 or email at patti@blockpartystudios.com, will charge on your credit card on January 15, 2017 (1st kit).

www.blockpartystudios.com

Saturday, April 2, 2016

Meet Jolene, our Wholesale Representative

Hi, my name is Jolene Mesenbrink. I live in Nevada Iowa with my husband Ben. We have four children ages 20, 18, 13 & 8. Last July we were blessed with our first Granddaughter!

I have been a cosmetologist for the past 22 years and salon owner since 2000. In 2012 we completed building our house and moved in. All settled in and our children growing and becoming more independent, I wanted to add something for me. I decided to answer an ad on Craigslist for Block Party. VERY nervously I interviewed and....didn't get the job..... At first. Although I didn't get the position I applied for, Dan & Patti found the perfect position for me.

I am our Wholesale Representative, I call shop owners and purchasers and teach them about our products. I've gotten to know amazing people from all over the United States & several other countries. I share with them how every panel we print is made right here, from cutting, printing, heat setting, folding, all the way to me, wholesale distributing, is done right here in one building. Everyone thinks this would be hard, but not for me. I am VERY proud to work in the same town that my husband works, we live and our children go to school. We are proof that our small towns don't need to dry up. Block Party Studios is proof that our locally owned businesses can thrive and even export as far away as Japan!

Thursday, March 10, 2016

Introducing our New Graphic Designer

Vanessa is a long time resident of Ames, which is only 10 miles away from us here in Nevada, Iowa. She is a mother of a 13 year old daughter and 18 year-old son, who is in the marines.

She graduated from Iowa State University in graphic design and does freelance graphic design and photography. We're excited to see the design work she does for our panels and updating our product photographs!

Monday, February 8, 2016

Pillowcase Party!

What do you have with the following:
5 sewing machines, 8 yards of fabric,
8 women with varying sewing skills,
2 ironing boards and LOTS of laughs?

You have 10 pillowcases!

One night last month, 7 of my sorority sisters came to Block Party Studios to learn how to make pillowcases. Only one other gal and I had ever made one, so it was just like a class! Some of us haven’t sewn since our 4-H days, and others of us sew all the time. When I told them we were going to use the sausage method, they were all a little concerned that maybe I had gone a little nuts!

After much pinning and re-pinning, we were ready to sew our “sausages”. It was so fun to see how everyone tackled the machines. Some sewed at full throttle and many crept down the seam very slowly. Giggles could be heard, and one of us kept saying “I AM having fun” (She’s the one that had to tear out her first try at the cuff seam.) We pulled out our sausages, ironed, trimmed, sewed some more, and at the end of the evening we had 10 beautiful pillowcases. (Two of the gals made 2 pillow cases each!)

As the picture shows, they are all beautiful. It will be fun to see if anyone makes more! Now they want to know what we’re going to make next! Any suggestions?

Thursday, January 21, 2016

Road to California Quilt Show 2016 - Here We Come!

Remember the boxes we had ready to ship to California?

It's show time!!

It's a wonderful break from the Iowa winter here in Ontario, CA for the 2016 Road to California Quilter's Conference & Showcase.

As you walk in, it is quite a sight to see many beautiful quilts hanging up in this grand hallway of the Ontario Convention Center.

Remember the boxes we packed from a few entries ago? Well, here they are! They made it safe and sound. And now we're getting ready to set up our booth.

The backdrop is ready and there's quite a bit to do to get the rest of the booth set up. We are able to bring quite a variety of fabrics, notions and kits to sell.

And.... here it is! Our full booth set up. We're ready to talk to shoppers and help you any way that we can. It will be a fun 4 days in sunny California! Hope to see you there!

To see a VIDEO of our booth, go to our facebook page.

And if you can't make it to California to the show, or if you don't live close to us in Iowa, you can shop for all of our hand-printed fabrics on our website at blockpartystudios.com. Happy quilting!

www.BlockPartyStudios.com

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

When the Fabric Comes In

We'll go into more detail about the printing of our Fabric Panels another time, but we wanted to show you what it looks like when we get out fabric in and some of the steps to make it ready for you to use.

First, we receive a shipment of 100% Kona Cotton from Robert Kaufman. We primarily print on white and natural colored fabric.

Not very interesting yet, I know. But this is the foundation for our original hand-printed panels.

Before they are printed, they are cut to size. We print our panels on fat quarter size (18" x 22") pieces of fabric.


The lovely Maddie is hand cutting each panel one-by-one on a long table.

Next, the panels are printed. Now, this is just the fabric side of the process. We aren't even getting into the panel design on the computer, film printing and screen making process. As you can probably tell, there's quite a few steps to making our hand-printed panels.