Anna Maria Horner - The Private Dinner

The Private Dinner with Anna Maria saw 12 ladies, well 14 including Anna Maria and Jen, for dinner!

We converted our cafe into a restaurant with beautiful native flowers, using Anna Maria's Sweet Dreams collection as our inspiration (a range inspired by her previous trip to our beautiful Australia - perfection!)

The flowers were styled by Jen. I assisted but can take no credit because she really worked her magic... this is where I should mention one of Jen's secret talents is she is a trained florist so she has a little leg up in this department!

Now, it's hard to say, but I believe this event was an industry first! We hosted Anna Maria a little over a year ago and offered her lecture and trunk show in Melbourne. We did so in a lecture room where we could welcome the masses to hear Anna Maria speak. It was a great event but this time around we wanted to offer something different... something unique to our store, exploring our new found capabilities with the kitchen on site and sheer size of this building!

Our chef Tana did an amazing job at catering this event- the food was delicious and abundant.

A guest asked me if I was a chef and gave very high praise - I quickly corrected her.

If only I could cook like our Tana!

I mentioned on the previous post that a picture says 1000 words and these are no different.

I'll let the images do the talking!

xoxo

Lucy

Anna Maria Horner - Plot Twist Workshop

On the 23rd and 24th of June we hosted the incredibly talented Anna Maria Horner for a fantastic workshop and what I think has been our most interesting event to date... The Private Dinner.

I think a picture speaks a thousand words and these images do the events more justice than my words ever could.

This post features photos from the Workshop.

Plot Twist was the workshop we chose to hold - a choose your own adventure style of class with each participant working on their own unique version of Anna Maria's pattern.
We love workshops like this one. They encourage the participants to tap into their own creative abilities and go their own way exploring a theme! Fabrics both new and old appear out of bags, and the buzz in the shop is electric.

xoxo

Lucy

FOCUS ON : Delilah by Jen Kingwell

I cannot write anything about Delilah without singing MY, MY MY! It's a curse... but also a little blessing because it's a fun song to sing. This quilt, as many know, was named after a Tom Jones song. Delilah was Jen's first Template of the Month program which we shortened to TOM!

Tom Jones was a staple sound track in our house growing up. 'What's New Pussy Cat' is often played at family affairs because it gets Richard, Jen's husband, up and dancing!

What can I say about Delilah - she is a beauty and is so fun to make. I can say that with confidence because I have made her! This is the only project of Jen's I have made myself and I loved every stitch (I owe you all a blog post on my version but... where does all the time go?! So, soon... I promise!)

MMQG RETREAT

On the weekend we hosted a a wonderful group of sewers from the Melbourne Modern Quilt Guild.

This was the first retreat type of event we have ever hosted here in our Torquay space, and we hope it is the first of many! With a class room that comfortably sits 20+ and a kitchen in the space for catering and coffee purposes, it's fun to explore our business' true capabilities!

It's always fun to share time with the MMQG because of their approach to quilting - it goes without saying that it's modern and their enthusiasm for all things fabric is infectious! They see quilts in a different light with a strong focus on improv - it's pretty funky!

The machinists of the group were whipping through their work, but Jen still managed to spread the good word about hand stitching!

STAFF PROFILE - Introducing Nat!

Hey Amitie Addicts,

Time for another staff profile. I love sharing these because our team are the backbone of our business. They are the smiling faces that greet you, the warm voices on the end of the phone and it's important you know how FABULOUS they truly are!

The next cab off the rank is Nat - the wonderful Nat, who many of you might know from her pattern company Cinderberry Stitches.

Jen and I were pretty chuffed when Nat applied to work for us - Instagram has opened the craft world up and Nat's feed always caught out eye. Her attention to detail is fantastic which is why we made her chief Visual Merchandiser!

The thing we love most about Nat is her wicked sense of humour. She always has us laughing and we love her for that!

Thanks for sharing yourself with our wonderful customers, Nat!!

xoxo

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Well hello, I thought it was about time I introduced myself to you. 

I'm Natalie Lymer and it's been 2 hours and 18 minutes since I last sewed.

STAFF PROFILE - Introducing Anna

At Amitié, we pride ourselves on having excellent staff - always have and always will!

When we moved, we 'adopted' a whole new team and the experience has been amazing.

We think it's time you all got to meet the new crew and learn a little about them so, with that being said, we are excited to be featuring staff profiles over the next little while - Starting with Anna!

 Anna was one of the first interviews we held and I think we hired her on the spot!!

From the moment Anna arrived, she has been a real asset to our team. She was there during set up - she works hard, stays on task and is super helpful to staff and customers.

The best day with Anna so far - watching her Girl Crush over Tula when she visited (which Anna touches on below!)

Thanks for allowing us to share you with our Amitié Addicts, Anna!

I bet they'll adore you as much as we do.

xoxo

Happy Reading...

Lucy

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Hi there, my name is Anna (@spanzy on Instagram) and I work at Amitie! I can say without hesitation that I literally have my dream job. 

Anna and her family!

I’ve had a few jobs in my life ranging from a supermarket cashier to a Primary School Teacher. Before I had children of my own, teaching was my world, I loved everything about it...except for the work/life balance. I took so much work home with me and found it quite suffocating at times. I had little to no time for my hobby which was sewing. 

AMITIE STASH CLUB : Updated

We love our Stash Club. It has been running for years and is such a fun way to show participants all the fun and funky new fabrics we have in stock.
But we have been thinking... long and hard about how to improve this program for participants!

 We want to update this system to provide a more "user friendly" experience.

So what does that mean?
Well, we want you to USE the fabrics! We want to encourage you to cut into them and make something you love and adore!

Introducing the NEW and IMPROVED
Amitie Stash Club.

6 mail outs a year - 6 different bundles - 16 fabrics in each bundle (total 1m)

All prints co-ordinated to be used in a project!
and
A CHOICE OF TWO COLOUR PALETTES!

Think of it as a pattern-less block of the month... or as we like to call it, A Choose Your Own Adventure Club.

Christmas Hours 2018

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Introducing: Golden Days

Well, it's that time again.

I know you're all thinking "yeah, it's Christmas" but I am actually referring to another monumental date on the calendar...

Jen is releasing another block of the month program!

We are so excited to announce our next fantastic Template of the Month program...
GOLDEN DAYS

Cover Girls

Over the last little while we have been introducing our new neighbours to Amitie's fantastic new space and part of this means local advertising!

Working with the Surf Coast Times has been great. This smaller, local publication has been very hands on with understanding our needs and desires in regards to spreading the word!

We were thrilled when asked if we wanted to be featured in their Celebrating Seniors lift out.

Jen and I graced the cover and I love this photo. Neither of us are super comfortable in front of the lens but it worked out just fine, I think!

Both in our white linens, both smiling... for me, it's just a snap shot of another day in paradise doing what we love and love sharing.

Amitie Update

We have some images from around store we thought you might like to see!

For those who haven't seen - the image above is part of our new space. Photos can't really capture the size, but this one does as an alright job! I get a bit gushy about it all, but I am seriously proud of this store. Jen's vision really came together and it feels unique. It definitely was a risky move, but those often pay off with hard work.

Seriously - we have no regrets. It's been an amazing adventure so far!

This is just the fabric side of things. We also have an amazing class space to the right of here.

A space that can sit 20... quite comfortably. We really thought size mattered in the "creating space" to allow us an in house experience when we invite teachers from around the world. A luxury we have really missed the last little while!

But this is also an big bonus in our smaller (more regular) workshops - you have space to spread out and let loose a little.

You have all been asking...

To all the Amitie Addicts,

The last 6 months have been full of questions. The main one being 'where are you moving to?" and we are excited to finally announce.

After much careful thought, discussion and searching for the perfect premise (oh boy! Was there some searching. Both soul searching and on realestate.com!)… we have finally found it.

Amitie Textiles will be moving to Torquay, Victoria! 

(photo credit: http://www.torquayvictoria.com.au)

This is just too exciting!

We are getting ready for some pretty amazing visitors... and we mean, AMAZING VISITORS! The kind of patchwork royalty that make quilters weak at the knees. Yup, that kind of amazing!

Get ready because this is going to be awesome.

ANNA MARIA HORNER AND CAROLYN FRIEDLANDER ARE COMING TO TEACH AT AMITIE!!!!!

Excited?! We thought you might be.
These are going to book fast so MOVE. MOVE. MOVE!

THE TRUTH ABOUT CATS AND DOGS…

Well, no. Not really! It’s more the truth about Amitie.

{The shop}

We never write on this blog. We want to but it’s always at the bottom of the very long to do list and it gets bumped. Bumped to the next day, next week (maybe even next year going by the last post… eeek!)

So why now? Why this post?

We keep hearing things on the quilty grapevine. Things we mostly laugh at amongst ourselves because they’re so silly. But, recently there’s been a few that have made me think that some of these rumours could be a little damaging to our little fabric store so I using this platform to set the record straight.