Chris Dodsley @mbCD: Sweet Sixteen

Update - The City Quilter and the ArtQuilt Gallery are now closed

Earlier this week I posted this photo on my Instagram

I appropriately captioned it 'My second home, The City Quilter, Manhattan'

As the 'likes' came in my internet quilty friend Julie over @Jolie Maxtin made a fab comment that made me giggle "You just can't stay away from there can you" to which I replied "no, it's my addiction! My husband's arranging to have his salary paid directly to them, he says we might as well cut out the middle man ;) ".

Anyway, this got me thinking that as I talk about The City Quilter so much in my posts, maybe you'd like to take a look around for yourselves? So I dropped by again - you see I really don't need much of an excuse and it means I get to say 'hi' to all my wonderful friends who work there too - and I've taken lots of photos around the store to share with you.

Walking in at the main door - this week you are greeted by Liberty fabrics - this display changes regularly and all the 'new arrival' and 'seasonal' fabrics are also in this entrance area.

To your right The City Quilter's exclusive range of NYC fabrics and other NYC themed fabrics too.

More 'new arrivals' to your left

The colour wall - all quilting fabrics are sorted by colour - this is such a huge help when you're selecting fabrics. Here's Yellows through to Greens.

And the other end of the colour wall moving through to Brown/Grey/Black

Quilting threads and Kaffe Fassett's and the walls are hung with items made by the staff and the patterns and kits are all available in store. The large quilt on the wall is 'The City Quilt' as featured in the Winter, 2013 issue of "Quilt Trends' magazine and was designed by my favourite City Quilter teacher Christine Janove, who taught me to quilt.

This centre section has buttons and felts and all those 'texture' tone on tone semi-solids like 'Timeless Treasures - Sketch', suedes, etc. Under the front desk, there's a great selection of white and cream fabrics.

More of the 'semi-solid tone on tones' - oh and there's my daughter, Flicky, just walking into the photo on the right - wonder what project she's planning for me next!!!

This section to the back of the store has along its walls all the notions, tools and accessories that you could ever want, along with ribbons, embroidery threads, templates and patterns. The two stands on the back wall are 'Sale' fabrics and to the left of these is a doorway to the basement and the long arm machine area. The centre stand is children's fabrics - girls to the left and boys to the right.

A close up of that central 'children's fabric' stand - girls' side.

More children's fabrics - boys' side and soft accessories.

Moving through towards the Batik area - the circular stand in front of us is pure Tula Pink right now but it does change regularly - if you've not come across Tula before then have a read of my Tula Pink Trunk Show post. You can see the wonderful Nancy, CQ's very own Doll and Felt Maker, in the background at the cutting desk serving my Quilt Guild friend Maria.

Again the Batiks are all arranged by colour making selection sooooo easy.

More Batiks, and I recognise that red and aqua Melissa Crawley La Femme fabric on the left - I'm currently working with it on another project for Flicky, and at the back there're rolls of laminates.

The City Quilter is an authorised dealer for Handi Quilter and Bernina - to the right there's an HQ Sweet Sixteen on the table (top of my wish list) and to the left is the Bernina area - pop in and you can try before you buy on these great machines.

The CQ classroom - obviously not set up for a class here but just look at all those lovely Bernina 550QEs waiting to be put to good use. I've spent many fun hours in here and, of course, this is where I first learnt to quilt (read all about how I started quilting here) and where I found out that I'd won last year's Bernina Day Creative Challenge - (see my prize winning book covers here) :)

Another view looking back at the Bernina demo area on the left - oh dear, I've just realised I've not photographed the Echino//Essex Linen sections to the left of those machines and that's quite possibly my favourite section of the whole shop - how did I manage that?!!!!!!- and there's 2 centre stands with all the quilting/sewing books/magazines you could ever want.


And here's the Solids section - Kona and Michael Miller - that's at the entrance to The Art Quilt Gallery.

So that's it, a trip around my favourite and local quilt store. There's something for everyone and the staff are just the best. Lots of help and knowledge on hand and don't forget the incredible range of group classes that they run or you can do private classes if that's your thing. The Art Quilt Gallery is a great source of inspiration - just take a look at my post about the exhibition 'Sunshine and Shadow' by Deb Hyde.

UPDATE!
Since writing this post I've actually started work at The City Quilter - you can read all about it in this post

Sonia, You'll Never Believe It - I Just Found The Golden Ticket!!!

If you're a sewer/quilter visiting NYC you have to make time to visit CQ, chances are you'll probably bump into me in there - and if you do my husband has just one request ... please stop me buying any more fabric!!!

UPDATE - The City Quilter closed its doors in October 2016

And here's something that I found out that is so interesting for those of you from England or Australia who can't visit Manhattan - there's two national rate numbers you can call to speak directly to The City Quilter staff to ask questions and place fabric orders:

London: 020 8123 5193

Sydney: 028 0050 292

For details of other fabric, yarn, trim and notion stores that I've visited around the world along with the NYC stores I love, exhibitions and events I've attended and wonderful people I've been lucky to meet click the links below or in my side bar :D