Homestead Hearth

I am basing this review on two BOM patterns designed by Homestead Hearth– Civil War Tribute and Civil War Melodies. A number of the piecing instructions for Civil War Tribute needed extensive tweaking or included typos. Civil War Melodies is clearly an easier pattern and therefore, contains less/​no mistakes or typos.
Both patterns result in OUTSTANDING finished quilts and I have very happy.
That said:
I’m considering another BOM program– this one will include fabric as part of the monthly mailing. (I bought Civil War Tribute as pattern only and Melodies as a pre-​cut kit from Hancocks of Paducah).
Other reviews for fabric-​supplied BOM have not been good. I wanted to reach out to other Homestead Hearth BOM members to see they’ve fixed the issues discussed in older reviews or if the mailing problems are ongoing.
Anyone???

This is the third block of the month program I’ve done with this shop. I live in Texas so the kits are mailed to me. Every time i have an issue and am forced to call the shop, I dread it. They are so rude and really don’t seem to care anyway. I am doing a time sensitive program right now, supposed to receive the kit for each month in a timely matter so you can finish it and display it for the month. January’s came in February, still haven’t received February. When I called to ask about it, I was told simply that they fell behind. Not that they were sorry or trying to get caught up. It is so sad that they have such horrible customer service; I look forward to my monthly package. This is my last program I will do.

I am torn what to give this shop…1 star, for customer service, or 4 stars for content.
This shop made the top 100 quilt shops in a magazine. This aligns Homestead Hearth with Harpers in Overland Park, Kansas.
The thing that doesn’t align this shop whatsoever, with any other quilt shop I’ve visited, is the fact that the employees are kind of, snippy. I’ve dropped a kind of good yarn shop down several stars for snippy employees. I found one nice employee. The rest, not so nice.
When people travel to your shop from other towns, cause you have a known well known shop, don’t look up and say, «yes,» then look down. Are you not proud of your shop? There’s thousands of quilt shops in the country, and you are one of the top 100.
As for content… mostly home spun type fabrics, country fabrics, nothing bright, nothing spiffy, but beautiful quilts sewn perfectly. Gorgeous samples. The store winds in and around… but no pictures are allowed anywhere. None. I’d not take one of their quilts, I understand the copyright, but when you are from out of town, and planning to possibly buy something to create a finished product, the finished product is hanging on the wall, usually you are allowed to photograph. Trust me, after I experienced one, then 2, then 5 snippy raggy employees, why would I bother?
Top 100 quilt shops? Make this one number 100 and skip it.

I signed up for a Block of the Month (through the mail; I am not local to them) from this shop. There were no online reviews that I could find prior to signing up so it was a leap of faith it would be okay. It was not. Here is my perspective on the BOM & the shop’s performance. Really apologize for the length here, but it was one problem after another.
1. The shop was doing the BOM with fabrics of their choice. The pattern had been an online BOM through The Quilt Show and the original fabrics were no longer available. When we got started, I emailed the shop asking for a picture of their sample so I could see where we were going. I never got an answer on that leading me to believe they do not do a sample for their BOM programs.
2. The program was scheduled to start November 2011. We received an email in December saying the fabrics were delayed, but they were working on an alternate beginning that would ship later that month. I received my first kit in April 2012. I emailed the shop once or twice during this period to get an update, but never got a response.
3. The background was separate from the block kit. There was a discount offered if you purchased your background when you signed up. I initially read that as the backing — my mistake — because it was several yards. If that note is in the description for a BOM you are considering, be aware that yardage is in addition to the monthly kits, i.e., $ 20+ per month for the kits plus another $ 60 or so to complete your top.
4. There were some issues with converting the pattern from the online version to the printed pages sent with the fabrics. Most significant was the lack of a color key. I think if the shop had done a sample, they would have realized how difficult it would be to arrange the many, many half square triangles to get the desired star pattern. The black & white copies of the pattern showed the design of the original fabrics. Pink floral and green floral don’t look especially different from each other in that format.
5. The cutting instructions from the pattern publisher were incorrect resulting in kits going out missing one or more fabrics needed for that month. Again, I think that a shop sample would have helped the situation. The shop sent the missing fabric with the next month’s kit. Participants were not asked if they’d like the missing fabric sent right away.
The kit for the third month arrived also missing fabrics. The shop sent out an email that was actually pretty good — acknowledged the extent of the problems & their efforts to correct them. Once again, they sent the missing fabrics with the next month’s kit, but that next kit was delayed. There was no notice of the delay, but it was long enough that I called the shop about it. That’s when I found out they have a calendar on their website showing the ship dates for their programs. That seems like information that should have been provided to program participants at the start, but no. At this point, this project no longer felt like a Block of the Month. It was more like Block of Two and a Half Months.
I lost patience with them when I finally received the kit for month 4. It turned out there had been even more fabrics missing from the month 2 kit, a scrappy, 4-​patch border. The decent email they had sent after month 3 indicated they would send additional strips with month 4 to correct months 2 & 3. There was no other discussion of what was missing from month 2. Had I realized there were additional mistakes in the month 2 kit, I would have waited to complete it. On top of all that, adding all the missing fabrics pushed the weight of the package past the 14 oz. limit and it had to come priority mail. I realize it’s just a couple of dollars, but the message it sent to me was you get to pay extra for the privilege of receiving your fabrics late.
At no time did I feel the shop was making decisions or providing service that was in the best interests of the program participants. I complained, a lot, but other than a, «gee, sorry, we dropped the ball,» the shop didn’t seem particularly interested in making this a good experience.