A Little About the Quilt Show

I think I'll need to break up my tale of Saturday's outing into two posts--otherwise, I'd be writing half the night and you'd be reading half the day.

I'm a sucker for a nice red and white quilt, and I particularly enjoyed this one. Pretty, isn't it? Someday I want to make one for myself--maybe I'll do that with the Redwork Renaissance fabric in my stash, as well as all the other red and white fabrics I've "collected."

Last month, our guild had a speaker, Diane Steele, who talked to us about swap blocks, round robins, row robins, etc. I anticipated a boring evening, but it turned out to be one of the best presentations I've ever heard. Diane had a wonderful trunk show for us, demonstrating, among other things, how differently the same swapped blocks had been set by the quilters in her swap group, the Calendar Girls. If you click on Diane's name above, it will take you to her blog, the Rabid Quilter, and you can see her standing with one of her quilts that won second place in its category--I loved that quilt when I saw it at the show too.

After seeing Diane's presentation and learning that her group, the Calendar Girls, always has a section in the show where their annual swapped block quilts are displayed, I wanted to visit the quilt show and see what her group had done this year. The next four photos show all of their quilts--all made from the same blocks but all set differently. If I recall correctly, the theme this year was North Woods Winter and each quilter interpreted that theme in the blocks she made to swap.

There's probably not as much variety in the settings of this year's quilts as there have been in some of the past years' quilts Diane showed us at the guild meeting, but you can still see the personalities of the quilters come through in the way they've set their blocks. I think my friends and I agreed that our favorite was the one in the third photo with the yellow, white, and blue in the sashings and borders, although I thought the quilt with the center tree bearing the blue ribbon in the second photo was pretty creative too. Which appeals most to you?

The vendors at the show were also excellent. My favorite was Vivica's Favorite Things. I would have loved to just buy her whole booth, because it was filled with vintage goodies, and I absolutely love old "stuff." I found some wonderful antique/vintage trims--

And she had these super fun "grab bags" filled with vintage odds and ends--truly you couldn't tell all the treasures that were in the bag until you purchased it and opened it up. It was a little like opening Christmas gifts and being surprised.

Tucked inside where they weren't visible were these two surprises--a little softcover booklet of Andersen's Fairy Tales and a movie theater brochure from a theater in San Luis Obispo. Fascinating!

And although I could see a little embroidered linen through the bag, I didn't know there were two until I opened the bag--I remember these kinds of embroidered doilies pinned to the arms of my grandmother's upholstered chairs.

Of course, that's not all I bought from the vendors, but I didn't take any more photos--I'm in denial. There was a vendor who had a lot of hand dyed wool and I purchased a couple little bundles/rolls from her as well as two wool Christmas pillow kits that were designed by Bird Brain designs. I don't know why, exactly, but I always seem to arrive at quilt shows primed to buy whatever strikes my fancy because I know the show won't be there tomorrow. Sometimes I'm lucky enough to not find much that interests me, but sometimes I'm not so lucky--this was one of those times. And you know what else? I just realized that no one called me today to tell me I'd won any of those raffle baskets I bought tickets for.

It doesn't really matter. What does matter is that I spent a happy day with a couple of good friends and we all had a great time. Tomorrow I'll tell you about the other stops we made between the show and home.