Look What I Found!

Today (Saturday) was the monthly gathering of my stitching friends.  Usually we sew and eat and talk and sew and eat some more, but this time we didn't do any sewing; we did a lot of shopping instead.  First we went to the Folsom Quilt Show.  In our area, it's always the first quilt show after the holidays, so I think everyone's pretty excited to go.  And since our little group wanted to get together as usual AND go to the quilt show, we did both; hence the lack of sewing.  Of course, the quilts were lovely, as usual.  And did I take photos?  No I didn't.  I brought my camera but nothing really inspired me to take photos even though the quilts were fun to see.  Sorry I didn't bring back any eye candy.

The vendors--well, the vendors were lovely too.  Since I like to work with wool, it's one of the things I look for at the shows because none of the shops in the area carry anything like the selection of wool to be found at the various vendor booths at a quilt show.  And yes, I brought home a pile.  In fact, I spent time tonight washing and drying the wool on the hot settings because I saw at least one vendor recommended it and I wasn't certain if all the wool had been thoroughly felted.

At quilt shows, I also look for patterns, and look at what came home with me today:

This pattern is called Merry and Bright, and it's by the same pattern designers who did Comfort and Joy--with a similar style.  It's a nice size for a table topper, so my thought is to make this one for my kitchen table and hang Comfort & Joy on the wall just outside the kitchen, where I always hang a seasonal quilt that can be seen from the entry way.  I'm not too fond of primitive looking angels, though, so I think I might replace her with a snowman.

The other thing I did tonight, besides felting wool, was to prep more applique pieces to finish the borders of Comfort & Joy--I decided to extend the vines a little too, so I needed another pile of leaves and berries.  AND I picked a winner for the Comfort & Joy pattern.  Mimi of Bangor, Maine, won.  She said:

"Would love a chance to win this pattern. Thank you."

Usually I pick a random number and then count to see whose name matches the number, but this time I did it a little differently.  This time I started with the first entries and counted 2, then 9, then 8, and finally 1.  Why?  Those numbers stand for 2/9/81, the day my son was born--today was his birthday!  And by the time you read this, it will be February 10th--the Wild Child's birthday.  Now that they're older, it's kind of nice celebrating everyone's birthday at the same time, but when they were kids, it was tough since they are of the opposite sex and are three years and one day apart in age--of course they never wanted to share a birthday!

Mimi, please click on my profile and then click on the email link, so you can send me your mailing address.  Congratulations!