May’s Blocks (and some of June)

June 5, 2016 Elizabeth E.12 Comments

Because my husband is busy this afternoon recovering from our trip (see below), I used an online generator to pick a winner today for the felt, and it’s Elizabeth (what a great name, eh?) who goes by catskillquilter. Congratulations, Elizabeth! I’ll be in touch to get that sent out to you. I have two more giveaways lined up in the next couple of weeks, one courtesy of Uppercase Magazine, and the other from the Steam A Seam people (that one’s on June 13th–in conjunction with our continuing Hallowe’en 1904 QAL). I’ll have some great news as well about that fabulous pattern.

Here we go, first with quilt blocks from our Mid-Century Modern Bee: Carla of Grace and Favor asked for a modern churn dash block, saying she likes mustard and plum. Above is my block, but I was tempted by this, from @myquiltdiet:

I thought it would be fun to try, but Carla said “Too much work!” I could hear the laugh in her voice, so I smiled and went with tweaking the center bars to give it a bit of a twist. I hope she likes it.

In our Spelling Bee Quilt Bee, Susan of PatchworknPlay asked for words to make up her saying, which she’ll reveal on her blog. I first took three words with “w’s” but then Simone had none, so I gave two back, leaving me with the above.

Since NOT staying at home seems to be the thing I do the best lately, we headed out Friday for a mini-reunion with my husband’s family in Zion National Park, about 7 hours away. You can tell who has been coming there for ages (this makes about trip #20 for me) as we say “heading to Zion’s” as if there’s a possessive element there. (However, I do feel like it’s “my” park.) To try and catch up with my patchwork, I took some Chuck Nohara blocks on the road, stitching them in the car and in the park.

We invested in new air mattresses this year, twin blow-up beds, and those of you who have slept on a queen air mattress with another person while it slowly deflates all night long, know exactly why I replaced our aging air mattress. It also helps that my favorite camp quilt, Hearts in the Pines, is made for a twin. The pattern is out of print, but you can find the blocks in this previous post. My husband’s bed later on got a green nine-patch, but he left it off because it was. . .

…pretty dang hot this weekend. Snapshot was from the next day, where it turned out to have a high of 103 degrees F (about 40 C.)

My husband and I, my son and his wife and boys always go out to dinner at Zion Pizza and Noodle Company the first night, as we all love their pizzas, and who wants to cook after setting up camp? I love their scallopy crusts.

We were tasked with getting the S’more supplies. I cracked up when I saw a whole section just dedicated to this.

We rejoiced to have my husband’s niece (shown here in the Virgin River with the youngest of her six children) join us. Several weeks ago she underwent surgery for a brain tumor, and while under anesthesia, had a stroke. She awoke to a mostly paralyzed left side and has undergone significant physical therapy just to be able to walk with occasional hesitation. But she’s walking! She’s our own little success story, and she and her husband and family are our very own heroes.

Throwing rocks in the river was great entertainment for my grandson and the other small cousins. (No, he couldn’t lift that one.)

I left the river early because it was too hot, and went back to camp. I picked up my Chuck Nohara stitching, sitting quietly in the shade, watching (and chasing away) the squirrels. All of a sudden I hear a sound directly behind me, and using the reverse camera on my phone, caught this shot. One of the other little cousins came running over, saying “Bambi’s here! Mom, Bambi’s here!”

Because of the above sitting quietly, I’m all caught up with my Chuck Nohara blocks from April and May:

Now to head into June!

Oh Christmas Tree QAL · Quilts

Oh Christmas Tree QAL–STEP 5

June 2, 2016June 5, 2016 Elizabeth E.21 Comments

Today is Step 5 of our Oh Christmas Tree Quilt-a-Long (#ohchristmastreeqal), following a pattern by Wendy of FlyingFishKits and which was published in Simply Moderne issue #3, by QuiltMania. As always, we have an assist from Wendy of Wendy’s Quilts and More (blog) and wendyquiltsandmore (IG), as she is slightly ahead of us in her creating.

And because of the nice people at National Non-Wovens, we also have a giveaway of 100% wool felt, and their new colors of their rayon/wool felt. ~~Read through all the way to the end to find the giveaway.~~ Giveaway is now closed.

This month we’ll look at possible under-the-tree scenes; there are four:

(1) the reindeer cavorting, as shown in the original pattern,

(2) Wendy’s packages,

(3) nothing, or

(4) a nativity scene.

First, Wendy’s packages.

She has included photos, with a tape measure so you can see the overall length. Remember, also, that she added a few extra flowers and leaves on her tree, as described in our last post.

When I asked her about the packages, she wrote:

“You’ll see the boxes range from 2” to 3” and were really just cut from scraps of felt. So whatever is left over. I used threads to make them look like presents (including my Wonderfil Dazzle – which has bult in sparkle). And added a few novelty buttons from my button box. I’m even going to add bows from ribbons once it’s quilted.”

“So total length of presents = about 14”. I just fiddled around until I was happy with the layout. Sort the layout before stitching, because then you don’t need to stitch on the bits that will be covered up by another present. I went for a range of colours and stitched a variety of patterns on them, just like real presents would appear under a tree. I didn’t attempt balls or bikes, just kept it very simple. You can imagine what might be in them.”

I also asked her if she had embroidered them before, or after, she’d attached them to the backing:

“I had to check if I embroidered before or after I attached them. The back view shows it was after. I tend to take things cautiously and add more if I think it needs more. Feel free to include that back view photo – sometimes it’s easier to remember if you’ve seen a photo.”

Thanks, Wendy–this is a great alternative!

Secondly, if you are going to do the reindeer, just follow the directions on the pattern, embroidering them before you put them on, then attaching them as we did the flowers and birds.

Third, do nothing. I’ve heard from some of you, and there seems to be an ambivalence about whether or not to put anything. You may want to hold off until you get your borders on, then decide.

Fourth, the nativity scene. I looked and looked for something that might work, finally adapting a folk-style couple with Baby Jesus between them, found on an Eastern-European art site. I had thought about a silhouette of Mary and Joseph, but it just didn’t look right with our folk art flowers and birds. I tried making them larger, as I realize it looks now as if the birds could put Baby Jesus into their nests, but I would have had to adjust the background placement about 3 months ago, and there was no way I was going unpick everything and re-do that. So I decided that they would just look like one of those Nativity Scenes we put up around our house: smaller, a replica of the Holy Family. In the end, I am happy with how they turned out, but I always try to give you an idea of what I was thinking. If you are doing options 1, 2, or 3, we’ll see you next month when we’ll do the sawtooth border (border #1). But keep reading for the Nativity Scene how-tos.

First up, the pattern, free of charge, no cost, no frills, and yes, you’ll have to improvise the manger and Joseph’s beard. But the price is right. Click this link in blue to download a PDF file of the pattern: Holy Family_OPQuilt (Don’t click on the illustration.) Print this out at 100% or larger (I used 100%).

JOSEPH

Here is Joseph’s pattern, all cut out.

Basic steps:
1. Cut paper pattern pieces out; I cut a slit up Joseph’s robe pattern to get at the face and the under-robe. I left the headscarf section on top in place for now.
2. Cut out the robe out of felt (don’t cut a slit up the center of the felt), then snip a slash in the middle to cut out triangle-shaped center, following the cut out of the paper pattern. After doing that, cut pattern, freeing up the head scarf piece. (I show it above all together, but really the paper pattern is in three parts.)
3. Cut face out of interfacing, and bond to face fabric–don’t make the face fabric too pink. Joseph lived in the Mediterranean.
4. Cut under-robe, by tracing around the triangle-shape with a marking pencil, then cutting 1/4″ away from that tracing. I tried to use stripes for both Mary and Joseph’s under-robes.
5. Cut out head scarf, by the same tracing method described above.
6. Cut out deep background out of black felt. SEE BELOW.

I realized, after doing Mary, that the under-robe needed much more support than just cloth. So I laid the pieces as shown above onto some black felt, and cut 1/4″ around everything. That larger black felt piece (deep background) will be largely invisible, but is needed so the center section doesn’t become too floppy.

7. Trim the face to 1/4″ around the interfacing.

8. Pinch around the lower edge to establish a fold line for appliqué. No need to do the top as it will be hidden by the head scarf.

9. Find the center, fold up the “chin” and pin in place.

9 (cont’d.) Appliqué down the face lower edge (see above photo for details) to the black (deep background). Fold under the top edge of the under-robe and appliqué that just under the face. They need to touch. Place head scarf onto felt robe piece. Fold under lower edge and attach to face opening in the felt with tiny stitches. Then fold to the back and tack down everywhere.

This is how things looked from the back.

10. Center the under-robe/face piece behind the robe/head-scarf piece; pin.

Lifting up the edge, trim away the excess.

Tack into place from behind. It will really be anchored by the embroidery stitches you do, but you don’t want it slipping around while you handle it. All of the above steps took about 30 minutes; it looks longer because I’m describing them to you, but since this is smaller, the stitching goes quickly.

MARY

Repeat basic steps with Mary, but there is no separate step for the head scarf. Make a (deep background) piece out of black felt for Mary as you did for Joseph. (I didn’t, and I wish I had, so ignore that tiny deep background piece above (and below) and create one as large as Joseph’s.)

In addition, DON’T trim the upper edge of Mary’s face piece until nearly the last step, as you need all that extra. DO trim the “chin” area to 1/4″ seam allowance, then pinch along the fold line, as you did for Joseph’s

Pretend this is all on a (deep background) black felt piece, as is Joseph’s. It should be. Construct in the same fashion, turning up lower edge of face and appliqué onto black felt piece, then do the under-robe the same as Joseph’s.

Mary doesn’t have a head scarf that is a different piece of fabric. Women in her day and religion didn’t show their hair, so I purposely didn’t make hair for her; you be the judge of what you want.

Pin the under-robe/face piece in place and tack down from the back, as you did for Joseph. Sorry for the nighttime-on-the-sofa-cushions photo.

Now add the embroidery. I put several lines of “scarf” on her, alternating navy and red threads, then another line of “braid,” closer to her face, to lower her forehead (foreheads shouldn’t be too large otherwise they’ll look funny). I used blue slightly slanted stem stitches, to give texture. I did a back stitch to outline the fold of her robe, then up around her head, mostly to anchor the robe/face/deep background piece in place. I did a backstitch about 1/3″ away at the hem, narrowing as it came near her face, then around the lower edge. I added small flowers and decorative French knots.

Time to add some embroidery to Joseph.

I did two lines of stem stitch on the scarf, acting as a braid holding it on. Then I figured out his beard by tracing a shape off the pattern about 1/2″ long, as wide as the opening, and in a wide arc at the top on his face. I used felted wool to get the right texture. Tack that on. Then start adding embroidery to the robe: back stitch, seed stitch, building up layers of design.

I actually gave some thought to the colors I used. Knowing that red is for the Savior’s robes after He’s resurrected, I tried to incorporate that in. Purple in my mind is for royalty, so Mary got some of that. Of course, Mary has to be in blue–she just does. I always think green is about life and living things, so Joseph got that color. You decide what colors matter to you, and where to put them. I stitched Joseph’s decorative lines in a variegated thread, so they have some depth to them.

In stitching the vertical lines, be sure to get narrower near his face, and farther apart nearing the hem of his robe. Add eyes. They are not French knots, but merely a tiny stitch. Set Mary and Joseph aside.

BABY JESUS

Here are the pieces cut apart, with wool felt. DON’T CUT THE YELLOW LIKE THIS. I learned my lesson from Mary and Joseph and re-cut the lower yellow to be sort of a large oval; see below.

And here’s another DON’T DO. Don’t appliqué the face ON the white. I’ll show you a better way in a minute.

Here’s the face appliquéd on like his parents.

Yes, he does resemble a Cabbage Patch Doll.

So, instead, CUT OUT that oval-ish slit. Tack the baby’s face in BEHIND the slit (easier to do at the beginning). Stitch the swaddling cloth lines in blue around the face. Then layer him on the yellow felt, with the red felt nestling in just below the white (see above, for the colors I chose). Start anchoring everything down with stitches. You can’t really see, but behind those purple cross-stitches is a small overcast stitch anchoring the white to the red to the yellow.

Now, doesn’t Baby Jesus’ face look better peeking out from behind the swaddling cloths?

I did the angled buttonhole stitch on his blanket, using yellow thread on the red, then tried to make a red fringe-looking stitch, as if there were fringe dangling down over the yellow (which becomes hay). I did the hay stitches at the end.

The manger was a half circle of blue, into which I cut legs then straightened out the bottom edge, so it looks sort of like a pot with legs. Or a step stool with a thick seat. It’s slightly less than the width of the baby’s assembly.

All of the decorative wood-grain stitching was done as before I tacked it onto the background. That is simply a stem stitch, done loosely and jaggedly, in a thinner thread (size 16 pearl cotton, but 12 would be fine), trying to imitate wood. The small buttonhole stitch is how I sewed it to the background, and that happens when attaching all of the Baby Jesus’ unit.

Star and Star Trails

OhChristmasTree_UndertreeStar Cut a 1 -1/2″ circle of yellow felt, and a 1 -1/4″ circle of light orange felt. Embroider them as shown (omitting the outside small yellow stitches–that’s added when you tack it onto your background).

The star trails are about 7 ” long, about a fat quarter-inch wide, and are slightly wavy lines. Sometimes they are a bit thicker. Don’t be too precise with them, as you are making folk art. In addition, make gradual waves — not sharp curves. You can shape them into the slight curving shape when you attach them, largely because of their gradual waves. I used a backstitch to put them on. I did not attach them to the star, but stitched them on, making sure they all ended in one place, then stitched down the star over that.

Here’s a ruler showing the approximate placement of things. The end of the tree is about even with the top of the blue manger. I pinned and checked several times, moving things by quarter-inches until I got them the way I wanted them. Notice that Joseph is closer to the tree, and Jesus overlaps both their robes. It just looked better that way to me: you decide what you like.

I used a buttonhole stitch to attach Mary all the way around, but only did Joseph’s robe. I switched to sewing thread and simply tacked down Joseph’s head scarf, without decorative stitches around it.

Now I’m starting on the hay for Baby Jesus. Notice that I completed the zig-zagging buttonhole stitch along the sides of his red blanket. If you have yellow felt peeking out, trim it slightly smaller than the red and finish the stitching down. In the photo above, Mary, Joseph, the manger and the upper half of Baby Jesus are all stitched to the background. For the hay, I used a variegated light brown–golden yellow–med. yellow thread.

I started by making “hay” stitches all over, crossing each other, going over the edge like real hay would.

I turned the needle around and “threaded” it through the fringe on his blanket, when I needed to stitch hay behind the fringes. The thread colors in variegated run in long sections. Above you can see that I went quite wide with the med. brown section, then when the golden yellow section came up, I went over that section again. Some stitches are long, some are short. Some are perpendicular to the lower edge (I did that at the beginning, to anchor it to the background). Some stitches are at a 45-degree angle.

I even put a few strands of hay on the ground, and had them fall over the yellow onto the manger and onto Joseph’s and Mary’s robes. It has to look slightly dis-organized, like, well. . . hay.

Here are some more pictures of the Nativity, showing detail.

Mary was stitched down with a variegated blue thread; I like how it went lighter around her head. Totally random.

Whatever you choose to do, please keep tagging your photos on Instagram with #ohchristmastreeqal, so we can all share in your progress.

As I was wandering the aisles of Quilt Market, I found the National Nonwovens Company, who deals online with retail at Commonwealth Felt. After seeing my enthusiasm for wool felt — I don’t think they’d had that much excitement in the whole time they manned their booth — they happily donated some samples both of their 100% wool felt as well as their wool/rayon felt blend in their new colors.

The packet on the left is a mix of fall/summer colors, including medium blue, yellow, red, white, green and black:

To win, leave a comment below telling me why you don’t think it’s crazy that we’re making Christmas things in JUNE (sometimes I think I’m crazy!). I’ll activate the Husband Random Name Generator and pick a winner. Good luck!

Here’s a recap of our schedule:

~~January, Step “prepare”: buy the magazine, books, gather your fabrics, buy the felt/wool, buy/find the pearl cotton.~~
~~February, Step 1: Make the tree on the background and stitch it down.~~
~~March, Step 2: Make 21 flowers.~~
April, Step 3: Make 10 birds and all the leaves.
May, Step 4: Appliqué down the flowers and birds.

June, Step 5: Scene at bottom of tree–make, then appliqué onto background.

July, Step 6: Sawtooth border (reds); sew together and attach. I’ll have another idea for you to try, as well.

August, Step 7: (finish up Quilt-A-Long): Make wonky star blocks, sew them together and attach border #2.

September, Step 8 Show and Tell, just in time for school starting again. Please send pictures of whatever state your Christmas Tree is in–whether it’s just the bones of the tree, of a completed top–we want to see it!

Happy Stitching and we’ll see you in July!

Quilt Patterns · Quilt Shops · Quilt Shows · Quilts · Textiles & Fabric

Quilt Market: Salt Lake City (2) • Giveaway

May 28, 2016May 30, 2016 Elizabeth E.39 Comments

First off, congratulations to Dorothy, who won the giveaway. I’ll be in touch with you, Dorothy, to get your mailing info and get that off to you next week. Thank you to all who participated, and especially to all who commented on my yank-out-the-carpet-from-under-me fall. I’m pretty much fine, and am going forward, but you can bet I’ll look twice before coming out of an aisle. That story also made it to Carrie Nelson’s MODA blog, as I had to tell a story to her to get one of her camping badges. For a great recap of her Moda Designers’ booths, head over there.

I’ll also have another little giveaway at the end of this post, to reward you for reading, AND in honor of my mother’s 88th birthday. This is a photo of her back in the day. They apparently used to take all their birthday pictures outside because the camera couldn’t really capture the light as well inside. I think of that when I tend to use my mobile phone everywhere because its light-capturing sensors are the best.

Quilt Market is about business–the business of selling, of buying, of hawking your wares, of displaying, of meeting your buyers, meeting the designers, meeting the authors. Sometimes I would get a book at these signings, and sometimes I just snapped photos on my way past. Some publishers were gracious, not knowing who their books were going home with, yet others were a bit cranky about the whole thing. Considering that I buy from all of them, I’ll never tell who was cheerful and who was cranky, but it taught me a lot about that aspect of this business.

This talented lady’s book is part of our giveaway today. Elea Lutz designs not only patterns, but also fabrics for Penny Rose (associated with Riley Blake Fabrics). It’s a book published by Fat Quarter Shop and has charming pieced patterns, as shown in the quilt behind her.

The other giveaway (I’ll divide them into two) is the Stashbusters Book, by Sarah Maxwell and Dolores Smith, a wonderful collection of scrappy reproduction-style quilts. I’ll choose two from the comments left below; let me know if you have a preference for which book you might win.

Once I left the cocoon of my Painter’s Palette booth and ventured out, I saw this young woman modeling the skirt found in Alison Glass’ LookBook. It was like — pinch me!–as I encountered Famous People and things I recognized from all the advertising I see when I read magazines, or attend quilt shows, or wander through the web. It was going to be a day of double takes as I walked among the Business of Quilting, the other side of the quilty looking glass.

Sassafras Lane Designs, in all their colorful glory.

Renegade salespeople in the lobby of the Salt Palace. Great carpet, right?

Quilt Soup. (That’s not Barbara Jones, but a “booth babysitter,” she said.

Don’t look now, but that woman in the Kokka booth is wearing a Wookie Backpack. I was in line behind her later on at the Lucky Spools book signing, and she shared with us all the trending video of the woman who’d just purchased a Chewbacca Mask for her birthday. I thought that was a neat coincidence.

These three pictures are from Katie Cupcake, by Amy Hamberlin. I love that Midtown bag.

Jillily Studio’s booth was a sweet shop, complete with little bagged chocolate truffles they gave out.

Hoffman Fabrics are in my neck of the woods in Southern California, and first started with Hawaiian print fabrics for the local surfers.

I don’t know if you can see it, but Latifah Saafir’s booth (Hoffman Fabrics) has a pair of tennis shoes slung over a wire–so LA. I loved it!

Fun also to see Hoffman’s newest line of fabrics from Thistlewood Farms. Those blues! (And yes, that’s KariAnne Wood holding her quilt.)

Heather Jones’ line of fabric is subtle, but I bought some at Sample Spree because I think it will work well in so many quilts. One of my favorite types of fabrics are those that bring a punch of something new to the existing stash, giving it more life. She has some great designs in her collection.

Here is a series of photos from the Clothworks/Frou-Frou booths, across the aisle from each other. Maybe because I was thinking about my trip to Geneva last week, and how I was missing the small prints from Europe, but I really fell in love with these fabrics (plus I love how they feel).

I love their cans of projects. Very clever.

Now, for a complete change of pace, this is the Free Spirit Booth. I noticed more and more of this type of booth design among the big names: a central section for the business of ordering, and small alcoves for the designers.

Amy Butler’s section. She also had a larger booth:

Tula Pink’s alcove.

Snow Leopard Designs by Phillip Jacobs (again, for Free Spirit Fabrics)

Elizabeth Hartman’s booth, with the lovely creator in attendance.

Cori Dantini, for Blend Fabrics. I loved their booth:

EdMar Company, a small vendor from Idaho was selling these gorgeous rayon Brazilian Embroidery Threads.

Benartex. I think you can see where all those beautiful quilts go that we see in “sneak peeks” on Instagram (and yes, I spelled “peeks” correctly). Every booth was awash in beautiful quilts, and I must admit I hadn’t even hit the Moda booths yet, and I was already in overload. So I thought I’d better head over and see Sherri’s booth, since I’d sewn a couple of items for her and had a sneak peek myself of some of her beautiful fabrics.

I could never get a photo that wasn’t blurry of these two women, so this will have to do. The Moda designers were in clusters at this show, which didn’t give them much space, but that made meeting them easier.

That’s enough for today’s post. More is coming.

Have a safe Memorial Day (or Decoration Day, as my mother calls it). ~~Leave a comment below to win a book in the giveaway. I’ll choose one and announce it in the next post.~~

UPDATE: Comments closed. Winner announced in next post. Thanks to you all for entering!

Classes · Giveaway · Quilts

Quilt Market May 2016 • Day One • Giveaway

May 27, 2016June 12, 2016 Elizabeth E.40 Comments

Yes! folks. That is me standing under the sign, nervous and excited as all get out. Yeah, I know it’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it. And there’s a little bit of a giveaway at the end, just to reward you for reading all the way through.

I’d entered the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City that morning, dazed and confused even though several people had given me good advice for Going to Quilt Market. I came down the escalators to the left (out of sight), trying to figure out what to do next, when a lovely woman walked towards me.

Claudia, the owner of Snowed In Quilt Shop in Panguitch, Utah showed me where to pick up my badge. She then told me to pay for SchoolHouse (all-day classes) and for Sample Spree (really? I’m going to that time-honored craziness??). I designated her my “Handler for Quilt Market,” and off we went to Schoolhouse.

Wait, what?

This is better. We shared the building with burly guys wearing T-shirst that said Coal: Clean & Abundant, as they went to their meetings in a wing of the convention center.

First up: a plenary session where the first 700 who picked up their schedules also got a ticket for a souvenir tote bag from Cotton and Steel. I’d heard about the freebies here (actually less than you think) and was happy that I could get something fun right off the bat. It opened with the officials telling us the stats of our industry, among other pleasantries.

For the very next presenters were the Cotton & Steel gang, all young women, announcing their partnership with Rifle Paper Company, and the new fabric line where they showed us us a video. We had a small sample of it in our freebie bags. We weren’t yet allowed into the exhibition hall, as everyone was still setting up their booths. It dawned on me only later that I had a badge that would let me in. (Trying not to overuse my Super Powers, here. . .) However, I didn’t have time to go in until later, as I was busy going to Schoolhouse. Claudia and I went back and forth between the two sets of classrooms, about a 3-minute walk between them, until we wised up and chose classes in a clump next to each other.

This presentation by Ink & Arrow/Quilting Treasures was stellar. I learned a LOT. Every quilt shop should have attended this one.

Plus the brownies in their little giveaway bag were a nice treat.

Many of the Schoolhouse classes are like this one: an introduction to a new line of fabrics, in this case Frou-Frou, distributed by ClothWorks, Inc. I liked what the head of Frou-Frou was saying about quilting being like cooking. “Spaghetti” in column 2 is actually skinny tubing, suitable for spaghetti straps on clothing.

I loved Maywood Fabrics’ presentation. Claudia won a bundle of their fabric. She actually won two times that day, which is nice payment for her having to drag me around.

Somewhere in here, at the urging of my darling husband (yes, he is!) I went down to the floor to see my quilt hanging up. Sigh. You read all about that yesterday, so I won’t bore you today, but it was wonderful. (And yes, I’d finally figured out at that point that I had a badge that would let me do that.)

After lunch it was more classes. Here’s Anna Maria Horner’s Schoolhouse class, showing off her amazing quilt. And skirts. And fabric. And more quilts. And her fine sense of humor.

(Reverse applique flower and leaves)

So glad to see her in fine form. We’ve missed you, Eleanor Burns!

The Moda Schoolhouse was all about their program starting in fall and continuing through next year: “Be My Neighbor,” where they will give out “blueprints” of blocks to fabric shops, where we plebeians can get them. I’ve already made a house quilt, (click *here* to see and to get free downloadable patterns, too) but after looking at this one, it’s mighty tempting to try another.

By now Claudia and I are dragging and we have to muster up some strength to make it to Sample Spree that evening.

So we stayed in our seats through another designer’s presentation (basically a demo of all her new products and how we could buy them) then went next door to Moda/Martingale’s presentation of the Match Game, featuring quilty terms, and a cast of brilliant stars (some lined up above). It was really funny, and very high energy and we had a great time. Some of the quilts featured in the book are below, slightly blurry as they were parading them before us at a pretty good clip:

There. Now you’ve had your fill of eye-candy for one post. (I do think I’ll get this book.) We went to find dinner and I took a photo of the sample spree line from the second floor, where people had been lining up for hours:

And then I took one of the market floor. See those people laying green carpet over to the left? Stay with me now, there’s a story there. Claudia and I grabbed a salad for dinner, and ate it quietly away from the Sample Spree line. She agreed to watch my bags while I went in for one last picture

I came out of the aisle just as three uber burley guys gave the green carpet runner a hefty yank to the left. . . and I fell down to the right. Yes, so graceful, but the rug had been pulled out from under me, just like in the cartoons. The burley guys to the right came running over. One of them was the crew leader, and after watching me get up (again, incredibly graceful *ahem*) he insisted I go to the boss of the crew. I followed him to the loading dock, where it smelled like brine, a storm coming in off the salty Great Salt Lake. Kind of like being at the ocean, really.

Then he insisted I go to the Floor Boss, who was driving around somewhere on a yellow cart. You think if they were so concerned about my injuries that they would have put ME on one of those dumb carts and driven me around, but no. I had to go with this guy, chasing around looking for the other guy on the dumb cart. We found him, but I explained that I was going to miss my PARTY and that my friend had my bags and I needed to go and get them, and really I felt fine (but knowing the next day I was going to feel it). He agreed to let me release Claudia so she could get in line.

Now I’m carrying all my loot from today, and following this guy around. Back to the loading dock, where we get another boss, who determines that I should to see Security. (But my PARTY!! I want to scream, for that’s what Sample Spree was to them–how could I explain what would be the mad dash of frothing quilters straight for the Rifle Paper Company new fabric line by Cotton & Steel?) He takes me along the back of the convention hall, to a wide gaping doorway and I realize I’m looking at Sample Spree and nobody is in here!! Did I take advantage of this and grab a stack? No. Like a good little girl, I follow the guy through the other doors, out into the hallway, where everyone in line is looking me, like “How’d she get in there?”

We go down the lines of foyer-sitters, into the office. He says “This is the lady who fell down.” Wait. I pipe up to say, “I didn’t fall down. Someone yanked the carpet from under my feet!” I was asked to wait while they called for an EMT, and while I was waiting, would I write a description. The EMT guy arrives and wants me to go in an ambulance to the ER.

Meanwhile. . . I can see the lines start to move into Sample Spree. I turn to him, and say “My Party is starting! I’ve got to go!” He assesses me (no slurring of speech, no fuzzy vision, no impact to the head, appears to be somewhat sane and walking straight); I sign waivers to not to go the ER in an ambulance. But by now, I’ll be at the back of the wagon train in the Sample Spree line. So I look at him and say, “You look official. Can you walk me to the front of the line and get me in?” He smiles, agrees, and we pass by hordes of frothing quilters, and I slip in past the Quilt Police, into Sample Spree. I’m still achy, my hip and ankle are sore, and I know I’m going to feel it in the morning, but hey–I made it it to The Party.

This sort of image was not unusual. I decline to show you my group of bags so as not to incriminate myself, but I got in about halfway through the long line, and no, at that point there were no Rifle Paper Company stacks to be had unless I bought ALL of the new Cotton & Steel lines for a mere $271, which would include their tote bag. Um, no. But it was fun going around, seeing the FQs (Frothing Quilters) grab and push and terrify those on the inside of the tables as they snapped up their stacks and bundles, and overheated their credit cards.

I did see Claudia later on, and she asked how I was. She’s lovely and terrific and as she was still shopping, and I was pretty spent (in all ways), I headed home to my sister’s new apartment in her basement, where I had a lovely space all to myself. I took some ibuprofen, and while I was uploadiong some IG photos, all the power went out around me.

I looked outside: dark. I looked on IG: all the quilters in the hotels downtown were freaking out, saying “Way to go–the Fabric Geeks broke Salt Lake!” Sounds like the party was still going on. I knew the light would wake me up when it came back on in the middle of the night, but I rolled over and went to sleep.

Because I was surprised at how little freebies there were (I had to purchase most of my souvenirs, except for the bag I mentioned), I have one giveaway here and a couple of more over the next two weeks, courtesy of the people I’ll name.

This first one is a charm pack with lots of colors of 100% wool felt, for those of you who are working on your tree (another one’s coming on June 2nd). The colors are beautiful:

It’s from National Non-Wovens, and they also donated some for our next Oh Christmas Tree post, just in case you don’t win this round. While this is a vendor, they will sell smaller quantities to us quilters at Commonwealth Felt.

The other item I’ll throw into the giveaway is this book by Carolyn Culling McCormick, In the Pines, from Kansas City Star Quilts. This is a book of paper-pieced patterns so you can make the more traditional pine-tree quilts with tiny pieces. The paper-piecing makes is manageable. Leave a comment below and I’ll activate the Husband Random Name Generator and pick a winner (one winner will get both items). This will close on Saturday, May 29th, my mother’s 88th birthday. (Happy Birthday, Mom!)

NOTE: Comments now closed. Winner to be announced in next post.

Next Up: Day Two of Market