Card game (an “evasion-type” trick-taking playing card game for four players, although variations can accommodate 3-6 players – from Wikipedia)
organ that pumps blood in your body
Stole my heart
Heart disease
mended heart
My beating heart
hearts on fire diamond
hearts go out to….
Cardio
Definition: The heart has long been used as a symbol to refer to the spiritual, emotional, moral, and in the past also intellectual core of a human being. As the heart was once widely believed to be the seat of the human mind, the word heart continues to be used poetically to refer to the soul, and stylized depictions of hearts are extremely prevalent symbols representing love. (Wikipedia)
Post the direct URL (link) where your drawing, doodle, artwork is posted (e.g. your blog, Flickr) in the comments area of this post. I would really like to keep all the artwork together and provide a way for others to see your work and/or your blog.
The Creative Prompt Project, also, has a Flickr group, which you can join to post your responses. I created this spot so those of you without blogs and websites would have a place to post your responses.
The Child and I worked on and finished his pillowcase. I wanted him to do several, but we won’t be doing that. My original idea was that he work on a project during the summer that was not screen related and would help or benefit someone else.
Lining Up the Pieces
We started on Thursday of last week. There are 3 pieces in the Twiddletails pattern: the cuff, the trim and the main body of the pillowcase. The pain part of this project is lining up the 3 pieces.
Pinning
The whole process was a challenge for him. Sewing is not high on the list of interesting activities for a 13 year old. The prospect of helping kids with cancer kept him there, but he had a hard time with the various parts of the process.
It was interesting and a good lesson for me to show him what to do. Everything was so foreign to him. Pinning took forever and it started with me showing him how to stick a pin in the fabric layers to keep them all together. I was surprised that I found it so incomprehensible that he didn’t intuitively know this basic concept. Almost all of the steps of sewing are so ingrained in my being that working with someone who had no experience was an eye opener. It gave me some insight into some of what beginner quilters know and don’t know.
Sewing the Burrito
Running the machine was not an attraction for my darling. He sewed carefully and slowly…for awhile. He had a hard time with the concept of not pushing the fabric through the machine, but letting the feed dogs do the work.
As You Sew, So Shall You Rip
He didn’t pay attention and wandered off where the seam line should be. He learned how to rip out his stitches.
First Success
He was able to finally finish sewing the burrito. If you can make it through the pinning and sewing with this pattern, the burrito creates the cuff, trim and body of the pillow case as one large piece. The Child had some trouble with the trim, but I didn’t feel like making him rip it out again. It is good enough. I plan to pin a note to this pillowcase saying that a teenager made it and it was his first sewing project.
As You Sew, So Shall You Rip 2
After he sewed the burrito, I had him sew the first line of the main part of the pillowcase. He sped the machine up a little (I had it set to super slow) and his mind wandered. The seam, which started out a 1/4″ away from the edge of the pillowcase ended up near the middle of the main part of the taco fabric. I didn’t look before I told him to backstitch, which ended up as a square spiral, also in the middle of the pillowcase. More ripping and unsewing. I did half for him and we took a week long break.
Following the Line
Yesterday, we got back to it. I drew a line on the pillowcase that he could follow while sewing. Brilliant! The line was much easier for him to follow.
Crazy Pillowcase Maker
Yes, his hair has a life of its own, but here is The Child with his finished pillowcase. He left my workroom so fast I was surprised my head didn’t spin. Now I need to think of a new project for the rest of the summer.
If you want to get together with people to make pillowcases, check the AllPeopleQuilt site for info on sewing with Etsy and ancillary meetups around the country. TFQ went home from our trip after hearing me go on and on about pillowcases, to find that she could easily make a few dozen from fabric on hand. Not sure how many she has in the pipeline, but I am looking forward to seeing her finished products. The Child and I are slowly plowing through his pillowcase. It is painful, but he is doing it. Go make some pillowcases!
I hope you know that there are plenty of other opportunities to do good with fabric!
Office Supplies
I am a pen junkie (are there any positive words for junkie/whore when referring to legal things like pens?). My current love is the Pilot G2. Recently, on the Cool Tools Blog, I saw a post about Jet Pens. They also sell journals, notebooks and scrapbooking supplies. Do not blame me if you spent your retirement money on pens and Japanese office supplies.
Sewing
Also on the Cool Tools Blog, I saw a post about a spiral eye needle. Apparently, you can thread this blindfolded! I need this needle. Sadly, they are not sold in regular stores and are expensive, so no losing them. Order from the Spiral Eye Website.
Linda M. Poole, who used to respond to the creative prompt, but got a fabric design contract and has too many things on her plate now is having a contest with said fabric designs! The designs are now fabric and a new line just came out. The deadline is October 4 and all the details are on a recent blog post. Go check out what she is offering as prizes. Did I mention they are FABULOUS prizes? [SherriD: I am looking at YOU!]
Someone pointed out another type of design wall on the Big Tent Quiltcast Supergroup. It is called the Vanishing Design Wall and it looks like it has potential.
Need some quilt-spiration? Bradie Sparrow is doing a summer quilt-a-long. They are on Week 5, but it is easy to find the blocks from the previous weeks. Friend Julie is making the blocks. and has been posting them. I thought about joining in, but really have enough projects going!
Blogging/Social Media
When I used Blogger, I was able to post via email. It was convenient when I went on vacation or saw something inspirational. WordPress has that feature, but I have never been able to get it to work. Amplify, related to Clipmarks, has a way of posting to blogs, Twitter, FB, etc via email. I haven’t tried it yet, but have set it up. We’ll see!
Are you on Goodreads and FB? If so, you can connect them so that the books you read post to your FB wall. I enjoy seeing what quilt books my friends are reading. I also enjoy seeing the fiction and reading reviews friends have written. I kept track of the books I read last year and was amazed to see how many I had read. This year I am a little scared of how many books I am, ostensibly, reading at once. Try it out!
Other
If your child stays at the local library after school, then you might wnat to get him/her one of the seat savers shown in Library God Stephen Abram’s blog. While you are at it, give them a donation. After all, you are saving on childcare, libraries offer a great service and are really hurting right now. Alternatively, perhaps you need one of these for your quilt guild meeting to keep the Quiltzillas away from your preferred chair?
Julie wrote very well about The Sketchbook Project. I have to admit that I got one, too. Since she wrote about it and, basically, wrote everything I was going to say, go look at what she wrote. My theme is In Flight. I haven’t started.
I saw a slide show of a sketchbook by Victor A. Lundy on the Library of Congress site. It reminded me that practice makes perfect and that sketchbooks can be small. The drawings are much better than I can do right now and capture some great images. I studied the people in the drawings especially.
Since I returned from Long Beach, I have been trying to sew a lot. I have a lot of new fabric and I want to play with it. I don’t feel like I am sewing enough, but I am trying.
One of the first things I do is wash and press the fabric. This is a big bottleneck right now. The washing, as I may have mentioned, is done. Since I am not finished pressing so I am, basically, pressing as I need a certain fabric.
The first thing in my sewing adventure I did was cut out and prepare pillowcases for sewing. there is a lot of pinning in the Twiddletails pattern. So far, I have made a total of 3 pillowcases and have two more cut out and ready to sew. I wrote about this a little bit in my post entitled Pillowcase Party. This is ongoing. I have a lot more pillowcases in me, but I am dealing with incremental progress on a number of projects right, so I have very little to show for it.
“Incremental progress on a lot of projects” means that I am working on a lot of different projects and haven’t settled down to one yet. I have been cutting pieces for the Frosted Stars quilt, cutting diamonds, working on tote bags, cutting various patches, trying things for the Zig Zaggy Quilt, etc.
Napkins & Pillowcases (8/2010)
The robot pillowcase (middle), which will be donated, is new. I finished that one quickly yesterday. The two pieces on the right are napkins. I saw the pie fabric and had to get it for napkins. I make pies at Thanksgiving and Christmas and it fits into our family culture. The martini fabric was just fun and not something I would use in a quilt, so napkins again.
I don’t really like making napkins, because the seams don’t press well for me. I LOVE using cloth napkins though. I love seeing different fabrics. I love people’s comments when they sit at my table. I love choosing which one I am going to use for the next few days. I also think it is great way to spread fun fabrics throughout my life.
The napkin fabrics won’t be in FOTY 2010, because I only bought a half yard of each and I use two FQs for each napkin. I like generous napkins and I don’t want to square them up. This time I used two new fabrics (the pies and martinis) and found two fabrics that had been around for awhile with which to pair the new fabrics. When I brought them downstairs the boys were already claiming their favorites.
I finally made the sleeve for the Chocolate Box, so that quilt is nearly done.
Blue Janus Quilted
I also went longarming last week. I am not longarming a monster quilt again. The process didn’t go smoothly and only a small part of it was because of the size. I think it is good to find my limitations. For longarming, I think mine limit is a twin sized quilt.
The shop is having problems with their machine, but it was still functional. We spent two hours working through the machine not working. I quilted about 4 blocks (6″ finished) and we had to rip out all that quilting. Evelyn, my helper, was awesome. We talked about our quilting while we worked on the machine. She told me about her family. Another lady came in to help. No dice. The machine wasn’t working. Finally, one of the owners came in and told us we were using the crappy thread that couldn’t be used with the longarm machine.
My question was why was that thread in the longarm room if it wasn’t to be used for longarming? If it was in the room, I would certainly choose it!
We changed the thread and the machine worked like a charm. Sigh.
The good part is that I got a lot of practice stopping and starting, which I needed.
I was too tired to trim the quilt, so it still needs to be trimmed and it needs the binding of course.
There is more to do and I need about a week to just sew with no other obligations.
If you haven’t started listening to the Off Kilter Quilter podcast, I suggest that you go over and start right away!
TFQ taught me this method of putting quilts together. I have adopted it as my own and use it for block quilts. Very occasionally I’ll put a long border on after the center of the quilt is complete, but otherwise I try to avoid the long seams required to put quilts together in rows.
Step 1
The basic idea is to put the quilt together as you would a block. Sew smaller pieces together to make larger pieces. I avoid sewing in rows as I think the quilt gets out of square if you sew it together in rows.
Step 2
This step makes a larger piece.
Step 2A
This will be for the bottom of Block 1 in the drawing in Step 2.
Step 3
This way of sewing a quilt together makes the pieces much easier to manage, because you are mostly handling smaller pieces.
Optional Step 3A
You can also divide the border into blocks (plan it that way as you make your quilt) so you can include border pieces as chunks.
Optional Step 3B
You have to pay attention to what you do with the corners if you choose to add the borders this way. This technique works better if you are making a self bordering design.
Step 4
Refer to the drawing of your pieces in Step 1.
Step 5Step 5AStep 5B
You have to sew the bottom sashing + cornerstone to Block 3 and Block 4.
Step 6Step 7
You really need to do the two steps above before Step 5B2 even though my numbering is off. Sorry about that.
Step 5B2
I got a little ahead of myself in my drawing. Sew the sashing and the cornerstone to Block 2 and then sew Block 2 (with side and bottom sashing and one cornerstone) to Block 1 with all of it’s sashing.
Step 7A
The above step will make your next chunk.
Step 8
After this first chunk, do the same things for the rest of the blocks in your quilt and keep putting chunks together into larger and larger pieces.
I was on a mission to start using some of the fabric I bought on my recent trips. I decided that after hauling the regular sized AMH MTT around for a couple of weeks that it was time to test out my mini version.
AMH Mini Mult-tasker Tote
Bottom line: I don’t like it. My basic problem is that it is handbag sized, not tote bag sized. What I really wanted was the AMH MTT in a slightly smaller tote bag size. I definitely did not want a handbag. I use leather handbags, because I am brutal on them. This bag looks fine, especially from this photo angle, but looks slightly out of proportion to my exacting eye.
It went together pretty well until I had to insert the lining into the exterior. I found out that the lining was much too big (did I forget to downsize?). I used tucks to make it work.
I used the pink straps instead of the straps I had originally made for this tote. I really liked the straps I made and only had a half yard of that fabric. When I decided I didn’t like this tote, I decided to save the straps for a different bag. I think the pink looks nice against the black and white. You’ll see the second version soon!
AMH Mini Mult-tasker Tote (detail)
The fabrics are fabulous and I have enough of the Moda Half Moon large dot to make another regular sized tote. I don’t have anymore of the lining fabric. It reminded me of a 1940s bathing suit fabric.
AMH Mini Multi-tasker tote (size comparison)
Above you can see the size comparison to the regular sized AMH MTT. I thought I only cut off 1″ on each size of the Mini MTT, but must have cut off more.
My mom had a good idea, which was to take the original pattern sheets to a copy place and have them reduce the size proportionally. It is a great idea and I wish I had thought of it sooner.
I have a bunch of other small projects that I have made and will post soon.
Post the direct URL (link) where your drawing, doodle, artwork is posted (e.g. your blog, Flickr) in the comments area of this post. I would really like to keep all the artwork together and provide a way for others to see your work and/or your blog.
The Creative Prompt Project, also, has a Flickr group, which you can join to post your responses. I created this spot so those of you without blogs and websites would have a place to post your responses.
During the drive to Long Beach, one of our stops was in Paso Robles, which has 3 (!!!!) quilt shops. We tried to find the shop and initially failed. We were starving so we went to lunch and then tried again to find Birch Fabrics, which has the online store name of FabricWorm. Due to the success of the business, the owner, Cynthia, has had to move three times in the past few months. We were about to give up finding her brick and mortar shop and move on. I spotted the address on a building, but not the ‘unit’ number. TFQ was ready to give up, so I said I would just walk around the corner and see if I could see it when I saw the sign. The experience was totally worth the hunt.
Birch Fabrics
Cynthia Mann is the owner of Fabric Worm/Birch Fabrics and she is the nicest, most welcoming person I have met in a long time. She spent tons of time with us, showed us everything, talked to us about our trip and her fabrics and upcoming fabrics and more topics than I can remember.
I never thought about seriously reviewing shops and creating categories within the review on which I could rate shops, but if I did, for Birch Fabrics, they would be:
Scale: (worst) 1-5 (best)
Staff Friendliness: 5
Space: 5
Fabric Selection: 5
Customer Service: 10
This wasn’t just a walk in and select some bolts, cut and leave kind of shop. We spent about an hour talking with Cynthia and her staff. She not only has the brick and mortar shop and the online store, but also has a line of organic fabrics which she is distributing. I like the way she has built her business and grown it organically.
I mentioned, here, a fabric pack in which I was interested about a month or so ago. I actually was able to see it at the shop and swap out certain fabrics I knew I already had. One of the issues with customer service, generally, I have is that people aren’t flexible. Birch Fabrics has priced their fabrics in such a way that customers can swap out fabrics from their fabric packs if one or two don’t suit their needs. Cynthia wants happy customers. We are happy customers.
Birch Fabrics Display Window
This turquoise sewing machine and bolt of fabric (defective, so they refused to sell me any, which I thought showed good ethics!) are in the front window inviting people into the shop.
Birch Fabrics Back Towards the Storeroom
They have a couple of interesting displays in the front of the shop, but the rest is fabric storage. Cynthia has the same kind of encyclopedic knowledge of fabric lines and designers that TFQ does, so they talked nonstop the whole time. I was looking at everything, entranced by the visuals.
Birch Fabrics Back + Storeroom
The space is awesome! If I could have any kind of space I wanted, Birch Fabrics space would be transported to a spot near my house and the shop would be my workspace. The space is light and airy, bright and clean. There is plenty of horizontal space for laying out and gathering fabrics. They don’t have a lot of display quilts and projects, which keeps the visual clutter to a minimum.
Cynthia showed us her storeroom on one visit and I saw a lot of packages destined for international locations. We had a big discussion about fabric choices and offerings. TFQ thinks that many shops are missing a whole population segment by not offering more bright and modern fabrics. Cynthia has a lock on that market right now. (BTW, I tried to get TFQ to write a guest post about this and many other topics, but she politely declined)All of their fabric are modern and bright. They put interesting packs together and move the fabric through their shop.
Birch Fabrics Back Towards Railroad Ave
Upstairs, the staff have the space for classes and are starting to have sewing classes for the local population. If the shop were near my house, I would be sewing there frequently.
Birch Fabrics Front Towards Railroad Ave
There are plenty of cutting tables and one of Cynthia’s staff, Arlene, cut fabrics for us and for orders the whole time we were there. She is obviously integral to both the physical and online businesses. Another thing I liked is that Birch staff are fast and accurate fabric cutters.
Cherry Red/Pink Fabric Group
Like the group I found tempting a month ago, the above group was also tempting. One thing I liked is that Birch staff puts together groups of fabrics by different designers that go really well together and will make interesting projects. In the group above, the scale and designs of the fabric are different enough to distinguish the fabrics from each other while maintaining interest in the potential project. I was filled with inspiration being in the shop.
Fabricworm/Birch Fabrics
1244 Pine Street, Ste. D
Paso Robles, Ca 93446
corner of 13th and Railroad
805-239-8888
fax: 805-239-8807 fabricworm [at] gmail [dot] com
If you are anywhere near this excellent shop, I would recommend a detour to stop by.
It was hard to get to the Great American Quilt Factory. It is in Denver, but pretty far away from downtown. Unlike my last trip, I didn’t have a car or a navigator. Thus, I didn’t think I would make it out there on this trip.
On a whim, I asked a librarian who used to live in Denver about transportation. He and his wife had driven to Denver. We mapped out a plan for getting there on public transportation and I was set to go, but not convinced that I could make it out and back in time for my flight. Later that day I received an email from my librarian friend’s wife and she wanted to go to GAQF! Score! Wednesday, before I left, we drove out there and had a blast.
GAQF Visit #2 Fabric
Above are the dots I bought! I can’t really say fabrics, because they are almost all dots! The food fabrics are for my mom‘s quilt. The black and white large dots are for a bag and everything else is on spec. The dots in the upper left hand corner are really nice Ellen Medlock dots. I didn’t think I had ever heard of her before, but when I looked at her site I think that Kathy from Finishing Lines mentioned Medlock’s bag patterns to me.
I saw two books that spurred my imagination and my recent scary Christmas mania. One was Christmas with Possibilities. I liked some of the motifs. One was especially appealing: a star with a spiral inside. The other book was called More Joy to the World, which had a really nice Noel pillow pattern. I didn’t buy either as they were mostly pattern books and I would rather get them out of the library or used. Sadly, they are not available at the library and used the books are about $13. We’ll see.
GAQF: Patterns and Notions
Flesh colored Aurifil had been on my mind since TFQ mentioned it to me after she used it for one of her projects. I also found that I needed some white thread. I saw them at the shop, so I picked them up.
The Lazy Girl pattern was an impulse buy. It might make a good gift for my Grama. Being really poor at reading patterns, I didn’t look at the materials list. I always assume that, since I mostly make quilts, I have everything on hand. That isn’t the case with this pattern. I need a bottom and some fusible batting. When I saw that it scared me because of the Amy Butler experience from last November. I put the additional supplies on the list to buy.
One of the best parts was that Beth (yes, another Beth in my life!), who does embroidery and is interested in quilting, but hasn’t taken a class or ever made a quilt, left with three patterns! One was for a flannel quilt using a panel. The two others were for Christmas decorations. One was for wool ornaments and one was for an arty wool Christmas tree.
New Beth and I plan to get together so I can look at 60 year old quilt that has some damage.
On Tuesday July 20, I set off from home for the airport to pick up TFQ before heading south for a quilt adventure along the coast. We were headed to Long Beach for the big quilt festival there put on by Quilts Inc.
We were both excited. Fresh off the blogs from Spring Quilt Market, I was ready to see new things, especially some of the new fabrics coming out in the summer and different patterns and tools. With Quilts Inc being the organizer of Quilt Market, I was sure there would be a lot of new products! I was also ready for some inspiration and new quilt shops.
Our first stop was Hart’s Fabrics in Santa Cruz. I have been there at least twice since the beginning of the year and not much had changed since then. Still I was able to see through the normal things that get my attention such as dots, aqua and cherry red for fabrics that hadn’t seen before.
Hart's Fabrics
One theme throughout the trip was how I need to spend some time buying work clothes and how much I dislike shopping. I saw some great purple fabric at Hart’s (above – top right-ish/middle) that would make a great skirt. Anna Maria Horner’s Multi-tasker tote pattern was so well written that I thought, perhaps, her Study Hall skirt pattern would be as well and I could make that out of the purple fabric. This is such a huge leap for me. Keep your fingers crossed on that! I also bought some fabric to make gifts, but you’ll have to wait for the gift posts for more details.
I really wanted to see the Bella Bag pattern from Fig Tree Quilts. I saw a glimpse of it in the most recent Quilt Sampler magazine. I wanted to see the bag made up so I could touch it and look at the pockets. I never saw any Fig Tree quilts patterns at the show and only a few of their patterns at one of the quilt shops. I guess it was a good thing I bought the Heather Bailey bag pattern in order to hedge my bets.
Next stop: Back Porch Quilts. I have written a lot about that shop as I visit at least once a year. I recently visited during my trip to the Monterey Quilt Show. The shop, as I am sure I have said is light and airy. They always have new fabric.
I decided that I was being an idiot about the price of the Little Wallet by Valori Wells. Both Terri and Maureen have recommended it highly and I respect their work, so I decided to get it. I think it will make great gifts.
Back Porch Quilts
The blue fireworks fabric will be a bag. I will use the fuschias together in…something. The coffee fabric may end up as pillowcases and the red is one of those embossed fabrics that have a great hand. The store was in a bit of disarray and didn’t look like they had as much fabric as usual. They also did not have the Little Wallet pattern. 🙁 We had dinner at a Thai place and spent the night in Monterey surfing the Internet and watching TV.
Will Use in One QuiltReds and Turquoise will be Used Together
The kitchen appliance fabrics will be napkins.
Variety of Oddballs
The next day as a long drive to Santa Barbara through the Central Coast. We stopped in Paso Robles at Birch Fabrics. That was a great experience and I will write about it later in the week, because the service, space and friendliness deserves it’s own post. I bought great fabrics there (above).
I have started not to sleep well in hotels and kept waking up with a backache during this trip. I was very glad to get back to my Pilates class this past week.
We stayed overnight in Santa Barbara. We ate at a great restaurant called Bay Roadhouse (or something). The food was good and the waiter was cute and helpful. S.B. started our hotel problems. The hotel in Santa Barbara did not have a room for us and had to ‘upgrade’ us. Sadly the upgrade did not include two beds and the room was really loud. Even with earplugs, I woke up several times during the night. The hotel in Long Beach overbooked (for the second year in a row) and also didn’t have the a room with two beds. In my opinion, overbooking a certain kind of room one year is bad, but doing it a second year exhibits corporate greed, pure and simple.
The show was in a large space. The quilts were really well displayed. We could see them really well, but the lighting made it hard to photograph some of them.
Overview, SAQA Exhibit
The second quilt (turquoise with red, above) was a very powerful quilt by Judy Coates Perez. We stood and looked at it for a long time. I found an image of it and an article about it on her blog, so go and look at it. People were not allowed to take pictures of quilts in that exhibit. They had books available and I would have gladly bought one, but the photography in the books wasn’t that good. I got around the ban, because the above photo is an overview photo.
Overview of Antique Quilts
There was a wonderful exhibit of antique quilts. Quilts Inc. apparently has a wonderful collection of antique quilts. I was really glad they shared them with us. We really enjoyed the variety. One thing we noticed is that the variations (imperfections?) in the quilts made them more interesting. In that way they were very different from quilts of today that try to be perfect.
Antique Exhibit (Right)
The quilts were large, in many cases.
Silk Log Cabin
This was one of the most beautiful antique quilts I have ever seen. For a silk quilt, it was in the most amazing condition. It was called a Courthouse Steps quilt, which surprised me, because I always thought that a Courthouse Steps log cabin variation had three squares in the middle of the block. We saw a few other oddities in the documentation of the antique quilts.
See the stanchion? They were another problem with photographing the quilts.
We usually use the preview time to photograph the quilts since the preview night is usually much less crowded than other times during shows. We went through and photographed most of the quilts in about 1.5 hours. We were shocked! There were no quilts from individual quiltmakers, only special exhibits. The special exhibits were great, but I did miss the individual quilts.
Long Beach Show Purchases x2
The above photo shows all the stuff we bought at the show. We had lists and were prepared to purchase from vendors at the show. The amount of available merchandise was pathetic. PIQF has better vendors. I was really glad for the selection at Birch Fabrics, because I was very disappointed in the offerings at the show. It was really hard to spend money there. There was not enough fabric. Almost everything was in kits or fabric packs and the vendors refused to break up the packs/kits if we wanted a single piece of fabric. As you can see, I did not find the Bella Bag pattern. It seemed that the vendors brought all of the old stuff they wanted to get rid of, with a few exceptions. TFQ found a great selection of Aurifil at Jeff’s Custom Woodworking (great sewing, cutting and ironing tables and cabinets!). American Jane/Sandy Klopp was wonderful. Her patterns are intricate and engaging. We saw Lorraine Torrence, who had a large booth filled with her patterns, jackets and a variety of clothing suitable fabrics. We had a great conversation with her.
All in all, I was pretty disappointed in the Long Beach Show. I expected a lot more. Again, it seemed like a show of corporate greed. I wouldn’t go back and think that shows are starting to be a place where you pay to shop. I can easily shop online without a fee, so why should I go to a show if I am not going to take classes and don’t get to see a lot of quilts or new products?
If I were organizing a show I would vet the vendors carefully and make sure they brought their best merchandise. I realize that this would make vendors less likely to come, but poor quality merchandise also reflects badly on the organizer of the show so everyone has an interest in keeping show goers happy. I think that fabric manufacturers should be there to, at least, talk to customers, do make and takes or something.
Cotton & Chocolate Quilt Company
We decided to visit some shops on the way back. First up was Cotton & Chocolate Quilt Company in Thousand Oaks. They were at the quilt show. I don’t remember much about their booth except they had the ubiquitous kits and fabric packs. Their shop had a lot of great fabric that was new and fun.
Quilter's Studio
We also stopped at Quilter’s Studio. They had one of the best selections of dots I have ever seen. Their booth at the show was great. The people at the booth were enthusiastic and glad to see us. One of the husbands of the owner was manning the shop and it was fun to chat with him. My enthusiasm was waning a bit for fabric shopping at this point.
Cotton Ball, Morro Bay
The next day we went to the Cotton Ball in Morro Bay and went back to Birch Fabrics in Paso Robles. I thought it would be nice to go to a beach town and was interested in seeing a celebrity shop. I thought the prices were high at the Cotton Ball (over $11/yard) and I didn’t buy much. I was glad to see Rob Appell’s wildlife patterns made up. They do not look photo realistic, which I appreciate.
I was glad to get back to Birch Fabrics. Birch was a much needed breath of fresh air. I needed to talk to some nice people and see some gorgeous fabric in a friendly space. We met Andrea, another of Cynthia’s staff and spent another pleasant hour chatting about fabric, looking at her new stuff and filling in the gaps on what we had purchased during our previous stop.
In Monterey, we went back to Back Porch and I was able to buy the Little Wallet pattern. They had some new fabrics, too. 😉
All in all it was a great trip. After the first day of looking at fabric, I really wanted to sew. I came home and started working on projects. There wasn’t enough time for me to accomplish all I wanted to and tomorrow it is back to the grind. I want to find the right pattern for some of the fabrics I bought and get started on those projects.
