{"id":26575,"date":"2015-01-25T06:14:27","date_gmt":"2015-01-25T13:14:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/?p=26575"},"modified":"2016-08-23T17:24:12","modified_gmt":"2016-08-24T00:24:12","slug":"playing-in-maryland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artquiltmaker.com\/blog\/2015\/01\/playing-in-maryland\/","title":{"rendered":"Playing in Maryland"},"content":{"rendered":"

As you read this I will probably be on an airplane heading home. I spent 10 days or so in Maryland visiting my SIL and BIL and, oh yeah, attending a conference for work.<\/p>\n

I arrived on Friday evening and was treated to a delicious dinner when I arrived at my SIL’s. She picked me up on her way home from work and BIL (now retired) had dinner ready when I got there. He is a great cook and very attentive to my dietary challenges. I always enjoy eating with them.<\/p>\n

\"Vintage<\/a>
Vintage Looking Tablecloth<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We spent a lot of Saturday getting ready to sew the shirts I had planned for DH and his brother. The prep mostly involved cutting. The shirts were made from vintage-looking tablecloths, which I had sent ahead. Since it wasn’t normal fabric yardage, there was a lot of fussy cutting.<\/p>\n

We did take some time out to go visit Patches, a shop in Mt. Airy (great name, huh?), Maryland. I have been there before<\/a> and really liked it. This time, I didn’t find as much that I had<\/em> to have, but I enjoyed the outing.<\/p>\n

They had the Yazzi bag that Jinny Beyer recommends. I had intended to buy it, but wanted to see it in person, so I took a good look and decided not to buy it. It is a great bag, but a lot of the space is taken up by the padding. I don’t travel with m y handwork enough to make it worthwhile. The handwork bag I have is fine.<\/p>\n

The countryside is so different here. I see a lot of quilts that are winter scenes with leafless trees and this is the first time I have actually seen such a scene in real life. They,of course, have evergreens here, but there are vast spaces filled with leafless trees. It is interesting.<\/p>\n

We also baked a cake. I brought a gluten free (also egg and soy free for SIL) mix with me and we baked it. I used SIL’s confectioner’s sugar to make the frosting and she frosted it. Team effort. Then back to sewing.<\/p>\n

\"Desert<\/a>
Desert Rose & Lenox Olympia Platinum<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sunday we worked on the shirts. I think by then we had cut most of the pieces out. SIL had not used the pattern in awhile so there was some fumbling around while she reacquainted herself with how the shirts would be made. I had helped her before, but am so inexperienced making garments that I was of little to no use in that department.<\/p>\n

We also got ready for a party. We used her Desert Rose china, and pretty flatware, so we washed and dried the pretties before we set the table. We used her Lenox Olympia coffeepot for a different kind of tea. I hadn’t ever had the chance to really look at SIL’s china pattern. It has really clean lines and a simple design. I am still trying to figure out how to fit it all into my suitcase without breaking any for the trip home. \ud83d\ude09 It is always fun to use use nice things for a party.<\/p>\n

\"Twilters<\/a>
Twilters in MD<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Since I was on the East Coast and that doesn’t happen every day, I invited several people over. It was a good opportunity to meet up with friends I don’t get a chance to see very often. Sadly, in the middle of winter, travel still isn’t that easy and only two people were able to make it. Tanesha<\/a> and Torie<\/a> came with bells on. Boy did they bring some show and tell! Tanesha made a slideshow<\/a> for your viewing pleasure. I will post some more pictures about the show and tell later.<\/p>\n

\"Snailtrail<\/a>
Snailtrail test<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SIL wants to make a Snailtrail quilt. She and I both have the Accuquilt cutting system. She wants to cut out the quilt using her Accuquilt. One question that came up was whether there was a list of blocks with their sizes and the dies required to use them. I looked on the site and couldn’t find one. I also looked on Ebony Love’s site and couldn’t find one there either. There is a Snailtrail complete die, but it is for the electric Accuquilt* and neither of us plan to buy one. I suppose if they told that information, it would sell fewer dies, because people wouldn’t have to buy the specialty dies. Also, how could a person use this new die with a variety of different fabric?<\/p>\n

I got out the bags of pieces SIL has cut already with her Accuquilt. They are waiting to be used in a quilt. I played around to see if I could figure out how to make her pieces work. The only pieces that are not exactly perfect, but work are the light blue triangles. They are QSTs, so the bunny ears are chopped off the wrong way and the bias is in an odd place. Still, SIL would only have to cut one more set of triangles for the outside of the block to make it bigger. The above block was made entirely from Accuquilt dies. They are:<\/p>\n