ABQ Quilt, Craft, & Sewing Festival

As I mentioned in a previous post, from May 22-24, Albuquerque was blessed by a Quilt, Craft, & Sewing Festival. Even the  times I've gone to really big, national shows, I've come away with negligible purchases, so I'd like to encourage people to attend this show if it's within driving difference.  Their next show will be in Castle Rock, CO July 10-11, 2014, and the vendors do vary with the event. (One of my friends lives near their Puyallup show, and I've wanted to attend for a long time.)

Here are some photos of what followed me home:

Sweet Teen was shocked because she knows I love choosing fabrics for quilts, but I loved these and thought they would make a very cheery prayer quilt without my having to dig around in my stash.  (Karen does not have an online store; she just enjoys gathering fabrics and marketing at shows--and getting to travel to them.)

These batiks are from Rabbit Hole Quilt Shop from Chico, CA.  I dyed one almost like the pink a few years ago when I was still dyeing fabrics every few months.  I do not know if I'll manage to find any time to dye this summer.

These are from Desert Stitchin; Chris and John are from Goodyear, AZ and vend at shows in the Southwest. I purchased these for a "watery" baby quilt for one of my colleagues. The Bali charm pack at the bottom is the door prize I won from their shop at the show.  That has never happened to me before!  Well, at least not since I won my Charlotte doll at Mrs. Beatty's gift shop on December 18--somewhere around 60 years ago.  I guess this could mean that if I live another 60 years, I might win again? I was pretty amazed when my name was called.

I was near the Busy Bee booth when my name was called.  One of the owners exclaimed, "Dora Scheer?  And I don't hear any clapping or cheering?  We'll cheer for you!"

These are for a three year old girl who loves pink and purple and needs a quilt because she's soon going to be a big sister, so I've been pulling pink and purple batiks from my stash. Actually, I picked these up at the shop, not at the show.  The show gave the owners a chance to discover that a lot of people in our area didn't yet realize their shop was nearby.  It's a great little shop with the best service I've experienced in my 40+ years of quilt shops.  They have many ongoing block of the month quilts from some of the best designers.  I most often pop into their shop for a few fat quarters or for yardage to make a special prayer quilt.  The owners and their employees are unfailingly helpful and friendly.

As much as I love the fabrics, these are my favorite purchases from the show.  The stylus is also a set of screw drivers perfect for my sewing machines, and the other is a seam ripper (a belated Mother's Day gift from Sweet Teen).  Sweet Teen had a lovely conversation about engineering with the engineer who was acting as cashier.  Lumenaris also sells 100% wool felt.

Hopefully, this show will return to Albuquerque next year.  It would be lovely if they could piggyback onto the Albuquerque Fiber Arts Fiesta.

Happy quiltmaking...and knitting....

Another Update for Dots and Stripes

I love to quilt.  While I like to piece, quilting is a lot more fun, and I'm getting impatient to get to that point.

Here are the next blocks, although it's possible that I did miss some of the most recent finishes:

Those purple and turquoise/gold triangles and squares were cut from the same batik--just a small piece I'd picked up somewhere.  The lovely purplish hand-dyed fabric used for the background on the two squares in the center row was a "clean up and see what happens" with what was left of a dyeing exercise probably close to twenty years ago.  Of course, I have lots of beautiful hand-dyed fabrics; I always told myself to clean up and dye some more--usually by blotting up different colors or by dumping some of the colors together to see what happened.  But I should have done yards of that to be sure I ended up with a lot of neutrals--and I never did enough.

I thought I'd do some more dyeing this summer, but I haven't.  My rash decision to buy an HE washer makes rinsing out dye a major production.  I'd love to have one of those old wringer washers like my grandma's generation had!

I also pieced a lot of checkerboard squares but forgot to take photos.

I did decide I have to have a printable plan so I designed this custom set in EQ7.

I used gray tones for the plan.  I have more than enough blocks but may need to piece some more four-patches or more flying geese.  At least now I can print, count, and finish piecing. (I need more practice using custom set; it's really hard to get everything perfectly aligned even with the grid; but it's only a plan, and I can see where each block and strip goes.)


Happy quiltmaking.....

Quilt Fabrics and Free Motion Practice

Hmmm.....less to share than I would have guessed.  So I'm sharing fabrics for Sweet Teen's Opportunity Quilt and a strategy for quilting practice.

 This fabric is what I'm thinking of using for the background; however, I'm still debating and may decide to order something the color of New Mexico sand and dust.

 This fabric has a gold overlay print that does not show up in photos.

 This fabric has a lot of color variation.  Here's one section of the fabric....

...and another.  This fabric also has a gold overlay print.

 This is a contrast fabric for between the rows of the chains.

 This is one of my own hand dyed fabrics with a lot of changes. Since there are so many colors,  I'm guessing I dyed it with leftover dyes at the end of a dye run. But that was many years ago, so I don't really remember the details.

And this is one more fabric that I may use at the edges of a pieced border.

Connie, over at Free Motion by the River has posted about some of her most recent practice quilting pieces.  Her post is here.

A few weeks ago I posted about how I used a batik fat quarter to practice a new-to-me kind of feathers. That post is here.

However, I've never shown my largest practice piece.  It's destined to be a 100% cotton mattress pad (because every time I see 100% cotton mattress pads at a price I can afford, they turn out to be not 100% cotton--and, of course, finding that out always requires at least an 80 mile round trip).

This is my second mattress pad practice piece.

If you want to see the quilting, you'll probably need to use the photo viewer or open these in a new window.

Because it's for a mattress and pad and because we use mostly vintage white sheets, it's quilted in white.

I've been adding to it for several years, so it's nearly done. 

Oops!  I guess I should clarify.  For my first "practice pad" I used a layer of broadcloth, a layer of Warm'n'Natural batting, and a layer of muslin.  For the current "practice pad" I've used two layers of white broadcloth with a layer of Quilter's Dream Request in the middle. Quilter's Dream Request is a thin batting that is closest to the look of antique batts.  At the time I wanted to try it to see how it worked, and now I've quilted many quilts with this batting.  Once it's done I add more broadcloth around the perimeter, cut wide enough to go under the mattress and to accommodate a casing and elastic.  (I may have to replace the elastic in the one I made about twenty years ago, but the rest of the mattress pad is still holding up well.)

A crib or twin-size mattress pad not only provides a chance for lots of practice but also makes a great gift for a favorite young person.  I discovered several decades ago, at the height of the reign of polyester, that when I slept on 100% cotton sheets and pillowcases, I slept sooooo much better.  When I mentioned that to moms and grandmas of toddlers who were screaming at night and they changed to 100% cotton bedding, the children slept through the night.  (Yes, I know manufactured bedding for children must be fire retardant by law--I'm really skeptical about exposure to fire-retardant chemicals.)  A few years ago I was still able to find 100% cotton mattress covers from the 1950's and early 60s at thrift stores, but those finds are rare these days.  So, this is just one more idea for a great way to practice machine quilting.

I'm linking this post up to a couple of parties, because I don't seem to be creating my usual number of posts this week.  (Might have something to do with the headache that is still with me despite huge burdens of stress having departed.)  In any case,  I'm linking to:

Connie's Free Motion by the River

and Judy at Patchwork Times

You might want to check out my sidebar for some more linky parties that I was just too late to join.

Happy quiltmaking.....

Little Miss Gardener, Blog Hop Party, and Give-Away

This Give Away is now Closed.

How about a Blog Hop Party with Give-Aways?

It's being organized by Michele Foster over at Quilting Gallery.
I'm taking part.  I'll share what I'm giving away in a bit, but first, a little more of Little Miss Gardener, much more quilted, but not yet done. Life just keeps throwing little surprises my way, but she will get done--hopefully, I'll have her completed before we get too far into the weekend.

As a reminder, here's the top, completed last weekend:

 And here are some of the quilted nine-patches and snowballs:

 Yes, quite a few thread changes.

 I especially love the plumes I'm quilting in the snowballs.  

While I'm using Fil-Tec Glide thread for most of the quilting, I'm using Fil-Tec Affinity on the pale aqua.  Affinity is much like Glide but is variegated.  This has soft blues.

 Yes, this quilt is being made on my Necchi BU in a treadle cabinet.

 And, yes, it's really easy to forget one is treadling--and the exercise is a great bonus.

 I've been asked to show how I do the plumes in the snowball blocks, so I plan to do that in an upcoming post.

 And now for the give-away.  These are eight of my hand-dyed fabrics.

I began dyeing some of my own fabrics sixteen or seventeen years ago--inspired by a lovely lady, a former student in Chattanooga, who wanted fabrics "in the colors I see in my head."  Of course, shortly after I began dyeing, children entered my life, limiting my sewing and quiltmaking time.  Every once in a while I'd steal some time and do more dyeing--which has resulted in shelves well stocked with an array of colors more likely to be found in someone's head than in stores.  I used unbleached and bleached muslin in 36" width and, occasionally, I splurged on Kona cotton. These were dyed from narrow fabric, so they are not quite the same size as the "fat quarters" most of us are familiar with today.

The colors above are a grape-y violet, dark fuchsia, sky blues, sea blues, and a blue green.  All were dyed by mixing Procion MX dyes from Dharma Trading and with very little movement in the dye bath (usually in Solo cups) so the textures are lovely.  About the same time my quilting friends back east were ordering their dyes from Pro Chemical & Dye, and here we are years later, still saying we should do some kind of exchange of our hand dyed fabrics.  (Pro Chem is having a sale on their dyes through August 31, including PRO MX Grape, which is hard to find in an MX dye.)

If you would like this little bundle of fabrics, here's what you need to do to enter the drawing:
1. Be a follower.  Leave a comment telling me you are a follower and something about your quiltmaking endeavors or your first quilt--or if you are not yet a quilter, what you'd like to be able to make.

That's it.  No other hoops to jump through.  We'll draw a winner September 5.  I'm willing to ship this little bundle internationally.
It would be a good idea to check your settings and be sure you are not a no-reply blogger.  I'll e-mail the winner and post the name of the winner on this blog. (And if the winner does not respond, I will do another drawing.)

Please be aware that if you are a no-reply blogger, I will not be able to contact you if you win.  It would be okay to leave your e-mail address in your comment.

You might want to head over to Michele's and check out more blogs and more give-aways. (She says she expects the list of links to be up shortly after midnight in the wee hours of August 26.) Sounds like fun Sunday surfing and the chance to make some new blogging friends.

Happy quiltmaking....