Market Day 2...the opening

Although we had been at Market for an entire day already, the second day is when the show floor actually opens. I was so excited, I just wanted to see the floor already. But first I had an early morning class.

The class was on hand embroidery, taught by Helen Stubbins. Her stitches are so perfect. She traveled all the way from Australia to be at Market. I have to get a picture of my little embroidery piece to show you.

The Market floor was up a floor from most of the class rooms so it was very dramatic riding up the escalator and having it just come into view. WOW! We calmly made our way to one end to start the tour. The plan: see everything at least once before the end of the day. Seems easy enough, right? Wrong! Booth after fabulous booth filled with patterns, and threads, and buttons, and fabric..oh my.  There were notions, and embroidery ( hand and machine), and pincushions and wool. swoon.  Then of course there were quilts, beautiful quilts. 33 aisles (about 2 blocks long) plus the font and back aisles (which were very long).

I was ready to absorb as much as possible as I walked along. I was not ready for the magnitude of it all. I was not ready for the massive amounts of fliers, leaflets, and catalogues that I would be collecting. Lucky for me the boss brought lots of extra tote bags and gave me one before we got there. I was also not ready to see so many quilting celebrities. (Like Eleanor Burns in her booth and Maryanne Fons just walking the show).

Some things that stuck out in my mind:
the Michael Miller circus booth:

The Sleepy Hollow booth:

McKenna Ryan's newest design:

Ribbon Candy Quilts booth:

A lovely wool on cotton design ( can't remember the booth sorry)

We ended up having to speed walk through the last few aisles just to get done before they tossed us out at 6pm. After another seminar we headed back to the hotel to sort through all the 'stuff'. The next two days include appointments with vendors and ordering, ordering, ordering.
Will tell you more about all that too. Have to transfer more photos to show you.

Happy stitching.

Market Day 1

We arrived in Kansas City on Wednesday evening after about 8 1/2 hours in the car on the way there. After dropping our stuff in the room we walked down the street to a green space and onto the Plaza where we wandered around and eventually had BBQ for dinner. Can't go to KC without having BBQ can you?
The alarm went off at 5:30 am and after a bit of stumbling around we were dresses, armed with notebooks,empty tote bags, and bottled water. Off we went for some seminars and a whole day of Schoolhouse. Now I have heard about Schoolhouse on blogs and facebook, but didn't really understand until I got to experience it first hand. It was crazy awesome.
Here is the first thing I saw as we entered the building.

After the first two hour seminar Schoolhouse started. Here is what happens; early in the morning you check in and get your course book of options. Then every 30 minutes (some classes are 15 minutes) you rush out of the room with the thousand other quilters and try to get to the next room to see the next presentation/demo. Kind of like High School only this time everyone actually wants to get to the next class. LOL. This goes on non-stop until 6pm. At 6pm I went to another seminar. At 8pm Sample Spree starts. There was still a line to get into sample spree so we opted to leave in search of food.

Here are some the things I saw at the school house. First up Geared for Guys by Emily Herrick of Crazy Old Ladies blog.

I also saw Amanda Jean Nyberg (crazy mom quilts) and Cheryl Arkison (naptime quilter)who's new book Sunday Morning Quilts is in it's second printing.

A bit of English Paper Piecing by Sue Daley all the way from Australia.

Sew Simple Pinwheels ( look for more on this later this summer) by Karin Hellaby from England.

A great quilt as you go method  by Susan Nelson. These patterns are called Fun&Done.


Stay tuned for day two of Quilt Market.

Happy Stitching

Guess what I did

I went to Quilt Market. It was a crazy, fantastic experience. I am having technical difficulties getting my photos transferred from my phone. Once I sort that out (and catch up on some sleep) I will be back to tell all.
Happy stitching

Happy Mother's Day. My Dh just came home with a new printer (yeah) and an iPod sterio alarm clock. just what I have been wnting for the sewing room. Hope everyone else gets a bit of a surprise too.

The rest of session two

Back again with the rest of the session two charm projects. When the book Country Threads goes to Charm School came out I had to have it right then. I had that big pile of charm packs and the book motivated me to start stitching with them. Then I thought if I have all these charms and nowhere to go other quilters must too. Right? So I proposed the idea to the boss and started sewing. It took a long time, but the program finally got off the ground. I have had a great time slashing and stitching up all those charms. In the shop we took all the pieces we have at the end of the bolt and made charm packs. I took them all home and sorted and stacked and tied them all up. We gave those little bundles away as door prizes.
This cute little quilt was in the book that got me started. It was the first project that I made. I loved the William Morris fabric line and this pattern was a good one for it. Easy to make. Fun to throw on the table or as a wall hanging.

This was in that book too. A little yo-yo table square. I love seeing those antique yo-yo quilts, but I will probably never make that many yo-yos so, this is a mini version. (In my mind anyway). These charms were from the collection Awesome. Might end up on my table this fall.

The next little quilt is actually a doll quilt that is in the book Return to Charm School. That book came in just as the charm program was about to start. Of course I had to make some of the little projects from there too. ;)  I rescued the doll bed from my niece. She was going to toss it  or donate it. So I took it home. The little quilt uses only a half of a charm pack, so you can get two from one charm pack.

Snug as a Bug is a pattern from the Bake Shop. I thought it was going to take a long time because there a lot of pieces, but it went really fast and is easy sewing. The pattern calls for two charm packs, and that includes the applique. If you have a charm pack that has more girl colors and boy colors you probably want to get two of them. If the colors are gender neutral one pack will do and you might need some scraps for the applique.

There is one more quilt, but it is at the shop. I will try and get a picture of it soon so I can share it.

I have more cool stuff to tell you. Be back soon.
Happy stitching

Going at a snails pace

In my last post I promised a give-away and I never got to it. It will come honestly. I need to remember to gather some cool stuff from the shop and then do it. I have done two presentations of charm club that I haven't posted about so I will try and get caught up.
The second charm club presentation started with these cute little kid totes from the Moda Bake shop. They were easy to make and fast too. I also decided that they made a great tote for me too. I would make the top stitched sections a bit bigger for my tote so I could put in pens, marking tools, stuff like that. If I planned to use it for anything with weight I would use some fusible fleece or at least some interfacing to give the bag a bit more body.

I fell in love with this project the day it popped up in my blog feed. Magnets!!! How fun is that? Super easy, but not a fast project. I really like that the charms were just fused to the double sided fusible. Then just traced the letters and cut them out. I used small pieces of the magnet strip on the back and BAM they work!!  I don't have little ones that love refrigerator magnets anymore but I bet I can find someone who does. ;)

This sweet little pillow called to me. I think my great niece will like it (eventually). Pretty sure that she will not find her name on things in the stores. Another fast and fun Bake Shop idea. I fused her name and then hand stitched it before finishing the pillow. The bird is several layers all fused together
then tacked on.

Keeping with the letters and/or name theme I made these place mats. I think I might keep them at my house for Christmas dinner. Of course you could use other words in place of the names. Like Joy, celebrate, eat, drink, fun.....and on and on. I plan to make some with other fabrics for other times of the year.

The last project for this post is these cute binding/hair clips. I had sooo much fun making covered buttons that I just could not stop. I don't think my binding clips need to be too decorated, but they sure make me smile when I see these little buttons on them.

Things are still a bit of a mess here, but at least we can use every room again, more or less. I will post some more pics soon.
Happy stitching.