Quiltshow Roadtrip

Visited a quilt show near Athens, Georgia yesterday.  Funny how many quilters from my guild I ran into there!

It was interesting to see a quilt in the show that used the same Piece of Cake pattern that we are using for our donation quilt.  They couldn't look more different!

 The one in the show is done on a white background with a vine border while ours is on a pieced gray background with a half flower border...

or at least will be once it is finished!

I did a fair amount of damage at the vendors...mainly things I needed that aren't available around my home like Jeanna Kimble straw needles that I like to use for applique, some bright wools from Shaker Woolens, and a layer cake of the new Moda Indigo!  I also got a couple thumb thimbles from School House Quilts.  I had been using the same one for years and a couple weeks ago it went missing...I'm thinking one of the cats made off with it!

(had to include this block...it was in a quilt that had blocks with all wild animals titled "what doesn't belong in a zoo"....very fun!)

Weekend wanderings...

It is still unusually warm here in Georgia but I was still surprised to see my daffodils blooming and a beautiful bluebird in my yard this morning. Feels like everything is a month early!

Have you noticed all the blogs with advice about cleaning/organizing you sewing room? Lots of good ideas about de-stashing or focusing on keeping what you need close at hand...heck I just want a path so I can get to the fabric and my sewing machine without breaking my neck! One of the most useful things I learned in the Army was how to do a three-point landing....not just useful for jumping out of a plane...

But I am trying! In the past few days I have sorted at least a dozen boxes and bags of scraps. I found two sets of donation quilt blocks that quickly become tops. I'm going to bring these to my guild meeting on Thursday and see if anyone is willing to quilt them up for the local Ronald McDonald house. A question...can you count it as a finish if you didn't know the UFO project was there?

The big exercise was the refolding of my antique and vintage quilts. They have their own closet. I take them out of the acid free box and lay them on the queen size bed. If they are folded in muslin I wash the muslin otherwise I check the acid free tissue and replace when needed. Then it gets loosely folded, put back into the box and into the closet. A few are rotated onto the walls in the hallway....I try very hard to keep the animals out of the room during this but as you see that is almost impossible. I went out to answer the phone and didn't even see Goldie slip past me...

this is what I came back to!