AQS Lancaster Quilts

Sorry for the delay in posting these last few days. I've been working hard on the banner for Top Anchor Quilting Tools and then I left to come to Lancaster PA for the AQS show.

I haven't gotten to see much of the actual show, since I've been super busy demonstrating how to use long arm rulers on my domestic sewing machine. So many quilters are blown away with the idea of ruler work.

Several weeks before, I contacted a few people at Janome to let them know I'd be at the show demo'ing on my new machine, Janome 8200 and that the technique I used required the Janome Convertible Free Motion Foot Set and the ruler foot from the Frame Quilting Foot Set and would they please make sure that any Janome booths had those feet in stock. I was told they would. By this afternoon, I was told by quilters that the Janome and Elna booths were both out of those feet. Quilters are loving being able to do ruler work on their domestic sewing machine or sit-down long arm.

I snuck away this afternoon and made it down one aisle of show quilts before returning to the booth. Happily, it was the row that a quilt each from Margaret Solomon-Gunn and Bethanne Nemish were hung. The other quilts were wonderful of course, but these gals do amazing longarm work and have inspired my quilting over the years though I've never met them.

Words nor pictures do these quilts justice! Amazing quilting and fine detail work. I want to be like them when I grow up, but without the long arm. Though I'm not sure I have it in me to do such meticulous detail. Below, you can see the beaded piping that Bethanne pieced into her quilt. Those are beads stitched inside a bias strip.

I am exhausted from doing so much chatting with so many wonderful, friendly, and enthusiastic quilters! I hope to post more quilts from the show over the next few days.

Quilt Show Shopping

Here are some pics from the quilt show. There were many vendors there and there was a huge quilter's shopping frenzy going on. Since this is the biggest show in the area, it is not surprising that the vendor area was packed. According to the "Quilting in America 2010" survey, quilting is a $3.58 billion dollar industry, with your average "dedicated" quilter spending $2442 annually on their hobby!

I am definitely a dedicated quilter but I guess I'm not your average one as recorded by this survey. The average dedicated quilter has a household income of $91,000, and we are far short of this number! Not that I will dispute that my purchases might be less than their average, but let's not focus on that number. I was just thrilled to be able to go to the show, and those expenses were plenty so I couldn't spend much money and I wanted to be very careful with what I bought.

So I knew I was in trouble when I found the book booth by Dover! Books are so seductive! I am trying not to buy many books now because I read them once, put them on a shelf and that's it. Some get thumbed through occasionally, but I am not a project girl, making the projects in the book. I just want to learn about the technique and be inspired. I bought three, but one of them was a children's picture book for my daughter, so that doesn't count. :-)

I bought "Amazing Ways to use Circles and Rays" by Renae Haddadin and "Custom Curves" by Karen McTavish, my favorite quilter with dreadlocks (OK, maybe the only quilter with dreads)

Mmmmmm, books!

Then there was Sue Pelland's booth. She's the creator of the Leaves Galore templates. I already have her 'norme' sized template/ruler and I've used it mostly for marking feather spines for quilting, but I need to try one of her quilt ideas. I bought a large package of Misty Fuse from her.

Then there was the booth that I could have done some serious damage at, but it was very crowded and my mantra at the time was "Use what you have". I did buy some So Fine 50wt thread to try with my King Tut and my So Fine 30wt threads. (More on that in another post.)

The only fabric I bought came from the Dippy Dyes booth by Lisa White Reber. She had some lovely hand dyes and I was on a search for some mandala style dyed fabric for some wholecloth quilting.

And then I tried the Sweet 16 Sit Down. Not impressed. First of all the tension was all messed up. The dealer then blamed it on some competing dealer coming by and turning the tension knob. The blaming annoyed me. Then they had no quilting gloves. I am very dependent on my Machingers. They had a hoop thing, but without gloves, it was hard to move their sandwich. And I found the end-on orientation disorienting. Something I could get used to I'm sure.

But then there was George. Sigh. They had machingers and Angela, the rep, was someone I was somewhat familiar with from MQR so she wasn't a complete stranger. I'm a bit timid and I hate crowds (I think I define crowds as more than 3 people in a grocery store aisle.) There was absolutely no problem with this machine! The table was just the right size to fit in the family playroom, which is my new sewing space. Too bad I can't afford it, nor justify the expense even if I could.

Janome (or anyother sewing machine company) you really need to make a machine like your straight stitch only machine 1600, but with an 11 inch throat and easily dropped feed dogs for under $1000 and good visibility and you would sell it like hotcakes!

Speaking of Janome, I stopped by their booth and picked up 2 new feet for my convertible free motion foot. They're actually for the 1600 on a frame, but I thought I'd try the one made for ruler work anyway. I've heard that some sit-down machine quilters can hold a ruler and move the sandwich. Let's see if I can be that dextrous. The other foot is useless to me, but they were sold in a set. It is just an open toe foot that faces the end of the machine for using your DSM on a frame. I also stopped in a Quilter's Rule and picked up a small long arm ruler to use with the new foot. I chose a small double S curve so I could try out some curved cross hatching as described in the Karen McTavish book.

And finally, I bought a few cones of Floriani Thread. It's a polyester 40wt thread similar to Isacord but shinier and less expensive. I thought it was worth a try. I also bought the all-important thread color card so I can order more if I like it.

Wow! I took me an hour and a half to write this post. Geesh. Gotta go.

A Happy Quilty Birthday

I've been a little neglectful here, haven't I?

Here's the latest shot of "Poured Out". I ripped out the feathers I started with the King Tut and restitched using Isacord and in a palm frond design framing the whole jug portion of the quilt. These pics are pretty high resolution, even if they aren't the best shots so you should be able to zoom and see the detail better. I really am unsure now about how to transition between the palm fronds and the fillers I want to use in the blocks. The cross was a recent addition to help balance the composition. In other news, I had a birthday this past week. It pretty much stunk. It's not an age thing though, actually I feel like I might be coming into my own since I turned 40 last year. But the day before and the 2 days after were pretty awesome, especially from a quilty point of view.

The day before, my hubby got the final word that he is to report for work this week at a new job. We're very excited, and of course after the cancer and lay offs, we definitely need a steady source of income. I also received a birthday card from my Dad with some birthday $ which was a nice surprise. Then a box arrived in the mail from a member on MQR. She had passed along a sock loom and thrown in some yarn and several large cones of Superior Threads Rainbows that she didn't want to use on her long arm. She also padded the box with some nice batting pieces.

Then the birthday came and well, let's just pretend that it was on either the previous or next day.

Then my new quilty friend came over with 2 totes of fabric she had culled from her stash. We sorted through it while we chatted and I only took stuff I really liked. Below is about half of the fabrics.

Nice, huh? Then Saturday, my neighbor and I went to a town about an hour away to check out a quilt shop there and their JoAnne's. We had a blast even though I was careful to not buy too much. While there, I picked up a flyer for the Mid Atlantic Quilt Festival and showed it to her. She wants to go with me and if it works out, it will be a fun weekend road trip for us.

So I'm trying to delete my actual birthday mentally and focus on the good days prior and post birthday. All these blues in this pile are calling out to me......... What shall I make? When? So many things to work on!

Forum for Quilters Using Their Domestic Sewing Machines to Quilt Their Quilts

Sorry for the long title, but I wanted to be specific.

Have you been to MQResource? It's "a resource for all machine quilters"! The site leans a little heavily towards long arm quilters, but there's good info for all machine quilters. I love the forums and the folks are so nice and encouraging. And of course there's the quilty eye-candy; yummy!

And now there's a forum set up specifically for those who use domestic sewing machines to quilt their tops! Come and join the fun!