Monthly Archives: August 2017

Quilt Exhibit Recap

Last week I posted a little catch up on the fair, Julia’s pig Ella, and the purse I made for her. In the comments, Yvonne of Quilting Jetgirl, reminded me I hadn’t said anything about the quilts I entered in the local fair. I had originally planned to enter three quilts and that is what I technically signed up for. As I got the quilts out to add the hanging sleeves, I noticed that I had machine stitched the binding to the Positively Floating plus quilt. In all honesty, I can’t remember why I machine stitched that one. Maybe I just wasn’t in the mood to stitch the binding down? Usually I kind of enjoy that last bit of stitching on a project. At any rate, it didn’t make sense to enter that quilt because I was fairly sure the judge wouldn’t appreciate a machine stitched binding. Additionally, I had procrastinated on making the sleeves, it was the night before I had to bring them over to the fairgrounds, and I was running short on time. So I didn’t enter the plus quilt.

I did enter the relief quilted THREAD project and the Sweet Tweets baby quilt. I got a second place ribbon on the Sweet Tweets baby quilt.

Third place, the quilt below mine was 2nd place.

I received a third place ribbon on the THREAD project. Now before we all get excited, I will tell you the rest. I am nothing, if not honest, right? This is a very small show – all contained within one room and may 150 entries at most (including all garments, stitchery, knitting and quilts) In the baby quilt category, there were two entries. In the mini quilts of this size, there were three. As my sister Patti wisely told me, the glass is half full – you got a 2nd and a 3rd place. But my logical side says, meh, I got last out of three and 2nd out of two. Either way, I am happy. I think I got over my fear of having someone look at my project and pick it apart (no pun intended!) It was interesting to read the comments. Here is a bit of what the judge wrote:

On the baby quilt: She liked the fabric selection and the fussy cut blocks. She found the quilting design appropriate and noted my stitches were not all the same length. Binding was well done but quilt does not lie flat.

On the relief quilt: Thread play noted and appreciated. Starts and stops should not be visible, addition of quilted thread spools noted and appreciated. Binding needs improvement.

So – it was an interesting experience. I am not a terribly competitive person so usually, I don’t feel compelled to think of the judge’s perspective as I make projects. I suppose if I decide to enter things again, I need to pay more attention to the details.

Yesterday I was having fun making a few bandana bibs for my little grand baby. My son, his wife and the baby got to California yesterday after a few flight delays and weather issues. They are spending time in the Bay Area, about 150 miles from here and will come up here Wednesday. The baby will be working on teething soon which means all of that drooling that comes with it. I thought bandana bibs might be nice for this. The first one is made with a Cotton & Steel print, Panda Bebe, a white flannel backing and a tiny velcro closure. After I made it, I decided it might be a tad bit on the small side.

I took the template and cut it to be a couple of inches longer. The second bib was made with a cute flannel scrap I had and a pink lining. I suspect this one is long enough. They were fun to make and such a quick project. The template I used was from Grey House Harbor, a DIY website with lots of tutorials. It will be fun to see if these fit baby girl when she gets here.

Finally, today Needle and Foot is the sponsor of this week’s podcast at While She Naps. The host and author at this site, Abby Glassenberg, is someone I have long admired. So much so, I wrote a review of her newsletter and podcast a while back. When the opportunity came about to sponsor a podcast, I was more than happy to do so. Abby’s strength lies in the breadth of subjects she covers both in her blog, newsletter and podcast. I hope you will click through and listen to today’s interview with Jamie Chalmers, otherwise known as Mr. X Stitch. His site boldly claims to be the world’s best contemporary needle crafts and embroidery site. You may have noticed that embroidery and cross stitch, among other styles of needle crafts, are trending these days. Jamie’s hugely popular site features “Cute Things, Arty Things, and Rude Things as well as all other sorts of stitchy goodness“. I am looking forward to hearing the podcast today and getting to know more about Chalmers. As added incentive, Needle and Foot will be offering a discount to Abby’s and Jamie’s fans – you’ll need to go over and listen to find out the details though!

Time for School

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Hi Everyone — Today is the first day of school for Julia. Summer absolutely flew by. I posted a few pictures on Instagram last week about the county fair but I thought it would be fun to share some of the details with you. Julia did a great job taking care of and showing Ella. When you show a pig at the fair, there are two places in which the kids compete. One is called Market Class which is where the judge assesses the quality of the pig, with regard to structure and muscle vs fat. Because the kid’s select their animal when it is very young based on it’s structure and then feed it out over the next six months, they have an impact on these things. If an animal is over weight or too lean, the owner adjusts feed accordingly. Julia had many challenges with Ella and her food intake so this was not easy.

Julia showing Ella off to the judge.

The other is showmanship which is where they judge the owner’s ability to work with their animal. Out of about 20 kids in her group, Julia came in 6th in both Market Class and Showmanship. For her first year, this was so great.

Job well done Julia!

Better than that is when Ella was auctioned, she was purchased by the CEO of Telestream, the company I used to work at and where my husband currently works. Each year the company buys one or two animals to support the local youth and then donates the meat to our local food bank. Our family has been involved with Interfaith Food Ministry for many years so Julia is very familiar with the organization. Before Fair came, she wrote to the CEO and explained she would be so happy knowing Ella went to such a good cause, feeding the hungry in our town. In a month or so, Julia and I will pick the meat up and take it to the Food Ministry for disbursement.

I think 4-H is a wonderful organization as they have impact in many areas of a child’s growth and maturity. It was required that each of the kids (and one parent) work a shift in the Pasty Booth as this is a major fundraiser for the club. Julia did great and the time flew by because the booth was very busy. Luckily the booth is air conditioned with those ovens going constantly.

Preparing Pastys to bake in the oven.

Saying good bye to Ella was sad for Julia but she knew this was the way it was supposed to play out. She worked really hard and I am incredibly proud of her.

The last couple of days of summer were spent catching up after the busy week we had. Yesterday Julia and I had lunch together and saw a movie to celebrate summer’s end. It was lots of fun and she was ready to go back today and see all of the friends she missed over the summer.

Before fair, Julia asked if I would make her a new purse. She is learning to drive and for the first time, has to carry a purse with her. Of course I agreed and we hopped on Pinterest to look at my board of Purses, Bags and Totes. Julia chose a basic bag from Very Purple Person, called the Reversible Bag. We made a few changes so hers is not reversible. More on that in a minute though.

First she had to select her fabric. She had fun looking at all of the bolts in the shop and selected a batik for the outside. Then we pulled choices for the lining.

So many choices!

It didn’t take very long for her to settle on this Island Batik floral and the deep orange solid, Art Gallery’s Pure Element Tiger Lily.

It is a great combination and that orange works perfectly!

This bag is super simple. It prints as a PDF and you just need to tape a few pieces together to get the full template. We did lengthen the strap. Julia is 5′ 8″ and she wanted it to hang to her hip. I also added two pockets with Velcro closures to the interior and a little clip to hang her keys from. (I still can’t believe she is old enough to need keys. It seems like she should still be filling her purse with stuffed animals and markers.)

I didn’t put a closure at the top of the bag but I think I may add one. It seems like it needs it so it isn’t always gaping open. Julia doesn’t mind either way. Just trying to think of a closure that can be added now that the lining is all sewn in. I am sure I will think of something.

Sitting up like a big girl.

Now that fair is finished and school has started, it is time to catch up on housework and get ready for my son and his family. Then come next week and we are all beyond excited! Look at this girl — I can’t wait to play with her! She is sitting up and trying to crawl. Just adorable. 🙂

Reno Show Recap & Summer Break

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Last weekend was the Truckee Meadows Quilt Guild annual show in Reno, Nevada. Needle & Foot was a vendor there – this was the second show I have done. The first one was our local guild’s show in May. As with most things, I did a few things different this time and learned a bit more with the Reno experience.

Before we go into all of that, I want to talk a bit about my ‘silent’ partner. It was about February of last year when I got the idea to vend at the Grass Valley quilt show in May. But I was really hesitant to commit and to pay the $200 booth fee. I have mentioned now and then that I have difficulties with migraines. But if I were to be honest, I would describe my migraine issue with stronger language – I have a chronic illness and it really wreaks havoc with my daily life. I get about two or three migraines each week. This has been on-going since 2009. For whatever reason my body shifted (probably something to do with peri-menopause and then menopause) and the migraines kicked in with force. (I am not explaining all of this to gather your sympathies, more to show why I make some of the decisions I do.)

People with chronic migraine have a really difficult time committing to anything with a defined date or time. I rarely know how my week will go,wait – not rarely, scratch that. I never know how it will go. So it makes it hard for me to join committees, or volunteer groups, promise to take Julia somewhere, etc. I cancel out of many, many commitments. All. The. Time. When I wanted to try a quilt show, I knew I had to have back-up. I couldn’t take the chance on doing this without someone else there to run the booth if I got sick.

My five sisters – at a surprise party for Cathy (the one in the red t-shirt

Knowing this, I called Patti and asked her if she would work the show with me (or without me, as the case may be.) She immediately agreed. I mean without hesitation, without knowing exactly where it was, how long it lasted, or what it entailed. That is how she is. That is how all of my sisters are. Having her work it with me gave me the confidence to go ahead with it. We did the Grass Valley show and it was great fun.

Because of the success of the first show, we signed up for a few more. Now we were planning as a team. Patti is an incredible seamstress. She has made two quilts – her first one was queen size as a gift and the other was for her daughter, Laura. But for the most part, she sews garments. She decided to make a few things and bring them to the show in Reno to gauge reactions to her work and the pricing. In the space of about six weeks, Patti planned fabric and color, pattern and detail work, to make a selection of girl’s dresses and little coordinating messenger bags.

I was thrilled with her plan because it added a whole new dimension to the booth. As you know, many quilters do not enjoy garment sewing. However almost all quilters do recognize highly skilled workmanship. I knew these dresses would be appreciated and valued by the quilters shopping at the show. More importantly, it meant Patti and I had something to work on together. Patti lives about 150 miles from me but we called and texted constantly as she developed her plan and made these gorgeous dresses.

OK – let’s talk about the show. It was a great experience. The show was smaller than the first show we did and was a non-juried show. This made for lower attendance. However, the people that were there were so friendly. They shopped our booth and made purchases – enough so I would say it was worth our time. The venue wasn’t without issues though. You can probably tell from the photos, the lighting was just awful. (These photos have been edited, lightened and brightened.) It felt like the power was out in our corner. Everything was so dark! That was quite a problem. We were carrying bolts into the light to see true colors whenever a customer was trying to make a decision. It added a layer of frustration for each of the vendors. Also, there wasn’t any wifi available. In this day of using technology for everything, lack of wifi is pretty ridiculous. We had to use cell service for our phones, had to use our phones as hot-spots for the iPads, and we were constantly charging devices to keep things going. (Because of these two issues, I will probably pass on this show next year, unless changes are made.)

We tried a few new things with this show. We arranged the bolts in more of a thematic groupings and tried to make the colors flow better (hard to illustrate with the lousy light) . I think this made the booth flow much better. I ordered black tablecloths which added uniformity to the look too. I folded the fat quarters in a different way so the pattern of the fabric was displayed better and I grouped them by colorways in the basket. It was interesting to see the difference in our sales. We sold a lot of fat quarters and lots of the little kits and notions we brought; at the last show we hardly sold any of those items. The yardage we sold was also interesting. For one thing,many of the guild members were collecting floral prints for a class that was scheduled for October. They wanted large scale prints for fussy cutting. Luckily I had a selection of Art Gallery fabrics (Maureen Cracknell and Sharon Holland’s prints) that worked for this and those sold well.

For lots of reasons, I would call the show a success. It wasn’t hugely profitable but Patti and I gained exposure, learned another thing or two about booth set-up and tear down, sold fabric and dresses, and most of all, had a great time together. The next show isn’t until mid-September. It is about 50 miles from home so a bit more convenient than the Reno show. (Even though we did stay overnight in Reno for two nights, we had the luxury of staying in my in-law’s second home. They generously gave us access to the house which was sooo much nicer than staying in a hotel – and, of course, more economical too.)

Patti has decided to go for it and she will be opening an Etsy shop with her handmade items. As this progresses, I will keep you posted – I think her work is nothing short of amazing and these dresses will be fun gifts at holiday time or for birthday gifts.

It is August now and that means school starts in two weeks for Julia. With the end of summer approaching, I want to take a bit of time off and focus on family. Today I am taking Julia and her BFF to the mall and out for lunch. Fair is next week which means we will be super busy with Julia and her 4-H project, Ella. I will turn in my quilts for exhibit later today too. There is lots going on!

Grammy’s sweet girl is coming soon!!!t

As if that isn’t enough, my son and his wife and this little chunk are coming for five days at the end of the month. As I thought about all I have going on and how busy things have been, I decided to take a vacation from blogging and social media. I really want the break and look forward to shifting my focus to home and family for a few weeks. While I am away from the blog and my social media platforms, I will still be shipping orders. If you need anything in particular, you can always email me via the Etsy shop or at my email address. I am happy to help you. But I won’t be looking at Facebook or Instagram for a couple of weeks. It is important (to me anyway) to get away from all of the chatter that is social media. As much as I love the on-line community, it can be quite a distraction from daily life and eats away at my time in the sewing room too. Hopefully this makes sense to you. Enjoy this last bit of summer — I look forward to catching up with everyone the first week of September!! When I return I will share the book selection for the Autumn round of Fabric & Fiction. I also have a few other fun things planned. I’ll be back soon!! 🙂