Hold Tight Sew Along Week #2

Hold Tight Sew Along Week #2

Hold Tight Sew Along 2 Sq cover.jpg

Welcome to Week #2 of the Hold Tight Sew Along! For this blog post, and the following two posts, I'll be share tips and tutorials to bring your quilting skills to a new level. No longer will curved piecing hold you back from stitching a quilt with curves! 

If you don't have the pattern already, you'll want to purchase the Hold Tight PDF pattern from my Shop page or from our friends at Fat Quarter Shop who now carries this pattern as well as Hold Tight quilt kits. These blog posts serve to supplement the instructions but don't provide the detailed pattern information that you'll find in the PDF available for purchase. The Hold Tight pattern will have your material list, cutting requirements, full-size templates, and be fully illustrated. My supplementary blog posts are just that, supplementary and meant to guide you along as you sew and give general patchwork sewing information for anyone sewing curves.

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From March 20 until April 10, 2019 I'll be breaking down the key components of the Hold Tight baby quilt pattern into four manageable tutorial blog posts. These tutorials will be useful to anyone working with fabric and patchwork regardless what quilt is being made. In addition to my written posts, I’ve adding skill-building demonstration videos to further your learning experience. The videos support Weeks #1 through #3 and you’ll find these helpful videos on my Sew Along page. All the videos will be available on Week #1 of the sew along for those wanting to work ahead and will stay a permanent feature to resource in the future.

If you’ve just discovered this blog or only just heard about this sew along, there’s still plenty of time to join in on the fun and take part in the sponsored giveaway prizes for each week of the event. To get up to speed, take a look at the Week #1 posting dedicated to color selection and working with colors like a designer.

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I’ve just finished a top for my third Hold Tight quilt! To give myself a color palette challenge I decided to find a color palette inspiration from Pinterest and let that determine the look of this quilt.

Colour Crush from Love Print Studio Blog

Colour Crush from Love Print Studio Blog

I fell in love with this terra cotta, coral, clay, forest green, and golden palette and knew that Art Gallery Fabrics carried so many Pure Solids in these ranges that coming up with a palette based on this Love Print Studio mood board would be a snap!

Hold Tight - Ombré Desert Color Way.jpg

The morning of my fabric pull I was walking the dog and marveling at the blue sky when it dawned on me that an ombré background would be an awesome addition to this already earthy, southwestern-looking color palette—was I right???!!! My top is all pieced and am waiting for some Hobbs Poly-Down batting to arrive so I can quilt it. I’ve decide to use my Art Gallery Fabrics Destination Aerial print from my Tapestry collection as the backing and it could be any more perfect!

Hold Tight - Ombré Desert Color Way List.jpg

As promised, I want to share the fabric selection information with you. Now, be warned that doing an ombré background you’ll need to double the amount of background fabric for this quilt because of the size and odd shapes of the pieces create a lot of waste and left over fabrics. I used six gradient fabrics for horizontal rows of color with the two middle blues being used in two horizontal rows. Altogether you’ll need 25 colors (or 27 if each background row is a different gradient) to make a Hold Tight quilt with an ombré background. The rest of the yardage is unchanged.

Cutting Templates and Fabrics

The Hold Tight PDF pattern comes with the full-size templates which already include the seam allowances. Be sure when printing out your PDF pattern that you set you printer to 100%, no scale. Select a US letter paper size and deselect any borderless option (no borderless). Each template page has a 1” square reference square to check for printing scale accuracy. It’s extremely important you print the templates to true size.

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With a permanent marking tool, trace the shapes onto heavy template plastic. I highly recommend Dritz Heavy Duty Template Plastic. Transfer shape letter information, grain line arrow. When tracing the Block Trimming Template, include the seam allowance and curves onto your template. Cut templates out with household scissors. Learn more about creating templates from the Hold Tight Sew Along Week #2 video found on my Sew Along page.

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Refer to the PDF pattern for strip cutting information and number of pieces to cut. Let template straight edges and grain line marks help you to align the templates onto the fabrics for cutting. A 28 mm rotary cutter is highly suggested for cutting around curves. Use the extra guides of rotary cutter rulers when working on straight edges.

Tip: To help hold the template in place while cutting, roll Washi tape onto itself to make double-sided tape. Adhere the rolled tape onto the back of a template shape in 2-4 places. Fabric can be rotated for cutting ease without disturbing the template position and the taped template can be reused several times before the tape looses it stickiness.

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When cutting the B shape pieces, utilize the straight edge of the strip to cut the first shape then rotate the template to make the second cut which leaves an oval shaped scrap. For more demonstrations on cutting see Week #2 video.

Unfortunately, curved patchwork comes with waste pieces. If you plan to do additional curved sewing like trying your had at my free Orange Peel Table Runner these waste pieces can be cut down into smaller sizes and used. Start a bin of castoff curves for that next project.

Hold Tight Template Cutting 2.jpg

Stitching, pressing, and squaring up of a finished block will be covered next week and also in Week #3 Sew Along video Part 1 and 2 but I put this image here to show the importance that the template markings play in creating the Block Trimming Template.

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A sew along’s a lot more fun with sponsors and giveaways, right!? Our friends at Dritz Sewing, the Fat Quarter Shop, Hobbs Batting, and Omnigrid have generously provided the Hold Tight Sew Along with products I know you’ll love! Every Friday I’ll be posting weekly a giveaway on Instagram. By using the hashtag #HoldTightSewAlong on Instagram every time you post sew along photos to a public account (private account posts don’t show up in hashtag pools) your IG account is automatically entered into the weekly sew along drawings! Ideas for what to share include your sew along progress, the “I’m a maker” sew along badge found HERE, your fabric pull, blocks, and finished quilt. Be sure to follow me on Instagram @sharonhollanddesigns so you never miss a thing!

THIS WEEK'S GIVEAWAY SPONSOR IS from DRITZ Sewing and Omnigrid

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If you’re wondering why I selected Dritz Shower Curtain Rings to be part of this giveaway package it’s because I love using everyday object in new ways and find this size shower ring to be so handy for keeping template pieces together, organizing swatch cards, note cards, bobbins, keys, etc. Anytime you can organize your work area is a good day, right?

Please note that this giveaway package is for US residence only (sorry, international friends, due to overseas shipping costs I’m asked by our sponsor to keep this giveaway US only.)

Don't forget the giveaways for this sew along are held on Instagram (not on the blog) and winning names are randomly drawn from the posts in the hashtag pool. By posting images of your Hold Tight color inspiration, fabric pull, blocks, or quilt. Use the official #holdtightsewalong hashtag every time you post your makes (to a public account) and you're automatically entered into the weekly IG drawings! See my Instagram Friday giveaway posts @sharonhollanddesigns for full details. 

Hold Tight Sew Along Week #1

Hold Tight Sew Along Week #1

Pure Solids Selection.jpg

Welcome to Week #1 of the Hold Tight Sew Along! For this blog post, and the following three posts, I'll be share tips and tutorials to bring your quilting skills to a new level. No longer will curved piecing hold you back from stitching a quilt with curves! 

If you don't have the pattern already, you'll want to purchase the Hold Tight PDF pattern from my Shop page or from our friends at Fat Quarter Shop who now carries this pattern as well as Hold Tight quilt kits. Please note that the kits from FQS will be ready to ship at or around March 23rd. Use the “Notify Me” function on the kit page to get updates on your order’s shipping date. These blog posts serve to supplement the instructions but don't provide the detailed pattern information that you'll find in the PDF available for purchase. The Hold Tight pattern will have your material list, cutting requirements, full-size templates, and be fully illustrated. My supplementary blog posts are just that, supplementary and meant to guide you along as you sew.

Hold Tight Sew Along Sq.jpg

From now until April 10, 2019 I'll be breaking down the key components of the Hold Tight baby quilt pattern into four manageable tutorial blog posts. These tutorials will be useful to anyone working with fabric and patchwork regardless what quilt is being made. In addition to my written posts, I’ve adding skill-building demonstration videos to further your learning experience. The videos support Weeks #1 through #3 and you’ll find these helpful videos on my Sew Along page. All the videos will be available on Week #1 of the sew along for those wanting to work ahead and will stay a permanent feature to resource in the future.

Color and Transparency Effects

As outlined in last weeks blog post, Hold Tight Sew Along, I'll be covering a new topic each week. This week's lesson is all about selecting colors and working with transparency effects. 

Color is a big subject, but I'll attempt to give you a practical and applicable approach to color as it pertains to selecting fabrics for this quilt. 

Since color is the first thing anyone notices in a quilt—even before the design, we need an entire post just on this subject. The Hold Tight baby quilt offers plenty of opportunity to play with color through the graphic shape of a balloon. But where do you begin when you must decide on a maximum of 20 different solids!!!???

Hold Tight flat.jpg

This quilt is marketed as a baby quilt but its large size also makes it suitable as a throw-size quilt for any age. Maybe there's already a nursery color scheme selected, favorite colors, or some sort of predetermined color inspiration (like from printed fabric or artwork). That's really helpful and gets you halfway to a fabric pull. If you'd like to create a color palette from creating a mood board, take a look back at the Community Sampler Week #1 post on this blog. If you remember, I made my Community Sampler quilt using Art Gallery Fabrics Pure Solids and my color inspiration came from creating a mood board from images I found on Pinterest. But, if selecting a color palette still seems daunting, read on.

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As a textile designer, artist, and newbie to embroidery coming up with color palettes and selecting just the right color for a given project is an ongoing challenge. Rather than focusing just on color relationships and schemes like you'd find on a color wheel (e.g. Complementary, Split Complementary, Diad, Triad, and Tetrad), I'll walk you through color composition instead and how to select hues that work in unity together because of their shade, tint, and/or tone. Once you've discovered how to view a color by what colors it's made from you can always go back and incorporate traditional color wheel schemes into your fabric selection process.

When you start seeing beyond the colors within a given color (hue) you'll be able to successfully mix colors physically like with paint for example or visually, like with fabric transparency effects.

In this tutorial I'll be using the following technical terms:

Shade: Amount of black added to the hue

Tint: Amount of white added to the hue

Tone: Amount of gray added to the hue

Value: Lightness or darkness

Intensity: Brightness or dullness

Before I tackle mixing colors, let's first discuss the easiest way to select colors that achieve the effect of unity and transparency by using a Monochromatic color scheme. For both the Hold Tight pattern sample and the quilt you'll see featured in the sew along tutorials I'm using a combination of monochromatic color trans effects and mixed color transparency effects and sewing with Art Gallery Fabrics Pure Solids fabrics.

Monochromatic Schemes.jpg

A Monochromatic color scheme uses one color and the shades and tints of that color. Art Gallery Fabrics has an array of shades and tints available for their Pure Solids and makes it easy to achieve beautiful gradation steps of colors—creating a transparency effect where the balloons overlap.

The four monochromatic color schemes above illustrate color steps arranged from tints (lightest) to shades (darkest) of a hue.

Paintbrush Color Wheel-01.jpg

To illustrate mixing colors I'm going to refer back to the color wheel and start with the Primary Colors which are blue, red, and yellow. These three colors cannot be created by mixing other colors. 

If you mix equal parts blue and red you'll get violet (or also referred to as purple). Mixing red and yellow will create orange and mixing yellow and blue will result in green. These resulting colors are called Secondary Colors because they were made from mixing two different Primary Colors. 

Tertiary Colors are the result of mixing a Primary Color with a Secondary Color. The resulting color name always has the primary color first followed by the secondary color. For example: blue-green, red-violet, red-orange, yellow-orange, and yellow-green.

Crayola Color Wheel

Crayola Color Wheel

As a kid I was fascinated by color and as soon as I could read I was memorizing the names of the crayons. From early on I saw the pattern of this primary color name first followed by secondary color name as a way to distinguish one color from another.

Paint Chip Color Array.jpg

Anyone who's gone to the hardware store to buy a can of white paint knows about the zillions of options there are for “white” paint. Do you want a yellow-white, a pink-white (which has a whisper of red paint added to the can), a cool, blue-white, a white with a warm, green cast...??? You get the idea. Once you understand about Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Colors you can start to see what makes up a particular hue.

Hold Tight Quilt - Art Class.jpg

I'm remaking a Hold Tight quilt for this sew along to put myself in your shoes of where to start for selecting colors. I had no color scheme in mind, so I got out my watercolor paints. If you don't have watercolors then attempt the same exercise with colored pencils, acrylics, pastels, crayons, markers, colored tissue paper that can be overlapped, or anything that can be mixed, blended, or overlaid and put onto paper for this lesson.

Begin with mixing Primary Colors to make violet, green, and yellow. Try to get as close of a match to a true Secondary hue as possible just to give yourself a clean and bright color sample (see Intensity definition). Next, create your Tertiary Colors. This is your starting point.

Start mixing colors and see what you end up with. I guarantee you'll create a lot of stuff you're pretty meh about but what's happening is you're learning about color and what colors go into to making a new color.

Now it's time to add black to your colors to create shades and darken a hue. A fun outcome of adding black to yellow is you'll create a drab olive green. True story: I never use a pre-mixed black paint when painting. I always create some sort of near-black from the colors already used in the art.

Next, add white to make tints and lighten a hue.

For some real fun try mixing colors that are directly across from each other on the color wheel (e.g. Complementary Colors). The results can vary from creating different brown hues to different gray tones depending on what colors make up the resulting hue.

Art Class 2.jpg

After this exercise about shades, tints, and tones you'll start to notice how adding black, white, or a Complimentary Color has changed the original color's intensity and value. Intensity and value play a big part in relative contrast and why some colors appear dull and other bright. Using fabrics of the same relative intensity but of varying values is a good rule of thumb to give the overall effect of unity. All bright colors look less bright when placed in the same quilt or piece of art. Likewise if the palette is all muted or duller those colors make sense together because of the relative sameness. Now that's not a hard and fast rule, just an example. Many times in art, mixing intensities of colors can create a focal point where the bright, pure color stands out above the more muted tones. Artists often use colors of different intensities, temperatures (cool or warm), and values to make objects advance or recede in a painting.

Contrast is very similar to Intensity and describes the amount of difference between two or more colors. We know as quilters that contrast plays a big part in how a block reads or a quilt pops. If there’s little or no contrast between touching colors (or prints) then the overall effect is very flat and at a distance may read as one solid mass.

Watercolor Mixes Hold Tight Quilt.jpg

A great way to make a transparency areas successful is to utilize dark, medium, and light contrasting colors. Dark, medium, and light contrasts can be positioned in any order but I’ve found when a dark color is used on a balloon and a light colored balloon is overlapping it, using a medium (mixed result) color in the transparency area will be most affective for creating a transparency illusion. See the photo below at the transparency overlapping blocks.

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Take a look at the colors you mixed and hopefully, there's some colors and blending that really speaks to you! For my quilt(s) I'm using Art Gallery Fabrics Pure Solids. Pull out all your solid fabrics or take your paper swatches to your fabric store for reference when purchasing fabrics. You may want to cut out the paint or mixed samples you want to work with. Assign the colors and color combinations you love a fabric that matches as close as possible. Don't feel you need to follow your mixed samples exactly and depending upon your available fabric colors you may need to make adjustments. Implement what you've learned in this mixing exercise and soon you'll be able to confidently make judgements about color mixing in your minds eye. Remember to look closely at the underlying colors that make up the color of the fabrics and select the transparency fabric color that would simulate as closely as possible the “mixed” result if you could mix the fabrics on either side of the transparency shape. Notice in the Monochromatic color scheme examples I’d grouped the colors by yellow-greens, greens, blue-greens, and aquas.

I’m calling my second Hold Tight quilt the Art Class Color Story because the above photo was the AGF color palette I came up with after my paint mixing exercise. Because I still need some print in my life I like adding a fun printed backing to an all solid quilt top. The Sporangia Plaid print from my Art Gallery Fabrics Signature collection was perfect!

The Art Class Color Story quilt uses PE-408 as the background and PE-402, PE-405, PE-410, PE-414, PE-427, PE-450, and PE-466 as the transparency fabrics.

If you have a design wall, pin up some swatches and take a step back. Squint your eyes and see if the colors make sense together. Likewise, taking a photograph of the fabric pull and viewing the photo on a screen can sometimes allow you to see color relationships you didn't notice in person.

The Secret Lives of Color Reference.jpg

If you’d like a fun read about fascinating and unknown histories of color, add The Secret Lives of Color to your library. Awarded NPR Best Books of 2017. (Amazon Affiliate link).

My fellow Art Gallery Fabrics Designers, Dana Willard, Mathew Boudreaux, and Alexandra Bordallo along with AGF Sewcialite Carolina Moore will also be sewing along with us and making a Hold Tight quilt. I’m excited to see the beautiful colors and looks all of you will make so don’t forget to snap some pretty pictures of your color lesson homework, fabric selection, or color palette process to share with the other Hold Tight Sew Along makers. If posting to Instagram or other social platforms be sure to use the hashtag #holdtightsewalong and tag me @sharonhollanddesigns so I see your beautiful work.

HoldTightSewAlong Sponsor.jpg

A sew along is a lot more fun with sponsors and giveaways, right!? Our friends at Dritz Sewing, the Fat Quarter Shop, Hobbs Batting, and Omnigrid have generously provided the Hold Tight Sew Along with products I know you’ll love! Every Friday, beginning on March 22nd through April 12th, 2019 I’ll be posting weekly a giveaway on Instagram. By using the hashtag #HoldTightSewAlong on Instagram every time you post sew along photos to a public account (private account posts don’t show up in hashtag pools) your IG account is automatically entered into the weekly sew along drawings! Ideas for what to share include your sew along progress, the “I’m a maker” sew along badge found HERE, your fabric pull, blocks, and finished quilt. Be sure to follow me on Instagram @sharonhollanddesigns so you never miss a thing!

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Fat Quarter Shop - Woodlands Pure Elements Fat Quarter Bundle

Fat Quarter Shop - Woodlands Pure Elements Fat Quarter Bundle

Fat Quarter Shop - Woodlands Pure Elements Fat Quarter Bundle

Fat Quarter Shop - Woodlands Pure Elements Fat Quarter Bundle

This Friday, March 22, 2019 the giveaway prize will be the beautiful 15-piece Art Gallery Fabrics Woodland Pure Elements fat quarter bundle generously offered by the Fat Quarter Shop.

Don't forget the giveaways for this sew along are held on Instagram (not on the blog) and winning names are randomly drawn from the posts in the hashtag pool. By posting images of your Hold Tight color inspiration, fabric pull, blocks, or quilt. Use the official #holdtightsewalong hashtag every time you post your makes (to a public account) and you're automatically entered into the weekly IG drawings! See my Instagram Friday giveaway posts @sharonhollanddesigns for full details. 

My Creative 2016

My good friend Sharon McConnell of ColorGirlQuilts is hosting a fun Instagram event to post pictures of "My Creative 2016". The postings started on December 1st and will run until December 14th. Anyone can join in on the fun and post pics based on the daily prompts. 

Not only is this a great way to review and appreciate all you've created in the span of a year, you also get to see what others are doing and posting about in the same theme. Sharon McConnell's aim in starting the celebration of My Creative 2016 is to: 

"Share all the positive energy that we have in this wonderful Maker community…I hope we can recognize inspiring makers, favorite finishes and ways we have learned and grown this past year."

Several awesome sponsors have generously joined in to offer giveaways, including Pink Castle FabricsHoffman FabricsArt Gallery Fabrics, and Color Girl Quilts.

Read more about the prompts, how to participate, and using the hashtag #mycreative2016 in your IG posts to enter into the giveaway drawings on the Color Girl Quilts blog.

DAY 1 - My Creative Passion

The first day of the My Creative 2016 was all about introductions and talking about your creative passion(s). 

This photo of me was taken around February of this year and shows me surrounded by my passions. I love being a textile designer, quilt designer and sewist. I also love painting, drawing, and gardening but everything has a common end result of being useful, pretty, and joyful to myself of others. 

DAY 2 - My Color of the Year

This was an easy one for me. All I had to do was look through my IG feed to see what color kept popping up in my work. Peach, coral, orange, and sienna. An analogous range of warm peachy tones runs through my designs.

DAY 3 - Proudest Finish

Another easy one for me. Over the last four months I've been doing a ton of secret sewing and it was finally the time to let the cat out of the bag with my big announcement. My proudest finish of 2016 was making 12 quilts in just under four months for a quilt book that comes out next year!

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I'll be debuting my Utility Style Quilts for Everyday Living book for Landauer Publishing at the spring Quilt Market in St. Louis and the book will be in the warehouse by August next year. This is only a placeholder image for the cover as we needed to get something together for the spring catalog. Believe me, I'll keep you posted on the progress of the book when I can show more. But for now, it's only this sneak peek. 

DAY 4 - I Learned Something New

I found this one somewhat challenging for me to pin down. Yes, I could post a pic of my recent obsession for learning needlepoint (see one of the coasters I've been stitching in the My Color of the Year photo) but I feel I've got so much more to learn about that handcraft. Instead, I think I learned more about myself this year then a particular skill. I've learned it's okay to get old and to wear it (stopped coloring my hair in June) like a badge of honor like it is rather than to hide from it. I've learned to be true to yourself and let your inner artist call the shots. Do what makes your heart ❤️ sing. Although I didn't have as much time this year to paint as I would've liked, I did dust off my brushes and play on a few canvases. I was rusty but it made my heart sing! And lastly and most importantly put your family first! This is a fabulous community but social media is no replacement for the real family in your life. Make time for family.

Blue Shade by Sharon Holland

Blue Shade by Sharon Holland

I hope you'll stop by @sharonhollanddesigns on Instagram to say 'hi" and play along by showing us what you've created in 2016. Be sure to use the #mycreative2016 hashtag and you could also win some awesome prizes! 

2012 International Quilt Festival in Cincinnati, Ohio

I was lucky enough to be able to attend the International Quilt Festival in Cincinnati, Ohio this weekend. The show is very inspiring and humbling. I say humbling because all the quilts on exhibit are truly works of art. The amount of creativity and craftsmanship on display is mind blowing. Many of the quilts are not the traditional type of quilt, but employ mixed media, hand-painted or printed textiles, innovative piecing techniques to only mention a few of the construction methods.  I know I will probably never "go there" with my fiber creations, but as an artist of paint and canvas, I appreciate and marvel at the amount of work and talent that goes into these wonderful pieces. Photography was not allowed in some areas of the show, but I did take many, many photos of the quilts on display. Like last years International Quilt Festival show in Cincinnati, I will post some of the quilts I took pictures of -- just a little sample of the show.

Note: The images of the quilts from the International Quilt Festival are not to be used on any goods or ordered for images from items that may be purchased. Please respect the copyrights of these artists.

To make sure I represent each artist and their quilt properly, I have taken a photo of the accompanying write up for the quilt. Sometimes the lighting at the show casts shadows on the quilts and or write up, please excuse these distortions. I have made every attempt to represent these quilt  and artists as accurately as possible.

In alphabetical order:

Aegean Memories

Aegean Memories Closeup

Aegean Memories Writeup

An Autumn Breeze

An Autumn Breeze Writeup

Central Park

Central Park (Side View)

Central Park Closeup

Central Park Writeup

Composition No. 16 - Stars
Composition No. 16 - Stars writeup
Cricket on the Radio
Cricket on the Radio writeup
Exposed
Exposed writeup
Falling Sunbeam - Blue Side
Falling Sunbeam reverse side

Falling Sunbeam Writeup

Height of Tulip Season
Height of Tulip Season closeup
Height of Tulip Season writeup
Kat's Star
Kat's Star writeup
Kindergarten
Kindergarten closeup
Kindergarten writeup
Native Weaving- Feathered Star

Native Weaving- Feathered Star Closeup

Native Weaving- Feathered Star Writeup

O Happy Day

O Happy Day Closeup

O Happy Day Writeup

Orevito Memories
Oreito Memories writeup
Spring Beauties
Spring Beauties writeup
Springtime in the Garden
Springtime in the Garden writeup
Star Medallion with 96 Baskets
Star Medallion closeup

Star Medallion Writeup

Texas Cabins, Texas Wildflowers
Texas Cabins closeup
Texas Cabins writeup
Wingin' It by Christy Meyer
Wingin' It writeup

And those were only 18 of the hundreds of quilts on display! It was a very inspiring show.

After we looked at all the competition quilts on display, we went and strolled through all the vendors booths. Again, hundreds! I have to say I was a bit over stimulated by then and not having a particular project in mind, really at loss for what to buy. I was very, very restraind, and could have gone crazy if I was looking for specific fabrics, saw plenty of fabrics that would have been great for the quilt I am currently working on and nearly finished with! Don't you just hate that!?!

Here are my meager purchases.

I really was scoping out some of the larger ticket items for my "want/need" list down the line, maybe next year.

I did have the pleasure of finding two vendors I would like to showcase that I "discovered" at the show plus a local shop that I just love that is not new to me, but one you may not know.

Check out OliveGraceStudios.com, you will find a talented young lady with loads of fun, fresh ideas. Her booth was just as adorable as she was. I bought this Jot ipad stylus pen there that a family member of hers developed and markets. I was looking for just the right stylus and have already played with it on my ipad, it is terrific. To find this product and more information on it go to: http://adonit.net/product/jot/

Another vendor that had a lovely booth filled with fresh, fun and eye-catching fabrics, books and merchandise was Craft Nectar. You will enjoy her website along with her modern take on quilts.

Then, to plug a local shop that was at the show, Sew-A-Lot Creative Sewing Centers not only has loads of quilting fabric that is a little retro, a little mod and a lot of terrific, they also carry PFAFF and Viking sewing machines. They have an online site you can check out: http://www.sewalotonline.com/

So, now my big inscentive is to finish the quilt that is currently up on my design wall so I can put some of this creative inspiration I just got from this weekends visit to the International Quilt Festival to work!