Chatter Time Show and Tell

At "Chatter Time" this morning, one of my former "roomies", Marg, showed this baby quilt she just finished (just has to add a binding). She used 30's repros in strips. Isn't it adorable and she says VERY EASY! I'm thinking this would be a great quilt to use with the strips from BC that we traded a few months ago. I'm using some of the strips for my Seven Sister's quilt and for the BOM that is coming up but I still have LOADS of pretty pieces.

Here's what I figure I could do: If the white blocks are cut 3"x3" and the colorful strips are 6"x3", it will work out really nice... and isn't that just perfect for our 6" charms or our 3" wide strips!!! I didn't measure her brick blocks because I wanted it to work for our strips... I think she used the standard 2-1/2".

Busy, busy!

Seems like I haven't had much time to sit and relax lately... and even less time to get online and chat as much as I would like to. I've been keeping busy working at the quilt shop, sewing up samples, getting the house ready to go on the market and getting ready for a barn sale. We sure have a pile of junk to go through.

Yesterday I worked on doing a border for the round robin I'm in. I have Denise's to work on and it's all homespuns! I love those! It was a bit challenging to find just the right fabric for it. Our LQS doesn't carry very many plaids (almost none) so I had to head into Traverse City to find some. I decided to turn her block on point and add some stars but also added some little green triangles to the corners. I just love the way they work with the triangles that were put on by AJ. Sure hope Denise likes it... it's going to be a really pretty quilt when it's done... nice and warm and homey.

Today I worked for a bit and I also took home another project... I'm sewing up a quilt that has the "Hungry Caterpillar" as a theme fabric. It's going to be a sample for the shop. I just love Eric Carle books... and have quite a collection. You would think I'd have sewn up a few of these quilts by now but NO... this is the first one I'm working on. I have fabrics to make one but just haven't gotten around to doing it yet. Maybe because I have over 20 UFOs! I REALLY, REALLY need to get that list down...

I'm going to be teaching a class at the shop using Penny Haren's pieced applique technique and the book "The Farmer's Wife"... it's a really pretty quilt. I have two blocks made so far... only 111 to go :) This is going to be a block of the month quilt and we will probably be doing about 5 or 6 blocks in a month. They're only 6" in size and with Penny's way of doing them, they're pretty quick. It's going to be in my FAVORITE fabric line... 30's! The book shows them in civil war prints (my second favorite) but we thought 30's would be cuter. Plus isn't that what most of the farmer's wives would have used?

Fabrics from Chicago

What a wonderful time I had shopping in Chicago. This is just SOME of the goodies I brought back with me. I got lots of civil war prints and found a great vendor with fabrics from Japan. I watched a demo of how to use felts and also needle punch.. SO.. bought some of that too!

Chicago International Quilt Festival 2010

This is the BEST of SHOW... just amazing! How cute is that bottom frog on the left! Pink and Green Vintage quilt... Lots of inspiration here for applique...

Another favorite was this scrappy vintage quilt from the mid 1800's. Viewed from across the room, it's spectacular. I just may have to do a similar one.

Here I am taking a picture of Mary and I (another lady from Charlevoix). We are under the BEAN... not sure if that's what it's called but it looks just like a big bean.

A faraway shot of the bean... with Chicago buildings in the background. We had a nice warm day for this... went up to 84 degrees! Not bad for April in the windy city (yeah, it was REALLY windy).

The Chicago Quilt Festival was FANTASTIC!! I took a TON of pictures and am going to put some on today and maybe some on tomorrow. The one below is my favorite WOOL quilt.. the colors were BRIGHT and BEAUTIFUL. I don't think the camera got the colors just right but it's close. This is a part of the vendor area. I just loved this vendor ... they're "The General Store" from Rockford IL. I love this scrappy tree quilt.

This is my favorite quilt. I love red and when pink and green are added... well... it's just charming! Looks like a summer quilt... perfect for a cottage up here. The applique work was wonderful and I love the edges.

This is the first quilt that caught my eye as I walked in. It is all different blue fabrics... Scrappy Blue! LOVE IT! Great idea for my blue charms from the swap at Block Central... wouldn't this be great in reds or oranges or PURPLES?!

Here's the four of us (my roommates) on Thursday when we toured Chicago. We took the blue line in from the convention area and spent the day seeing the sights. The quilt show didn't open until 5pm so we had all day to bum around the city. Sure was fun! We took a double decker tour bus from place to place and saw EVERYTHING! (well, maybe not everything but a lot!) It's the only way to go.

Easter Bunny at the Brunch

He looks harmless enough, doesn't he?! LOL But I think Jenn was a bit CREEPED out by this bunny. We asked to take a picture with him... and yes, I wanted to be in it too!... He just kind of cuddled up to Jenn... then kept peeking around the corner where ever she was. Must have been a teenage boy in that costume!