Quilting at the Big E

We got back from W. Springfield, Mass., around 11:30 Thursday night and agreed that we'd had a good time. After leaving at 6:30 am on Wednesday, I was quilting and sewing in Sheila's SM Creations booth by 10:00 am. Our booth was in the Vermont building of the Big E, the Eastern States Exposition, just across from the sugarmakers and Ben & Jerry's. The fairgrounds are huge and over a million people come during a two and a half-week period.

Each state has a building on "State Street" and there's a historic village (Storrowtown) along with the usual farm animals, food and craft booths, and other displays. Every day at 5 pm, there's a parade featuring various high school bands, and at 7:30 there's a Mardi Gras parade. We ate plenty of fair food, including lobster rolls in the Mass. building, tomato/basil salad (Conn.), apple pie a la mode (Vt.), artisan pizza (Vt.), and a New England turkey dinner (Storrowtown).

It was a thrill to see my tulip quilt (from 1994) and my tulip vine quilt ("Summer" - just finished below) hanging over the entry doors and quite visible as people left. I pointed them out to the Vermont tourism person who looked at them all day long, and I told quilters visiting our booth to look up when leaving. The third quilt was made by one of the sugarmakers in the booth across from ours.

I spent most of each day, from 10 am to 9 pm, quilting a colorful appliqued piece and sewing a few other pieces. I had prepared a few quilt blocks to hand piece as well as some appliqued items, including the Basket Case Quilters block of the month and a class sample in batiks. A lot of people stopped by to look at Sheila's quilt based on a photograph of sugarmaking. One woman called it "guy-catching," and it did attract quite a few men. Women browsed through the table toppers, tote bags, patterns for fusible applique, and other items. One couple asked for advice on buying a sewing machine, and a young woman showed me a photo on her phone of a table runner she had just made out of yo yos.

We didn't sell a whole lot, but I did chat with quite a few quilters and wannabes, as well as "Mr. and Mrs. William Gillette" who strolled by on Wed., Connecticut Day, to promote Gillette's Castle. I was also pleased to reconnect with some librarians, current and former, including ones from Wells River, Franklin, and Stamford/Wilmington. Paul helped out the sugarmakers who were very busy the whole time, and we decided it would be fun to come back sometime and "do" the whole fair.

Quick update

There is a definite touch of fall these mornings, which are generally foggy and chilly. Last night, it got down to near freezing, though, since the midnight sky was clear and full of stars. We went down to the Tunbridge World's Fair on Thursday, and our drive took us through a valley where the leaves were definitely turning and the views just beautiful. We looked at prize-winning vegetables, some quilts, and lots of historical exhibits. We also had hot dogs (me), Italian sausage (Paul), and apple crisp with vanilla ice cream for lunch.

I have been busy getting things together for our two days at the Big E next week in Springfield, Mass. I need a variety of projects to work on and to last me two full days. I have one set of Sylvia's Bridal Sampler Christmas blocks to make, assorted SBS blocks, and a couple of applique pieces to work on. I'm afraid I'll run out of things to sew, so I will probably be over-laden. I've also been working on a class sample for Dee to hang in her shop to advertise an applique class I'll be teaching this winter.

Besides the Big E next week, I also have meetings of the quilt show committee and the Heart of Vermont Quilt Guild. Saturday night we have tickets to see the Maori dancers at the Barre Opera House. Should be fun!

Now a "basket case"

As if I didn't have enough UnFinished Objects (UFOs), I heard about some quilters in various Dear Jane groups that are doing a block of the month project, with all the blocks being baskets and designed by members of the group. I love the shape of baskets, especially those with flowers in them. So I finally jumped in, too, and joined the "Basket Case Quilters" group on Yahoo!UK.

We can do September's block in either 6" or 12" (or both), but the blocks will vary in size. I chose to do mine as a 12" block, figuring I might end up with a nice throw by the end of the year. I finished mine yesterday. As people finish, they are receiving patterns for a bonus block but I am going to try to resist doing one. I need to turn my attention to sewing a sleeve onto "Summer" so that it can be hung in the Vermont pavilion at the Big E, the New England States Exposition in Springfield, Mass., later this month. Paul and I will be there, too, working in the sugar makers' and quilters' booths, respectively. I plan to take some hand quilting as well as some fabrics for making Sylvia's Bridal Sampler blocks along to demo in the booth. Pat and Jay will be there promoting cheese, but we will probably all be too busy to do more than say "hi." Should be interesting!

A coupla photos

I've been quilting up a storm! Too busy to blog, and while I roared through a couple of mysteries, I am now bogged down with our book group's book for September: Light in August by Virginia Woolf. I managed to get side-tracked very easily whenever I sit down to read it. Here's a photo of "Summer" which I just finished binding. I still need to put a hanging sleeve on and then it will be ready for The Big E. I am also going to put a sleeve on this baby-sized "Dear Jane" quilt in 1930's fabrics.

I was planning to work on my Asian "Dear Jane" quilt this summer and even bought some Amish black for the sashing at Keepsake. But that will have to wait until later in the fall. Right now I am quilting the 3"-6"-9"-12" Ohio Star block quilt in three 2' wide sections. It is going well with lovely variegated thread around the stars and curly-cues in cream on the plain areas. I love the colors - red, teal, caramel, and chocolate. Yummy!

Somewhere along the way, I also got captivated by Sylvia's Bridal Sampler, which features 6" blocks rather than the Dear Jane's 4.5" ones. I am making my blocks in bright colors with a cream and beige pin dot background. These will be a good pick up project to demonstrate at The Big E (Sept. 23 & 24). I also signed up for an SBS Christmas swap. Each person is making sets of the "Sarah's Choice" blocks in red, green, and tan. Here are blocks for my first two sets. I have another set cut out, and even if that's all the blocks I make, I'll end up with 18 different blocks for a little throw. They are due Oct. 31.

Fun at camp

Quilt camp on Wed. was great fun! It was my first retreat of any kind, and it was nice to be at the former Windy Wood Farm, 1/2 mile down the road. There were 11 of us, and 6 people brought Featherweights. Everyone worked on her own project, and our hosts just kept supplying us with goodies and drinks.

Paula and I pinbasted a quilt she had made for homeless veterans, put together blocks by various people for another, and then pinbasted that second quilt. I took home the first one to quilt and bind. She had brought a little quiz which suggested we each choose a "name," and I chose Miss N. Daditch since I can't quilt in a straight line, even though I try. This red, white and blue twin-size is being shakily quilted in a grid pattern, a little at a time.

The rest of the day, I spent sewing a binding down on a ninepatch/snowball quilt that just came back from the longarmer. I'm going to call it "Summer," since I made a bathmat for Jenny with the leftover blocks and that's what my mother said it looked like. I got about 3/4 of the way around and there were several other finishes and good beginnings that day.

Lunch on the porch was a lovely curry chicken salad in a tomato, croissants from Montreal, veggies, fruits, and apple squares. At 3:30, just before going home, we enjoyed rootbeer floats, cookies, and M&Ms. A very caloric, but productive day!

I haven't worked on the binding but have quilted about half the quilt since Wed. It's been a little hot, so I am diving into a good book, Stitches in Air, a novel about Mozart's mother that Axel passed along. Having read a novel about Mozart's sister a few weeks ago, I'm really enjoying it and now want to read a biography.

Busy week

Quilts and quilting are on my mind this week, as I head over to the Vermont Historical Society to help with a quilt preservation project this afternoon. They are rolling all of their 250+ antique quilts on new, acid-free rollers, interleaved with tissue paper. It should be very interesting and offer a glimpse of their collection, which I hear is great. Today is a trial run, and then volunteers will help in the coming weeks.

I spent this morning gathering sewing stuff for Quilt Camp tomorrow and a Wildersburg-wide yard sale in Sept. I probably have more projects than I need for tomorrow - a quilt that needs its binding sewn down, a small wallhanging to finish quilting, some paper-pieced triangles to hand stitch, and some 9" quilt blocks to contribute to at least one quilt for homeless veterans. The group that is organizing the veterans quilts is looking for at least 88 quilts. Our guild president solicited blocks, and we'll put the quilts together tomorrow. I'm taking my sewing machine and some scraps just in case we need to make a few more blocks. I also have a batt that a friend donated and offered to quilt one which I hope to get all pin basted tomorrow.

As for the yard sale, I dug through my stash and collected a bag of fabric that I always pass over when looking for things. Some of these came from Tante Wil's stash. I think she was planning to do a quilt in plaids, but I don't think I ever will. There are also quite a few glitzy fabrics that I hope someone else will like. I'll have to measure and price them all before Sept. 12. I also found some notions that I'll never use. And there are many more parts of the house that I'll collect stuff from for the sale. Amazing to have "junk" after all that downsizing this winter.

As I write this, I hear a little backhoe and crew ripping up some driveways, including ours, in preparation for putting in new ones. This is the beauty of condo-ownership - things just happen without our having to fret over contacting contractors, waiting, paying, etc. The car is parked on the lawn next door for a few days. And speaking of cars, my son has finally found one to buy, a lovely, used Honda Accord. It should be his next week sometime.

A lapsed blogger

I see that the last blog post was dated July 12, and here it is, August 4! Summer just keeps slipping away. I've been quilting and reading a lot lately. Finished machine quilting Incense and Peppermints and put the binding on. I made a yellow and green "windowpane" quilt for a new baby, and used a pre-printed fabric to machine quilt from the back. The printing washed out in the washer and the quilt looked great, despite the fact that I went the lines more than I sewed on them. Then I made and machine quilted a baby-sized quilt using Dear Jane swap blocks in '30's fabrics. I'm handquilting the blocks when it isn't too hot out. I think I have five more to go.

After a trip to Keepsake Quilting in NH with a friend, I embarked on a new quilt using a beige background fabric with red, teal, caramel, and brown in it. The Ohio Stars in 3", 6", 9" and 12" blocks use those same colors, and I had to order 3 yds. more by phone. Today I bought 2 more yards of caramel and dark brown, so it is growing like topsy - and looking good. The 3" blocks are tough to make but very sweet to look at.

Barre's annual Heritage Festival (formerly Homecoming Days) was July 25 & 26, so we were busy with the Friends of the Library booksale and the info booth. We were pleased to attend the civil union of the folks who purchased Maplecroft and to see the wonderful job they've done decorating and remodeling.

It was a busy weekend. For my birthday, Paul and I went to a musical called "Breaking Up is Hard to Do" at St. Michael's Playhouse. The music was by Neil Sedaka so it was a sing-along kind of evening. Lots of fun. Then on Sat., my cousin from Curacao visited with his wife and 2 of their 3 kids, ages 9 and 13. We took them for a tour of the granite quarries and to Hope Cemetery, as well as to Bragg Farm's sugar shack. All enjoyed maple creemees, of course! I was sorry to see them go, but it poured on Sunday so it was a good day for them to travel down to Long Island to visit my brother.