Fiber and Pulp

Catching Up

There are several nice new fabrics in the store today (came in while I was away this past weekend), including some of the Sturbridge Village 2? 3? collection:

We ordered two bolts of backing prints from the SV line, but only one is still in the store (the other colorway sold out completely in less than three days!):

There are also a couple of nice new books:

We also have two new samples in the store ... but I only remembered to take a picture of one of them. sigh. Here is a version of the pattern The Main Feature, pieced and quilted by Marina Baudoin of Fireside Quilting and Fiberarts:

Weekend Quilt-away

I had a great time this past weekend (Friday to Sunday) at Rose Hahn's Weekend Quilt-away. The retreat was held in the Bain Conference Center at the Roxbury Holiness Center in PA. I took a two day class with Dottie Mooreland on making fussy-cut eight pointed stars. The other classes taught were Around The Twist by Lorraine Carter, Calla Lily by Jane Clark, and Circles by Rose Hahn.

Here is the 36" central star I made and the 10" stars to go around:

I had chosen a nice gold-on-beige print for the background (shown above hanging on the flannel wall at the store) ... but that just did not look right when I tried laying the stars out. So, Libbie helped me pick a beautiful Fairy Frost print in pale beige and white that I am going to use. I hope to get this piece finished soon -- I really like the way it came out.

I still have the other 1.5 yards of the Xmas print I used on this piece -- I want to make the opposite large star and try to make some of the Circle Star blocks that Dottie shared with us to go around.

We all had a great time at the retreat -- this is the third year I've gone and I love, love, love it! I look forward to going next year. :)

Tiny Bursts

I went to the quilt show in Harrisburg PA last Friday with my friends Barbara and Patty. I really needed to see some exciting quilts and I got a huge dose! There were quilts of every color and dizzy-making variety ... and from many countries as well. The UK, South Africa, Germany, Japan, France, the US .... I was fascinated by how the colors and types of designs changed from region to region. That is a show I will definitely put on my personal 'must see yearly' list. :)

I worked on the sales floor on Saturday and Sunday. We were busy, busy (and I was tired, tired as a result:). Monday I went to the store around noon -- it was Grad School day (which I love), when the Mimi Dietrich class graduates meet. Lots of happy faces and pretty quilts!

I had trouble sleeping on Monday night -- my joints were shooting tiny bursts of pain throughout my body. I kept waking up from the shooting pains. grrr I spent most of Tuesday in bed ... but, to be truthful, I don't think that helped much. sigh

Today I was happy to be back at the store and looking at pretty colors and happy faces. We got several new fabrics today:

From Alexander Henry, two prints --
Golden Kiku (means Chrysanthemum in Japanese):

And River Rocks:

We also got a nice collection of coordinating oriental prints from Kona Bay:

There were probably some new books and patterns, too, but I forgot to ask the staff. grin.

One thing I got accomplished today for my private life was to choose the fabrics for my class this coming weekend. I am scheduled to attend Rose Hahn's Weekend Quiltaway in PA ... and to take a class with Dorrie Moreland on making large, fussy-cut eight pointed Lone Star designs. I finally chose a Christmas fabric today -- a very pretty Hoffman. I did not want to buy something with a large repeat (I don't have the time to finish a big quilt:) so I chose something with only a 12" pattern size. Maybe my star will be 36" or so across? I look forward to learning how to do this (well, I already know the theory -- hand's on is so much better a way to learn, eh?:).

Salad Days

We just got a great new line of fabric from Free Spirit in the shop. It's called something like Salad Days (should have read the title off the end-bolts before I came to upload these photos ). Everything pictured on these fabrics is edible, including the various flowers. (Nasturtiums, yum!) I think the go-with prints are spectacular for any bright purpose, too. ;)

This is the focus print -- I love the irregular arrangment and the bright colors and shapes!

Here are the 'salad' prints:

And here are the companion prints:

Inspirational Sunday

One of the clubs that meets regularly here at Seminole is what we call Grad School or Grad Class. The members are all graduates of Mimi Dietrich's Year-Long Baltimore Album Applique class. I'm not sure exactly how long the club has been meeting (longer than the seven years I've owned the store:).

Vera Hall, who is a long-time member of Grad School came in to the shop today and gifted us with a glorious show and tell experience. Last year the members of Grad Class did a twelve month long fabric exchange in red and green -- 5" red and green squares of fabrics were traded by the members. Vera used her collection of squares from this exchange to make the top that I have _very casually_ photographed and shown below. The patterns she used (and modified generously) began 'life' as blocks in a Robert Callahan design originally published in MaCall's Quilting magazine some time back.

I took closeup photos of each block, too, but I won't overburden my storage space on this blog just now with them. Enjoy!

:) Linda

Light Up The Shadow

Nasty cold and wet is today's weather. We need the rain badly here in Maryland but Ernesto is kind of over-doing it, in my humble. No, I really cannot complain (except that my body is unprepared for cool weather -- _not_ that I am complaining, mind!).

Here is something we just got in the shop that will light up the darkness whether you are hand or machine quilting-- a brighter-than-bright light for close up!

We picked these cute little lights up because Lois Smith was raving about how great they are for machine quilting visibility (she puts one on each index finger). Thanks to our sales associate, Alice, for thinking 'outside the box' and seeing the applicability to handwork as well (and for modeling it for our photo). :) (NOTE: Remember, when you look at the picture, my camera's flash went off to take this photo. That means that the light projection you see is BRIGHTER than the flash!)

Here are some more great fabrics that came in this afternoon's delivery to add to yesterday's haul that I posted in the last message: