Loot

 If you are interested in Paducah and what I did there, please see the prior two posts 'Paducah 1 of 2' and 'Paducah 2 of 2'.  This post is more of a breakdown of some of the loot I came home with.  But first a couple of photos from the Quilt Museum of miniature quilts on dollshouse beds, so adorable.

I saw lots of things I liked but had to evaluate potential purchase in terms of 'how much does it weigh', 'how bulky is it?' and 'can I buy it in the UK even if it's more expensive?'.  So the result is a rather eclectic collection of things that caught my eye that I thought I could fit into my case.

I'm sorry a lot of the pictures are sideways - I dropped my main camera so I'm having to use my phone and keep forgetting to rotate the pics.

An applique pattern from The Vintage Spool for a tea and cake party

A vintage embroidered pillowcase, some cheater cloth and a panel

AQS museum t-shirt

A kit for a 30s-50s embroidered wall hanging

pack of Moda Wildflowers FQs 

border and block fabric for a quilt I am planning to make: Tannenbaum by Edyta Sitar

Another pattern by the Vintage Spool called 'Cherry Crush' and some fabrics picked to make it with

Pack of Lori Holt plaids because I want to make more of her patterns

'Envelopes' quilt pattern from a magazine I bought while I was there, so I got some background fabric

Assorted dollshouse bits: stain pens, leatherette, mini mirros, Fimo cutters, E6000 glue

Assorted cartonnage fittings (latches, handles etc.) and a nice big bottle of the glue the Youtube teacher likes to use, which you can get in the UK but so much more expensive

Assorted ByAnnie bag mesh, elastic and zips in case I make more of her patterns

Assorted pins

Vintage alphabet blocks, packaged to read 'Quilts'

handmade wooden quilt brooches from the Quilt Museum gift shop (one is a gift for m-i-l)

So as you can see, I had plenty to add to my 'Projects in Waiting' list.

This week I have knit a bit more on the Aldi boucle mint green t-shirt which was my plane knitting project.

I also made some more attemps at the tatted embellishment for Block 11 of the Australian BOM and on the fifth attempt struggled my way to a somewhat lumpy result.  I sewed it on anyway so I can get started on the next block.  The next block is another one with lots of elements, so it took about three hours just to prep the various bits with stabiliser, fusible etc. and I've now started the embroidery.

As previously mentioned, I made up the bound book cover but I haven't photographed it because I'm not happy at all with how it turned out.  I had to repair the handle on my Travel knapsack as well - the knapsack worked brilliantly all week, even when heavily loaded with fabric, but the webbing of the handle eventually frayed and fell out.  I have opened the seams and replaced with a stronger piece of webbing where I have folded over the cut ends and sewed them down - less tidy inside but stronger I hope.

Still waiting to be finished is the ByAnnie Zip It Up Project bag that I started in my class, it just needs the binding but I think I have changed my mind about what fabric to use for the binding.

I forgot to mention in my Paducah posts some of the trends I noticed.  There were multiple vendors displaying what looked like intricate quilts but they were actually selling machine embroidery files to stitch the various complex elements.  I haven't seen this much in the UK - high end embroidery machines must be a lot more common in America. Another thing I saw were patterns for a '3-yard quilt' or a '5-yard quilt' and several vendors selling 3-yard and 5-yard bundles of fabric at great prices for making up these sorts of quilt patterns.  There were multiple long-arm manufacturers and it seemed like almost every American quilter I talked to had a long-arm or at least a mid-arm or sitdown longarm.  I guess with the bigger houses it is more of a possibility to have a dedicated quilting machine. But one woman had bought a Gammill 20" throat stationery machine fitted into a folding table.  The two wings of the table collapsed down on either side of the long arm, for a total width of only 9" she said. That would be much more do-able in a British house. She said she came with five other friends and they had all of them bought a Gammill longarm taking advantage of the show specials - wow. There were more kitted quilts (fabric and pattern together) than you would normally see at a British show, bag patterns/bag making seemed popular, but I don't think I saw any quilted garment booths nor hardly anyone wearing a quilted/patchwork garment - which is a big change from the shows I went to 20 years ago when it was almost the norm to be wearing a patchwork jacket or waistcoat. I didn't see many toymaking or dollmaking vendors I don't think, which are commonly found at UK shows.  A fair amount of panels were available, and patterns for quilts made from panels, including a couple of vendors who were digitally printing their own panels of various sizes - for example, one vendor had mini-panels featuring all 50 states, various countries, various international cities etc.  Another trend I saw, which I don't think I've seen in the UK yet, was packs of lasercut fabric pieces.  John Flynn for example was selling a lot of these, some of them to make miniature quilts which I guess makes sense when the pieces will be so accurately cut.  The edges of the fabric pieces are slightly browned but not singed.

This coming week I am taking advantage of retirement to attempt a day trip over to Holland to visit the Keukenhof tulip gardens.  I'm flying in and out of Luton airport and will stay at Schiphol airport, I'm not going to try to go into Amsterdam or anywhere.  I had a fleeting visit to Keukenhof many years ago and I've always wanted to go back.  The peak flowering time happened while I was in Paducah but there should still be plenty to see I hope. I hope the weather will be kind.