Quilt Immersion Weekend

Every fall, near the end of September, Alden Lane, the local nursery in Livermore, hosts an outdoor quilt show called Quilting in the Garden (details here) which runs Thursday through Sunday. Quilts are hung among clothes lines amid the giant oak trees on Saturday and Sunday and a modest number of vendors are there. Classes and lectures and garden tours are offered throughout the four days. I took a class called Fan Dance from Alex Anderson on the Thursday.  Here is a block from my Fan Dance class that included paper piecing (fan blades), curved seams (outer fan radius), and machine applique (smaller inner fan radius) - a little bit of each technique.  The fabric I chose is mostly from a line by Ty Pennington with some turquoise and bright green additions from my stash.  The turquoise and green will get distributed more than they are in these few learning blocks.  I have no real time scale or size plans for this quilt.  I took the class mainly for the instructor and techniques taught.

On Saturday I went to the quilt displays with my husband.  Here are a couple of the quilts that I especially liked.

We also visited some vendor booths on Saturday. I expanded my stash of dots and added a unique broken stripe fabric.



On Thursday through Saturday was also a Quilt and Crafting show in the neighboring town of Pleasanton at the Alameda County Fairgrounds which was mostly vendors and a few displayed quilts.  My husband also went there with me on Friday. I love to use these events to stock up on my reads-like-a-solid basics. For me this "basic" translates to polka dots, checks, and stripes.  (Which reminds me of a song by the Parachute Express you can hear here on a U-Tube video.)

I want to make a quilt using the pennants and numbers prints from the Reunion line of fabrics that I bought in Oklahoma during my visit there during my daughter's second trimester. I was on the lookout to match or at least blend with a particular gold-ish beige in the Reunion line and succeeded in finding these options. I plan to add these to break up the too matchy-matchy look that sometimes comes with sticking to just one fabric line.

This is the Reunion line from Sweetwater.  I especially like the first four pennants prints.

At the show in Pleasanton I picked up this novelty print, too, just because.  After all, with my new granddaughter (see last post) I may be traveling a bit more.

Our family enjoys a good game of Scrabble so I could not pass up this novelty print.  I have no idea of what I will use it for, but you have to admit, it is pretty unique.  Perhaps I can use the letters individually on something or maybe make a carrying case for the game with a matching drawstring bag to hold the tiles.