San Mateo Quilt Festival

Yesterday, I went with my husband to the Quilt, Craft, and Sewing Festival in San Mateo. He has a good knack for and likes the challenge of finding what I "need". If a want a pink mini-stripe, he's on it! If I feel a yen for golden stars and moons he goes on a quest. He is also my CEO... Carries Everything Out. He asked me what my goals for this show were.  

I said "No more quilt kits. I have too many. Talk me out of buying any kits!" (I love them all but truth be known some of them were bought because they were a great price. There is also the tendency to think they will make up in a wink but each takes longer than I think and cuts in line in front of other items I want to make.)

What I do want, though, is cloth books for kids. With a 16 month old granddaughter and another granddaughter due in about 5 weeks I need to stock up. Well, I did stock up. I bought ten of them, each more adorable than the previous one. That works out to five per granddaughter.

There are two of The Mitten whose illustrations by Jan Brett are just beautiful. There are two of the Counting Monkey and two of the Calendar babies by Joy Allen. The illustrations by Joy Allen in the book of months are just precious. After all, both girls need to learn to count and recite months of the year. These three are in the top row.

I did not buy two of every book. For Christmas time one will get the snowman book and the other the little light book in the bottom row. One will get The Twelves Dogs of Christmas and one will get The Twelve Cats of Christmas.

I also replenished several of my basic fabrics. Here are a half yard each of some black dots that I use for accenting and outlining and some pin-striped fabric with dots potentially for making binding. I bought a half yard of my signature polka dots theme in shades of pink and orange. It reminded me of a poster for advertising lipsticks.

I knit as well as quilt and I could not pass up  these beautiful, cloth buttons with hand embroidered flowers. I think they will look lovely on the front of a cardigan. One of the notions booth had them for sale and I could not choose from among all the colors she had. I can even envision them mixed and matched on the same garment.

Several years ago I made a burp cloth out of this blue owl fabric. I only had a fat quarter at the time and wished I'd had more. When I came across a yard of this flannel, I just had to buy it for some other baby down the road. It will look awesome paired with a green or a blue polka dot flannel that I already have in my stash.

Of course I succumbed to a few impulse purchases for fabrics that I do not yet know what I am going to do with. Packaging is so important and and this stack of pink, yellow, grey, and charcoal with its bright pink bow, just called to me. I walked away from it twice but eventually came back and bought it.

Here are the fabrics spread out to view. Those spurts of yellow among the grey and pink prints are like bursts of sunshine. The scrolls add a bit of maturity to keep the medley from being too flowery. I am thinking about doing variations of an Ohio star type block, perhaps with a consistent center (the largest scale daisy print, perhaps?) but with the outer points in different fabric per each star block.

My tastes do have extremes. The bright colors and large graphics of the following fabric is quite a contrast with the delicate greys and pinks of the previous bundle. I bought one yard. Its disposition is still undetermined.

Here is the selvage with the design and fabric manufacturer information.

I thought these birds would make a nice backing for a quilt or a feature fabric for a block with the coral-orange, poppy-red, and clear-blue. I bought two yards of this and will just stash it away until inspiration strikes.

While at the show I looked at, but did not buy, a free motion quilting machine, the Tiara by Babylock. It has a 16" throat and you sit in front of it rather than standing. It does not set on a moving frame; you move the quilt, not the quilt head, so it takes up much less space. I hear it is the same machine as the Handi-Quilter Sweet Sixteen. Does anyone have this machine and can give me feedback?

All in all I enjoyed the show with my husband and did not go overboard on fabric. I kept my impulse purchases to a minimum. I did not buy any kits. I gathered information on a quilting machine but made no rash buying decision because of a "show special". Maybe I did go just a bit overboard on cloth books, but I think a grandmother is entitled to do so.