Quilt, Craft, Sew Festival in Pleasanton

Yesterday I went to the Alameda County Fairgrounds to check out the Quilt, Craft, and Sew Festival that is there for three days. First thing in the door I bought a set of clear nesting zippered project bags. I have seen them at previous shows and passed but this time I purchased them because  – how does that song go again – they were ♬ Always on My Mind? ♬. I picked red to go with the soft travel case for my new Featherweight Fiona.

I went to the festival admonishing myself that I was absolutely forbidden to purchase any more kits. One of my 2015 quilting goals is to either make up or repurpose the fabric from the backlog of kits in my stash. I kept my resolution. It was hard, but I refrained. And I did rein myself in on fabric purchases. I avoided those stacks of fat quarters that blend oh-so nicely and are packed oh-so seductively with ribbon or clever folding. I did buy other items, though.

I bought two panels. One is a cloth book titled Whose Baby Am I? It is produced by Elizabeth's Studio and I love their prints. They are generally patterned off artists or authors; but, they seem hard to find. The vendor helped me understand why. Apparently Elizabeth's Studio requires a very large minimum order and so their selections are prohibitive for small local shops to stock. Panels by Elizabeth's Studio are not new to me.  Previously I've made Little Baby Signs and My Baby's Day into cloth books. The panel Who Says Woof is in progress to be a quilt instead .

The rest of the panel looks like this. I like that it has unique baby animal names for a young child to learn.

I also bought a cute Thanksgiving panel. How could anyone pass up this Lady Pilgrim Beaver?

The fabric line is Perfectly Seasoned by Moda. Here is the rest of the panel. I thought the center would make a cute table runner and perhaps the small squares would work as name cards or coasters. This project will be good FMQ practice on Heidi, my HQ-16.

I bought minimal off the bolt yardage. I bought one yard each of three fabrics. These Lazy Stripes in red and in aqua had a whimsical feel to them that called to me. They will be a good staple in my stash. My one impractical splurge was the sunglass fabric. There is no intention to group these together but seeing them next to each other, they would play nicely with each other.

Where I did go a bit overboard was on buttons. Aren't these adorable? Guess which ones will go with that sunglass fabric perhaps on some little girl's dress. With only one yard of the sunglass fabric however, the dress would need to have a companion print of some sort. The other choices from the same fabric line did not excite me so I passed on them. I also have fox fabric to go with the fox buttons. The owls may go on a little boy's sweater. Those ponies are not the truly trademarked My Little Ponies™ but I am sure my granddaughter will be pleased with them all the same.

I also bought more patterns than I probably should have. The left one is just so perky. The middle pattern uses a technique I have not tried called raw appliqué. I saw a quilt with this technique at the DVQ show last weekend and loved it. After washing several times the raw edges of the flower petals fluff up. The pattern on the right, for a tote bag, had some curved design features that were eye-catching to me. There is no way whatsoever that I need another tote bag but this looked fun to make. It has a ton of inner pockets and a zippered central divider section. I will enjoy pairing different fabrics from my stash to assemble it. The booth owner said it took her about four hours to make so I look forward to it as a small entertaining project. One drawback is that I suspect it calls for interfacing and stiffeners that I do not normally stock and will need to buy.

So that's it for my purchases. Window shopping vicariously on a blog post does have its benefits. Real life shopping is fun but now I have to find a place to put all this away. The real challenge will be to remember that I have it and to be able to find it again when I want it!