Quilty September 2019 Weekend

The last weekend in September is a quilty weekend in Livermore and Pleasanton California. There is a Pleasanton Quilt, Craft, and Sewing Festival and the amazing Alden Lane Nursery's Quilting in the Garden event (where quilts are hung on clothes lines strung between four-hundred-year old oak trees) that I aim to attend annually. This post will cover the Pleasanton Quilt, Craft, and Sewing Festival. My next post will cover Alden Lane Nursery's Quilting in the Garden.

Here is the layout of the festival and the booths where I made purchases. My husband came with me to the show and we entered from the top of the diagram, wound our way clockwise around the perimeter, and then wended our way up and down the aisles in booth numerical order.

My husband asked if I had a goal in mind. I said that I was looking a particular shade of gray fabric to go with a Christmas car panel print I had.  I wanted to springboard off an idea I'd seen and admired for a nature images panel at Brentwood quilt show in August of 2017 (my post dated 8/21/17). Quarter square triangle blocks were alternated with the panel pictures and I liked the secondary image they made without detracted from the featured creatures. The hourglass blocks are actually quarter rectangle triangle blocks; my car image blocks are not quite square either.

True to the task assigned him, my husband found these three grays. At Patti Cakes (#131-#133) his advance foraging found the speckled gray shown at the upper right. Although not the solid I had requested it does have the fun colors of red and orange-gold of the cars. I bought one yard. It was all they had. As we rounded second corner of our perimeter path he spotted a gray at Sewing Party (#718-#719) and I bought 1½ yards. It is shown on the left in the following photo. I like the subtle two tone effect of the beige/gold thread throughout that I felt enhanced the background cream color of the car images. Once we started our aisle-by-aisle route, old eagle eyes spotted a solid gray at The Rabbit Hole Quilt Shop (#211-#214). Shown at the lower right, it is quite plain but the closest color match thus far. I bought the only one yard piece they had. I guess I must be continually bedazzled by all the the fabrics that distract me, but my husband was focused enough and sufficiently glad to have an assignment they he beat me each time on finding the grays.

Later at Twisted Scissor (#306-#309) I found these two non-gray fabrics but the colors seemed to call out to be noticed since they went so well with the cars, themselves. They are bright and strong though; I will need to use them sparingly so as not to distract from the perky cars. I bought ½ yard of the yellow and two ½ yard lengths of the red/black mini-plaid. To me the mini-plaid had a bit of a masculine feel to it and, to be sexist, the cars also seem more guy-focused.

With my goal of fabric to go with the cars satisfied, I looked at unrelated fabrics. I bought this cheerful, sunny panel that came with a free pattern. I've shown two halves of it in the next two photos and the pattern in the third photo. At a minimum, I think it will be good for me to practice my FMQing. I needs a bright yellow backing and maybe even some yellow thread for quilting. Each square is 10½" and there are eight different ones on the panel.

I also picked up this little note pad for my purse. Measuring 3" wide by 4" high, I like its sentiment. 

I really like pumpkins that are painted in patterns – polka-dotted, harlequin, swirls, checks – but I refrain from buying them because they are difficult to store for the rest of the year. As we rounded our fourth corner, Blue Petunia Quilts (#114-#116) displayed these finished placemats. Their fabric satisfies my yen for those designer style pumpkins. I can make fabric into useful placemats which can then be folded and put away in a drawer out of season! 

Each placemat measures 19" wide unfinished. They are sold as a panel of four placemats plus four 4½" squares that could be coasters. The panel is folded into a zip lock package very tidily so the black raven sitting on the white pumpkin shows. I selected and bought two packages off the rack because I wanted six placemats.

When I got home and explored my treasures – more specifically, removed them from their packaging for photography – I found that I had bought one placemat set and one panel. Probably one customer had looked at a panel package in the booth and replaced it on the hook of the display rack for the placemats. It, too, was folded so the black raven on the white pumpkin showed but the panel image is slightly larger than the placemat image and so it went unnoticed by both me and the vendor. Yes, that tall image, with a height of one WOF x 23¼" wide, is quite striking but it was not what I had intended to buy. Oh, well. It will work well as a wall-hanging for a door and I probably would  have been sick of making placemats after the first four anyway. I can maybe use those four squares from the placemat panel as cornerstones and make the hanging a bit larger with some border sashing. 

I also added to my license plate collection with this one from Blue Petunia Quilts.

I have a fondness for stripes and dots. Besides that one yard of gray from The Rabbit Hole Quilt Shop (#211-#214) I bought two additional one yard pieces there, each stripes. I think the wavy one is quite whimsical and cheery.

The Rabbit Hole Quilt Shop was also selling tea towels and I picked up two of these red dotted ones.

At Second Chance Fabrics (#147-#149) I got these two stripes one ~1½ yards and one ~¾ yard.

At The Quilt House (#601-604) I got these two packages of buttons that I think will go well on granddaughter dresses.

I had been relatively well-behaved purchase-wise up until the last couple aisles where I spent about two thirds of my dollar total for the day in the last final hour of my four hours at the show. It is almost like a bargain bug bit me or a little fabric fairy whispered in my ear "You are almost done! Is that all you bought?" At Elk Grove Sewing & Vacuum (#701-704 & #711-#714) I sort of went crazy buying 10 yards of fabric but every piece I bought is an excellent blender. I bought five yards of blenders in pastel hues. The spotted Grunge pieces are very textural and versatile and the stripes are very practical in medium toned values that can pair with either lights or darks. Now those central swirly dots in the center? Well, ya got me. They are just so darn appealing how could I leave them behind?

I bought five yards of blenders in red and green hues. Cue... Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells!  I doubled up on that fine hash lined print on the right. Two yards of that can easily sub for the background in blocks of a Christmas nature.

Probably the most expensive purchase of the day was a light table by CutterPillar (#519) which my husband pointed out to me as we rounded the final bend in our home stretch. It was he who encouraged me to consider. It is thin, has three light levels and a self-healing overlay cutting mat. I got an extra mat so I can have one with gridlines and one without for less distraction. It also works four hours on a rechargeable battery so I need not be tethered to an outlet. This will sure beat taping things up onto the window of my sewing room and working vertically. It will also allow me to take it to another room or to a class and also to work at night when it is dark outside. It has the sleek lines of an iPad making it especially appealing to me as an Apple fan. I chose the Premium size, a 13"x18" board with a 12" x16" lit area. I decided the Ultra size, a 19" x 26" board with a 17"x 24" lit area would be not as convenient to move around and was actually more than I needed. I am looking forward to trying it out. After we paid for it my husband whispered, "Happy Anniversary. Now I am off the hook." The next day was our 44th wedding anniversary. Nice gift, huh?

There was one last item I bought at the show, from Custom Creations (#801-804). I do not need to sew it, or store it, or design around it. I intend to gift it (recipient undisclosed) because it was certainly too adorable to be left behind. It measures 9"x13". This sequined purse with the gal in big round flowery sunglasses is a real cutie.  She seems to be saying "Ooh... what all did you buy today?"