Sacramento Show

Thursday, March 23 my quilting friend Kathie and I went to the Sacramento Quilt, Crafting, & Sewing Festival. Sacramento is about 90 miles north of Livermore. With a few congested traffic areas, it took us about two hours to get there.

My husband asked me if I was going with an intended purchase in mind and I said no, I did not need anything. The trip was for fun and inspiration. But with the investment in travel time, gas money, and admission, I would be remiss if I did not buy anything. I wound up purchasing a back pack, a deck of cards, a pattern, and eight yards of fabric.

BACK PACK: Kathie and I arrived ~ 11:15, a bit early for lunch but we reasoned if we waited, there could be long lines at the concession stands. On our way to the food court I bought my first item at the vendor Sew 2 Cute. The first item I caved on was a backpack –  truly so cute, I could not resist it. Here are photos of the front, back, and interior. I especially like the squared off opening that I think will allow for easier access.

Following is the layout and vendors on the show floor. The ones highlighted in yellow are vendors from whom I made purchases. After the layout are listed the other items I bought after we ate lunch and where I got them.

PATTERN: This checkerboard pattern Over & Down Under really caught my eye based on the patriotic sample. Since I bought the pattern at the vendor Blue Heart, I was granted permission to photograph the display.

CARDS: I own a featherweight so I bought a deck of cards with nuggets of historical information about featherweights on each of the cards. I have shown a sample of a few cards. I bought The Featherweight Deck at the Patticakes booth.

FABRICS: On a second tour around the show I bought some novelty beach panel fabric and two coordinating prints to go with it, also at Patticakes. The colors appealed and our master bedroom has a beach theme so maybe pillows? The panel is one yard tall and I have a yard each of the coordinating prints. Because of the directionality, pillowcases are not an option. They each would need 1¼ yard.

I am planning a T-shirt quilt for my grown daughter from her younger days when she was very much into horses. Since a lot of the shirts have a equine theme, I thought this horse print might work out well as sashing between the shirts. I have one yard of each colorway from the Workman booth.

 

Also at the Workman vendor I fell in love with this richly-color, saturated print of critters. Since my youngest son loves bunnies, and the print also has an Easter vibe to it, I gave in to the call of the "gently wild". The bunny is about 3" tall and a curled up fox fits within a 3" diameter circle.

At the Elk Grove booth I came across gold polka dots on two shades of aqua Grunge. They too may work out in my daughter's T-shirt quilt, if not as sashing then perhaps as backing. I bought one yard of each. The shiny gold spots may give the quilt a bit of pizazz. 

These spots also reminded me of one of my kids' favorite books Put Me in the Zoo by Robert Lopshire. Thinking about my daughter's childhood T-shirts probably put me in a kid-years' nostalgic mood. To quote the main character from the well-loved book about his spots...

And I can put them way up high.
Up, up they go! I make them fly!
I put them high up in the air.
My spots fly here. My spots fly there.

The show was fun, the company was fun. The show was not quite as large as other years, but it is comforting to see activities making a comeback after COVID-19.

Bathing Beauties for My Husband

My husband and I were going into JOANN™ fabrics on a whim to look at their jigsaw puzzles. They have quite a selection in our Livermore store and we are hooked on buying and assembling them. As we walked in the door, there smack dab in front of us was their clearance rack of fabric. My husband immediately glommed onto a bathing beauty print. I will agree it was very striking and I did love the blue background. He loved other parts. I asked him if he wanted pillowcases out of it. He agreed that pillowcases would assure him sweet dreams.

I bought 2½ yards of fabric to make two king size cases. Because of the directionality of the print, 1¼ yards is needed to wrap around each pillowcase. The border and accent strip fabrics I would get from my stash. Even though none of the girls is wearing an Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini, the fabric reminded me of that song and so I felt polka dots were an appropriate embellishment. Here is what my husband will see when he first opens his eyes in the morning.

Baby Girl Burp Cloths

The woman who has done my hair for over 25 years is finally becoming a grandmother. She raised two boys and so was thrilled to learn this grand-baby will be a girl. "Finally, Diane, I can do pink!" she exclaimed. I made four pair of flannel burp cloths for her, making sure they had pink or lilac or hearts or flowers... anything that would scream GIRL!

Pink gingham and cute kitties with pink hats have a definite feminine vibe.

Yes, the stripes are blue, but the pink bouquets of roses and the heart shaped blush on the cheeks of the baby elephants are girlish.

 

Hearts and stars in soft girl colors say, "Sweet dreams, little girl."

Lilac hearts and grey polka dots are soft and may also appeal to the tones that today's new moms are drawn to.

I have pre-washed these and enclosed a poem in the packaging. These burp cloths can be given to the new baby or stay at Grandma's house to be used there.

Cleaning and scrubbing can wait 'til tomorrow.

For babies grow up, we've learned to our sorrow.

So quiet down cobwebs. Dust go to sleep. 

I'm rocking my baby, and babies don't keep!

These cloths have triple layers of flannel in the center section to be more absorbent. My blogpost for June 18, 2014 has instructions how to make these from two fat quarters each. They are fun and quick to make and a definite warmup to move on to larger more time consuming projects.