Commence the Showing and Telling

I know you're waiting with baited breath to see the stuff I got at the IQA Chicago Show. Wait no more! Here it all is!!
One of the things I like best about the quilt show is the ability to get stuff you can't get in one single quilt store. I especially like shopping for new thread so I can see all of the varieties and weights, and especially the colors. I stuck to 30 and above weight cottons for this trip. Also shown are the smallest yo-yo maker and a new ribbon flower maker I had not yet seen from Clover.

Next up is hand dyed stuff. I always spend a ridiculous amount of money on Cherrywood fabrics, as I find their fabrics to be top notch. I also buy from Artfabrik (Laura Wasilowski), Frieda Anderson, and Wendy Richardson. Wendy dyes in the greatest mottled greens, purples, and browns, and I love her dyed damask napkins. They are a treat to sew on.

If you know me, you know I love things from Japan, and the Maeda Imports booth has lovely fabrics from Japan. These are cotton furoshiki (wrapping) cloths. I especially love the Hina Matsuri (Doll festival or girl's day) and Kodomo no Hi (children's day) with the koi cloths. I also love, love, love the kawaii cats and fishbowls. I also got some Japanese knotting cords for some future project.

One thing you won't have at a quilt show is a lack of patterns, books, and DVDs to inspire you. Kits are popular, because they can be made up as is, and folks like to make what they see on display or in the picture. Here are a couple of pin kits (one of wool and one of shibori silk) because I love pins. I also love this Crabapple Hill pattern of embriodered haunted houses called Hocuspocusville. And I love the Quilting Arts booth, where I picked up a couple of DVDs. One is season 2 of the QA tv show, and one by Melanie Testa.

I am not a huge purchaser of novelty fabrics, but I know a couple of people who would appreciate the motifs on a quilted project from these. Some racecar fabric for a certain father, and some Cicely Mary Barker Flower Fairies for a certain mother in law. Isn't that face striking?

Ah, the odds and sods. The grey looking thing is a kimono sleeve, vintage, with sparkly threads in it. It will become a purse. The round things are strips of hand dyed wool from one of the many wool booths at the show. The sparkly stuff in the middle is Stewart Gill rainbow texturizers. The Fuzzy Nabber is a washable lint roller, which I have one of already and just adore. And the little fruits are the weird kind of thing where I could have bought the book and materials to make them myself, but I know I would never do them, so would rather buy the finished products themselves. They have loops for putting on a keychain or project.

Now for the things I made at the show. At the MIU booth (Quilting Arts/Interweave area) you can take classes on the show floor for $10. These are the 3 classes I took (besides Surviving the Runway). The first made the background fabrics, which were taught by Melanie Testa. The doll class was by Debbie Crane. The little charms were the resin class by the Little Windows company. All were great!

Last but not least is my tiara from the Art Quilt reception, and the pin award I recieved for being runner up.

Hope you enjoyed Show and Tell!

End of January

I'm sorry I didn't get to posting this after they were made, but it's been super crazy after going to NYC for the New York Comic Con. (Which was fun, if exhausting...It's a sign I'm getting too old for this crap.)

January's final weekly quilt is of "kadomatsu" or traditional New Year's decorations which represent Heaven, Humanity, and Earth. They are placed at entryways and at gates in Japan, and are literally translated as "gate pines". I have seen some "plush" versions of kadomatsu, but my little graphic one is cute too. They make fake plastic ones that you can put up year after year, like the holiday decorations of your choice. I wanted to make this closer to the beginning of January, but couldn't figure out what to decorate the bamboo with.

I really enjoyed learning more about Japan for this month's theme.

Good Fortune and Long Life

Both of these designs were made in my sketchbook next to one another...

The "Maneki Neko" or "beckoning cat" is very popular in Japanese culture. I could not resist making my own very cute, wide-eyed cat.


The owl, or fukurou, is a good luck symbol in Japan as well. The sounds of the Japanese word for owl also mean "no trouble" which means the owl is lucky. It also symbolizes old age, and owl themed gifts are often given when someone turns 60. I wish my owl was on a lighter background now, because you cannot see just how adorable he is.

Only one more week of Japanese culture weeklies to go.

Weekly Quilt Series- A rabbit jumps over the moon

Where we westerners see a "man in the moon", the Japanese see a rabbit in the moon. The rabbit and moon together is a popular theme. My usagi (rabbit) is jumping into the moon for the night.

I absolutely love this background fabric by Lakehouse Designs. I wish I had more than the little fat quarter I have of it (or what is left of it). When I put the moon on the background, there was a design problem. You could see the flowers "through" the moon, and they were very distracting. I quilted over them quite a bit, and it still didn't "knock them back" (as Pokey Bolton says). So, even though the piece was quilted and bound, newly confident via Judy Coates Perez and my recent class with her, I dragged out the Setacolor black paint, and painted over the flowers. The "cool" thing was that Lakehouse outlined the flower with a thin shimmery rim and metallic gold, which the paint didn't really cover. In the end it was so much better for having "shadow flowers" inside the moon. I really like the new piece. This month's theme has been fun so far.

Weekly Quilt Series- January 2009

It's time to show my first piece in my 2009 Weekly quilt series. This year, I changed the size, and I'm still going to do Monthly Themes. This month's is "Cute Japanese Culture".

This is a "nengajo", or a new years wish postcard, celebrating 2009 as the year of the cow (or ox). My cute cow was drawn on New Years Day in my sketch book, and then I blew it up to be the size needed for the quilt, which is 8 inches by 5 inches (the new series size). In Japan, nengajo are sent to the post office before New Years' Day specially marked as nengajo, and all delivered on New Year's exactly.

I picked the size because I could put two week's worth stacked into a plastic sleeve holder that holds regular sheets of paper.