I reached over and grabbed it quickly as one must do when the crowds of women hell bent on buying quilting stuff can easily carry you away.  I was holding this prized half yard close to my chest so it could not be intercepted and then realized my lunch hour was coming to an end.

Uh oh, I looked into the booth and only saw a massive throng of people so tightly packed into a small space that I was surprised they were still breathing.  There was no way I was going to attempt to enter the may-lay and knew I may not make it out on time to class.  I thought, “I will come back later and get this jewel of a fabric after class”.

I am guessing you are already ahead of me here.  Yep, the fabric was gone–all of it.  Had I been on my “A” game, I would have looked to see the fabric company and design style before I put it back.  I didn’t.

I have spent days trying to find that fabric online with NO success.  I am hoping (pretty please quilting gods?) that it is a new fabric that is coming out soon.

The lesson learned is, when I see it, BUY IT.  I can crowd surf with the best of them but I was there to teach and that was the priority.

The Purchases

So what did I buy you have been asking?  This should surprise you–NOT! Thread.  Lots and lots of lovely thread.

First stop was Superior for more Silk. Actually, I made two stops to buy in that booth.  Love love love this thread.  I use it to machine quilt and hand embroider with.

Then I needed to search for “nesting” threads.  Interesting threads in different textures, colors and weights to create a future bird nest(s).  I am very focused when I shop. The photo at top is of the Valdani #12 Perle cotton.  I see nesting material of course.

One booth I always look for at large shows is the Fat Quarter Queen.  Found lots of lovelies there and I am really jazzed about the new Kaufman Fusions Fabrics. Beautiful perfectly scaled tone on tones with great areas of contrasting value.  Perfect for Applique!

There are a lot more colors available, but I have to wait until they start showing up online I guess.  I also found some great candidates for my birds.  The scale is hard to see here but the prints are fairly small and will work well in small areas of the birds.  Animal prints always work pretty well.  It is usually just a matter of finding the right scale.

The Bohin booth was quite popular with me and my students this year.  The really cool new notion was this transfer pen and tissue.

I haven’t tried it yet but it looks really promising.  You lay the transparent tissue over the pattern you want to trace, trace with transfer pen, no need to reverse and iron on.  The tissue can be washed and used again.  Cool huh?  I am anxious to try this out.

I also bought some beautiful hand dyed silk ribbon and a fat quarter of hand dyed silk Organza and…and….and….

Road really did have some good vendors and in abundance so it was easy to find all kinds of new toys and fabrics and….well..a lot of stuff I didn’t “need” but had to have.  This at least should give you a taste of what I spent my savings on.  Now it is back to the huge pile of projects that need my attention like yesterday.

I was very fortunate to have enthusiastic and fun students in all of the classes and I have to applaud them for picking up the lessons for my applique and embroidery techniques via the “speed learning” course.  I saw improvement everywhere and that is what makes it so worthwhile. Hand applique is do-able and can be done well if you learn the basics correctly.

I have made new quilting friends from these classes and received great support for my work.  This is what keeps me going and motivates me to create new quilts so thank you!

Denise, Merci & Karen…..Truly a wonderful dinner out and I loved the killer Margaritas.

I was so ****THRILLED**** to see the “big guns” enter and come to play in the quilt entries. It was such a thrill to see them again in one show in large numbers.  If you were at the show, you were very fortunate.  I hope it is a sign of things to come down the road in other shows. My compadres in applique have been away too long from the shows in these numbers.

The quilt I tried my best to take home with me was made by the wonderful and warm Ellen Heck.  I forgot my camera and took this with my Ipad quickly before another person stepped into frame–forgive me for the poor quality.

Those pesky (but wonderful) judging room assistants for some reason would not let me take it with me when I left, go figure eh? Ellen is an applique legend and believe me when I say, this quilt is absolutely exquisite in so many ways. The sight of it literally took my breath when the quilt was revealed.  What a gift to see it up close and personal.

Was there shopping??  Oh yes, yes, yes. Lots and lots of goodies and my cash was easily parted from me.  I was weak and I admit it. I think the only thing that stopped me from an uncontrolled crazy spending rampage was the crowds!  It has been a long time since I attended a big show where it was nearly impossible to walk down the vendor aisles and to get into a booth almost needed super human patience. However, the goodies to be discovered and toted away was worth every bump and line to look and purchase.

I only have one request….Puh-leeze, if one must stop and have a conversation or looky-loo, don’t stand in the middle of the asiles pretty please? It did try even the patience of the saints.

I am still processing the experience and all I saw and bought.  Unpacking one’s suitcase(s) is like rediscovering the goodies all over again.

Unfortunately that long illness really put a monkey wrench in my schedule.  I lost most of my time for prepping for Road To California so I have been working long hours to get everything ready.  My brain is a blur. If you haven’t been to the Road to California show, here is their video….

I leave this Sunday to judge the show with two others I am anxious to meet and then teaching starts on Wednesday.

I think the Southern California air is going to do wonders for me and I am looking forward to meeting new friends and reconnecting with old ones.

See you soon,

For those of you who have noticed my online absence, thanks for your concern.  I finally brought my computer to its knees the day before Thanksgiving and then my son melted his motherboard.  We refer to it as the Thanksgiving of the computer meltdowns.  We have been battling back ever since.

Having to buy a new computer is never a good scenario around Christmas time but that is the way things always seem to work.  I decided to build a macho machine that would not bat an electric eyelash at me when I pushed it to do massive digital illustrations.  Not just one, mind you, but several at the same time.

I originally wanted a MAC, but since most of my Adobe Creative Suite files were created on a PC, my research discovered they would not play well even given the new operating system of the MAC.  I don’t have the luxury of time to play around to make it work so it was another PC for me.  All of my website, pattern and design files need to be available NOW.

Although, there were issues transferring over data to the new PC, I am thankful for a husband who not only is a reasearch and  design engineer in the high-tech industry, he is also VERY good at anything computer related when it comes to software and hardware issues.  He saved me but it has taken some time to get it all straightened out.  I don’t think anything software or hardware-wise plays well together anymore.

In the meantime, Christmas has snuck up on me and any woman out there knows it is up to us to make sure everyone is happy despite anything going on in our lives at the moment.  I sometimes wonder what it would be like to be the other members of the family and just enjoy someone else doing all of the shopping, wrapping, baking, cooking………

However, all I need are the smiles on my children’s faces and all is good with the world and my efforts are paid back ten times over.

I am taking the rest of December to fulfill these duties and will write again once the holidays are over.

I want to wish all of you and your families a very wonderful holiday season and a prosperous new year filled with joy.

My best,