At Market 1 - Schoolhouse

As retailers set up their booths the day before market, shop owners arrive and attend a day of presentations called Schoolhouse. They are very serious about learning all they can, here they are gathering their things and checking the schedule for what's next as they leave Maggie Bonanomi's presentation.

At some markets I have helped with these and several times I have made a presentation. This year I was happy to study the schedule and see what I could see.

Some presenters have good ideas, clever tips about marketing this or creating that. You see products that will help you work. You hear about new books. I wandered in to the presentation about a new C&T book, Quilts Made Modern. I loved the quilts, you will too. Bill Kerr has a great color sense and a plan to follow for making some of the improvised quilts we love. And good quilt names.The one behind him left is Big Dots, the other behind right is Beach Glass. I didn't get the name of the one he's holding up, we'll just have to get the book. He mentioned using strip piecing and cutting, being efficient.

I seldom stay at schoolhouse all day but yesterday the last session included a presentation by several quilters from Gee's Bend, Alabama - Loretta Bennett and Louisiana Bendolf. Windham fabrics will offer kits for several quilts they designed. I'm looking forward to stopping by to see them at the booth this morning.

Mobile Craft Area

Here it is, the mobile craft area in all it's glory, gleaming in the morning sun.

We have a quilt to bind. We have scraps to stitch together. We have strips of fabric to be worked into toothbrush rugs. We have beads and buttons to string onto telephone wire! We have oil pastel pencils for drawing.

We do note that the food area is threatening to overwhelm the craft area. And that better craft item containers could be employed NEXT time. Today we hope to stop at antique shops along the way, another threat to the craft area space......

Tomorrow - market schoolhouse presentations begin. The craft area will likely move inside a local holiday inn.....

My take-along scraps

As I've packed for trips recently, I've also packed bags o' scraps. It is a comfort to have them along, I can continue to play with fabric and stitch pieces together whenever I get a chance.

I color coordinate the scraps. For the last trip, I took a bag of fall colors. In less than 2 weeks, I had a 27" square piece finished (I am quilting it now). I didn't worry about getting big parts done on the road, I just stitched lots of little pieces together. When I got home, I stitched those sections together by machine (it went faster, which I was ready for at that point).

I spotted a jogger the other morning wearing a tomato red t-shirt and chartreuse shorts. Oooh la la - THOSE are the colors of my next scrap quilt, I decided on the spot. I was shopping that day, I noted those colors are hot at Crate and Barrel (that is their cute holiday dishtowel right).

Those colors are pulled from the scrap box and packed. I'm heading to quilt market in Houston this week. Believe it or not, we plan a craft area in the backseat of the car. If we are crazy enough, we might show you.......
I will try to show you what I see at market, it is always creative nirvana.

Overcoats and couches

This is one of the things I DID bring home with me from the antique mall last week.

At dinner tonight my family was admiring it on the wall. They said it made them think of overcoats and wool couches.....I brought it home because of the warm fall colors. That and I find it a little impulsive, with the skewed plaids and the casually put together blocks. I like looking at how it was put together. It seems to have been assembled in rows of four-patches and two- patches, all about 3 - 4 1/2" square.  It is sturdily machine pieced, with dark yarn ties in the middle of each block. The binding is from the 1930s, the back is a soft striped flannel.

The quilt measures 64" x 72". I note there are about 6 wools used - one plain beige piece, and just 5 bright red blocks.

A Block Scrapbook=Carnival!

I LOVE this quilt top. I found it in Manhattan, Kansas a few years ago. It was truly love at first sight.

This top has travelled to many guild presentations with me. An older woman in our guild told me tops like this used to be made often in quilt groups. Everyone in the group would give a leftover block to one quilter and she would put them all together. The quilt historian kind of confirms that. She said what is interesting about this top is how many fabrics are from the same era (1920s - 1930s).

It measures 62" x 66". Most of the blocks are about 12 1/2" square. Besides being visually over the top, what is great about this top is that every piece was pieced on a foundation (there is understandably a combination of hand and machine piecing). Finding it unquilted makes that easier to study.

Thanks to Sujata for the name! You are good at naming quilts!

Ambitious friends

I am a right-brain person. Visual clues are the ones that click for me. I tend to blur out when it comes to seeing the big picture (but so appreciate those who do).

I have been fortunate to befriend many good thinkers in my life. They think and analyze and have a plan. Some of these thinkers organized a photo shoot recently for our quilts. Four of us brought quilts and tops. We had lights and a wonderful flannel covered design wall, sheets to bounce light, cameras and tripods. I shot 143 photos that afternoon. I was pretty tired that evening.

But thanks to that afternoon, I'll be able to show you several of my wackiest wildest quilt tops. One tantalizing detail is shown above. Tops and their descriptions (in my visual manner) to come.......

Restraint

I went to a huge antique mall today, in Wichita, Kansas. I looked in every booth and found a few great things that you will see eventually.  What I'm most proud about today was my restraint. I saw a few very odd things and I did NOT bring them home with me. What helped was having my camera along - I decided to photograph them to show you instead.

I lingered a long time by this tortured piece. It's a handmade knife block, made to be hung up on the wall. I'm drawn to figures and faces and really wanted this but check out the hands. Those are cuphooks on the hands, yes! One must ask what were they thinking? hooks for hands? Just too creepy to have around, I decided.

Soon after that, I found this little doll PINCUSHION. Again, what were they thinking? Did they not know about voodoo dolls? And look at her face. She seems resigned to her fate. Again, I just had to pass.








As I turned around, guess who was lurking there? A framed Sunbonnet Sue. ARGH!