Spring Water Designs: Quilts and Other Modern Day Heirlooms
Stopping to smell the flowers this weekend, and spend some time with family, but I do have some quick business to do first... According to Random Number Generator, the winner of my little Market Goodies give-away is Number 6 ~ Rebecca! I'm emailing you next Rebecca to get your mailing address. Thank you to everyone for all of your nice comments! 
I wish you all a Happy and Safe Memorial Day weekend. Fly your flags...
...and remember.
One last post with a few little fun things from Minneapolis...
Just to show you what a fun city Minneapolis was, I even snapped pictures of cool structures as we walked about town, I couldn't resist sharing my two favorites :)
Back at the Convention Center...I look so tired ~ but happy! When checking out the Accuquilt booth, I happened to pick up a flyer of Quiltwoman.com patterns that use the Go! Cutter, and there was my Circle Gets the Square pattern. I had no idea this flyer existed ~ It was such a surprise, and I was so thrilled that Heather had to snap my picture with said flyer. What can I say, it doesn't take much to make our day here :)
And while at the Accuquilt booth, we also got excited about some of the new dies for the Go! Cutter. This is the Basket Block, the Rose of Sharon applique, and the 4" Quarter Square Triangles (there are more new ones, like the Blazing Star, and a new Ricky Tims applique, but these three were my favorites). And for the icing on the cake, when I returned home, my local shop, And Sew It Goes, already had the new dies in stock, so now these three babies are mine :)
Another item from Market worth a mention is this cute little sewing desk from Arrow Cabinets. I just love it in this pistachio color! It wasn't new this year, it caught my eye last year in Pittsburgh, so I'm thinking that means I might just need to have one...
And to close out our trip, here is a view from our hotel. We were only on the 5th floor, but the city evening was still a wonderful sight. Don't forget to leave a comment on my last post to be included for a chance at the give-away! Random number is being picked tomorrow, so don't delay :)
As you can see, the weather was beautiful in Minneapolis, and we thoroughly enjoyed our short stay in the city. 
Here are just a few sights and neat finds from Market.
I got to meet up with Jo Morton a few times, and here in her booth Heather snapped our picture ~ and we just had to show off "The Jo Bag". The quilts behind us in Jo's booth are just a couple of her beautiful new creations in her new book, "Coming Home". 
I attended Mary Koval's Schoolhouse session where she introduced her new fabric line with Windham Fabrics called Baltimore Album. It's based on this antique quilt from Mary's collection called the Lady of Victory Quilt. It was a treat to see it in person. Mary was taking it to donate to a Wisconsin Quilt Museum after leaving Market. 
The Baltimore Applique Society is reproducing this quilt and a complete pattern set will be available in the future. 
This was a cool new tool debuting at Market. Sullivan's The Cutting Edge Ruler, along with having nice markings (and I love the light frosting), it has a diamond powder encrusted edge to maintain the sharpness of your rotary blade as you use it ~ how cool is that! These will be available on the market soon in many great sizes, and the prices are very reasonable. 
And for a little Market fun here at home, I'm having a giveaway of some goodies that I received at Schoolhouse and picked up around the show. Included in my giveaway are a coveted Andover Tote from Jo Morton's Schoolhouse sesssion, an Oodles of Doodles fabric kit from Ricky Tims Schoolhouse session, a pattern called Paintbox Squares from Kim Schaefer of the Little Quilt Company, a thread decorated emory board, a Clover retractable tape measure, a scissors shaped key ring from Brandy's rulers, and an assortment of various free patterns from Clover and Embellishment Village. Just leave a comment on this post, and I'll pick a ramdom person on Friday :) 
Peace!
~Heather
The reverse side has another large pocket
...with a zipper! This is a feature that I wanted to try to incorporate, and I'm really happy with how it turned out. 
These are the inside pockets (a must), and the bag bottom that I made out of a piece of tag board that I covered with coordinating fabric.
And I found these cool reproduction vintage buttons at our quilt show from Piecing the Past. I didn't see them on their website, but if you contact Donna, I'm sure she can set you up with them.
I think this is my new favorite tote, mainly because the Jo Morton fabrics are so "me". It turns out that Heather is going to Quilt Market with me tomorrow, so I gave her my Batik Rectangles Tote from my last blog post for her to carry. I'll catch you up when we get back from Minneapolis, and I'm sure I'll be able to find some neat little things there for a giveaway or two!
I got my Project Quilting Challenge project finished yesterday, and before the deadline! I needed a new tote bag to carry around at Quilt Market this week, so I used the challenge to design this baby. I started with 48 3 x 5" rectangles (8 each of 6 different colored batiks) and two half yard batik cuts. I left half of the rectangles 3 x 5" and sub cut the other half into 3 x 3" and 2 x 3" pieces. Then I randomly sewed them into 5 rows for the bag body. The remainders were pieced together for the handles.
The half yard cuts were used for a nice sized outside pocket on each side of the tote (that measures 4.5" x 7"), the bottom of the tote, and I pieced the lining of the tote and handles with them.
And I added a 6" x 6" patch pocket to the inside with some of the leftovers.
I quilted in a very geometric horizontal and vertical pattern on the rectangles (this helped to hide the lines that sewed in the inside pocket). I outline quilted around the butterflies on the bottom. The overall size of the tote is 14.5" tall x 16" wide, x 6" deep.
I literally used all of the material that the challenge allowed me to start out with, and only had a few chunks and strips left over. It was a lot of fun to be challenged to come up with something quickly ~ I'm not one to work very fast, or to work out of my normal comfort level.
It was Preakness Weekend here in Maryland ~ congratulations to Lookin At Lucky!
And Preakness Weekend here in Columbia Maryland means Wine in the Woods! Translated for non-locals: that's rows and rows of great wineries to sample from, good food, great music, and lots of artisans all set in beautiful Symphony Woods ~ and as an extra perk, the weather was exceptional!
This year Solomon's Island Winery was our favorite ~ my big wine purchase of the day was their Black Raspberry Merlot. My other treasure of the day was a pretty beaded necklace I got from a local artisan called A Bead Apart. She had an entire booth full of lovely jewelry.
... they had live human statues...this one in a loin cloth...too funny :)
So I got a little sewing time yesterday and today and I was able to finish my next Nearly Insane block. This is block number one. I started the center of the block on the machine, but since I wasn't going to be home much, I finished the outer sections by hand. 
And I started cutting for this little tease of a project. It's for a challenge over on Kim's Crafty Apple blog called Project Quilting. I'm starting with 48 3" x 5" batik rectangles...
And two 1/2 yard cuts of these sweet little prints. I've been floating the design in my head all week, but haven't been able to get to my sewing room much. I hope to get it finished tomorrow night though to meet the challenge deadline of Sunday at noon. We'll see if life lets that happen :)
I am getting a pile of Miniature quilt tops that I am starting to get quilted, and am looking for ways to use them around the house.
I have a couple to hang in arrangements on the wall as well as the ones I'm setting around and using as table mats. How do you display your miniatures?
I spent Mother's Day and some of today in my garden. Besides the plants that I put in, I have some new little additions that I found on bargain shelves. This cute little guy was 50% off at Joann's ~ he was just too happy looking to leave in the store. I've been looking for a garden gnome for some time, and he was just right :)
And this little stone bunny was found at Goodwill in need of a new home, so I put him in an herb bed that I'm planting. 
The weather has been very cool here the last few days, and Butters is really enjoying sprawling out in the grass. It's been nice to slow down a little and just take a breath this weekend. 
Over the years I've built up quite a collection of "Mom Gifts". Some are pretty abstract.
Some are purely art, for art's sake,
Some are functional.
I think most moms have a collection like mine. This is a sampling of the treasure box that I keep in my closet. Most were made in Art Class, Sunday School, Vacation Bible School, Scouts or Summer Camp.
And then some are just original little trinkets, thought up and given from the heart.
I received this tiny little box from my daughter one day for no particular reason. It wasn't my birthday, anniversary or Mother's day, just a summer afternoon when she had free time on her hands. The little box contained items that symbolized things for me. The two sided, enclosed note is what made it so special (the the flag pin for the day before the 4th that she refers to on the first side of the note is my birthday ~ July 3rd).
I love that she dated it and included her age :) Heather moved out this past year, and I still have her little gift box, I still remember these things, and it still makes me smile :)
