Spring Market Awesomeness

The culmination of "The Year of Me", ie Spring Quilt Market in Portland, is officially over but for the unpacking - and with luck some fun unexpected orders and reorders from some of the cool new shops who bought me out of Taking Names and almost out of Kickin' Stash, the definite stars of the show for me. I knew I wasn't the only one who thought they were cool designs and now some new quilters west of the mighty Mississip will know it too.

But I am getting ahead of myself. First, here was Barbie's Dream Booth, Wednesday around noon.

This photo is just about life sized. Really.

Pretty, huh?

This is Barbie's Dream Booth Thursday around 6pm

Probably not a great place for those easily susceptible to sensory overload, but I never claimed to be boring and basic.

The only things that photo doesn't show about the awesomeness is how I was the brightest and most obnoxious booth in the entire row. I kid you not, it was two wool people, an earth tones batiks chick, me, then four more primitive wool people in a row. There were many moments where Kelli and Kathy and I wanted to break out in a rousing rendition of "Which of These Things is Not Like the Others." But we resisted. I mean why rub it in that we were so confident in ourselves as to stick out like sore thumbs? This one illustrates it to a tee. 

Please note the "Kickin' Stash and Taking Names" pennants flying from the cormers of the top poles. You couldn't miss seeing us even if you wanted to.

And how awesome are those lime green pole condoms? As long as I don't get a paternity suit from one of the wool women that suddenly one of their creations is batik bright purple wool, I think they probably did their job.

Thursday is always Schoolhouse day at market, which is way fun and a great way to see what the various companies are doing and offering at market. I did a schoolhouse wherein I ran out of chairs, brochures, and even SRO floor space in the room as people were spilling into the hall. It was slightly crazy! I mean, I was up against FAMOUS PEOPLE for heaven's sake. I think it was the name of my talk.

See anyone you know?

Many many thanks to Anne Wiens of Sweetgrass Creative Designs in Shelby MT, longtime FB follower who came by to meet me and ended up being pressed into service as a brochure passer outer when Kathy and Kelli, my market newbie helpers, were off being all starstruck and spooled up and forgot to show up on time. I may never forgive them.

After my SH was over and I could breathe again, we went to a presentation by Island Batik to introduce their partnership with Operation Homefront, wherein the fabrics in their new Quilted in Honor line will make quilt for veterans and portions of the proceeds will go to monetarily help them out. There were many celebs present, including Eleanor Burns, Rob Appell, Alex Anderson, and Pat Bravo. Kelli and I had discussed earlier how we had been 20something geeks back in the day who used to get up early to watch "Simply Quilts", so we were groupies who sat in the front row and accosted Alex Anderson when the SH was over. Embarassingly enough, both of us insisted we watched it on PBS, which lead her to think we were morons I am sure since it was on HGTV. She kindly posed for a photo with us anyway.

I'm certain she thought we were thisclose to being stalkers.

Friday was all about passing out brochures and hottie buttons. Kelli's goal was to hottie everyone in the place, and she came pretty close. By Saturday, we'd moved on to the goal of hottie-ing famous people, and we did pretty well.

Tula Pink.

Photo actually taken Wednesday. Buttons had not even been unpacked but her booth was right near mine; she got one Friday and wore it all weekend.

 Angela Walters

She's twelve. Maybe thirteen.

Bill Kerr

Is he not adorable?

He was a particularly exciting hottie-ing for me (actually he was hottied by Judy Damon, but she kindly came to babysit my booth while I ran over to meet him) as I have an uncle named Bill Kerr and it has always cracked me up to see his name in quilt magazines. This Bill Kerr said he has met two other Bill Kerrs as well, so it is apparently a popular name. He could not possibly have been more sweet and kind, this guy.

Valorie Wells

Yes, Jeanne LeB. I love her teeth. Plus she is just as cute in person as this photo makes her look.

Scott Hanson of GenQ - again this one was Judy, and I never actually got to meet him, but this photo just is too awesome not to share.

Hee hee. Makes me laugh.

My favorite hottiefying (Are we loving how I am conjugating that word into every form I can in this post?) is one for which I actually do not have photo documentation. But I think you will all agree with me that to hottie Rob Appell was really just to confirm what we all already knew. When he stood in my booth and happily agreed to wear a pin I really think we were within seconds of the place bursting into flame. I've linked his name to a photo of him if you don't know him.

You're welcome.

My top three other favorite moments of Market:

1. Catching up with quilty friends in person. Loved the quickie opportunities to reconnect! Jen Eskridge and Robin Koehler stopped by Sat am and it was so fun to see them both. They are both some of my favorite quilting people!

And so pretty.

2. Being scouted out by a major publisher, who came by to court me both Saturday and again on Sunday. I currently have no intention of writing a book, but that was humongo for the ego.

3. Making my best connections on the light rail train. Seriously, you just never know how or where networking works best, and that was pretty funny to me.

My plane is just about to board, so I am going to leave you and go back to reality. But not before I thank Kelli Fannin and Kathy Anderson, my fantastic and amazing helpers. Without them there is NO WAY I could have done this and I truly will love them for the rest of eternity and we will be besties forever and forever. It was so much fun to work with them and see Market through the eyes of a newbie, too.

And not before I swag brag with one final photo of my Sample Spree goodies. I'm guessing at least one of these may be used as a giveaway pretty soon, and that will be my way of sharing the Market love.

The hotel carpet really makes a lovely backdrop.

Next up - a post later in the week to let you know how long it took me to find all the items everyone lost at home while I was gone for a week. You ladies totally get it.
 

Size Matters

The final moments of my frenzied Market Prep are upon us, and I've been giving much thought lately to the size of stuff.

• The size of boxes I am shipping as they pertain to how much money they are going to cost me to get them from my little corner of MA to the Pacific Northwest. USPS flat rate boxes have become my best buddies.

• The size of suitcase that will fit all of my quilts. Amazingly, I actually owned one that was going to work.

• The size of the conniption, heart attack, stroke, and mental breakdown combo I will have if my bag should get lost in transit. 

•  The size of the check I should write for this week's church collection, because I'm not above a little moral bribery so that God can see he should be good to me and not allow my bag to be lost.

• The size of container I needed to contain all of my binder clips. Who knew 4 bags of binder clips fit perfectly into an arborio rice container? Dumpster diving into the recycling bin rocks!

I'm guessing the nutritional info no longer applies.

And lastly, the size of my 1/4" seam. Allow me to admit that although I've been quilting for 18 years, my 1/4" seam STILL is not as consistent as I might like, but proof that it has improved drastically even over the last 5 years or so came in the form of an innocent comparison the other day. I was starting to pack my quilts up and couldn't decide which of my "Funky Tree Farm" samples to take with me, so I decided to let my followers on FB decide. I put them right next to each other on the floor to take a photo, and look what I saw.

If you can pull your eyes away from my beautifully teal toes and my cute and oh so comfy sandals for a sec, and I know it will be hard to do, but I have faith in you -  check out the flipping 3 1/2" (!) difference in length between the quilts.

Hotties, these two quilts were both made by me, from my own directions. Until that moment I had no idea I had not made them the exact same size. How the heck did THAT happen??? Well, size matters.

Since the side borders are made by piecing three strips together, attaching the whole thing to the sides and then trimming to fit, nothing about the construction had really been affected by whatever the heck I did wrong to make one so much longer, so no red flags had been thrown at the time. I first assumed I had added two extra strips to the background of the one on the left. So I counted them. Twice. Nope, that wasn't it. Then I figured I had cut the strips for the quilt on the left the wrong width. So I measured them. Interesting.

They were cut 2 1/2" wide for both quilts. However, the strips in the quilt on the left had finished at exactly (well, this is me, so maybe not EXACTLY, but pretty darn close) 2", but the ones in the quilt on the right were closer to 1 3/4" each, meaning that when I put that one together way back in the day, I used a seam allowance you could have driven a truck through.
 
Inaccurate Quilter Math - 16 strips x 1/4"ish extra seam allowance = a quilt 3 1/2 inches too short. Dang.

So there it is, proof positive that size matters, and that your seam allowance DOES make a difference. Fortunately for this quilt pattern, it wasn't a factor in being able to put the whole thing together, but for many pieced blocks, it can be a huge factor and even a huge disaster when they aren't done correctly. A product that has helped me immensely over the last few years has been the "Seamingly Accurate" by ReannaLily Designs. It was designed by Jen Eskridge, a friend of mine who has no idea I felt like spreading the love of this product today. However, if 1/4" seams are an issue for you, and clearly at some point they were an enormous issue for me, it might be worth checking out. I think the proof that it helped me is right in that photo!

I've decided to bring the longer quilt to Market. Just in case anyone decides to whip out their rulers and check out my seam allowances.

The Wire Thins - Two Weeks and Counting Down

Two weeks to go before I trust United Airlines to actually get me where I need to go this time, and I am strangely calm. I attribute it to being a newbie to exhibiting at Quilt Market, and therefore too stupid to know how panicked I really should be.

I'm going to save all my best nervous breakdown skillz for Kelli and Kathy, my market helpers, or, as I like to refer to them in my own head because they both live on the west coast, my Westie Besties. And now it's out and we'll see how they like that title. Kelli, whom you also know as Market Slave West, has been on board with this whole thing since January or so. Kathy just got on the train this week, and I am so insanely grateful to have her. Kathy is a member of Northwest Quilters quilt guild in Portland, and is exactly the person with a car Kelli and I needed to help schlep all of my boxes from the hotel to the convention center and back again. Kathy teaches classes for shops and her guild and is as excited to get into market with my credentials and shop, shop, SHOP as you might imagine and then some. I'm kind of picturing myself having to sedate both of them either right before or after Sample Spree, actually.

Side note - Did you catch that up there? I have CREDENTIALS, hotties. Don't mess with me.

Besides shoring up the Westie Besties, this week has consisted of the following:

Shipped three boxes of patterns and marketing materials to PDX hotel.

I want to bring NONE of this home.

 Finishing up the binding on the second to last quilt I decided needed to get done and come with me.

The pin in the upper left proves it isn't QUITE done yet.

Whipped up some pole condoms for my booth. Practicing safe boothing is very important to me. The fireproofing spray is proving very elusive and I'm starting to worry a bit that I WILL be the person who burns the convention center down if I can't comply with their bizarre rule that all booth materials must be fireproofed, but the actual quilts and fabrics and threads and yarns and ribbons, etc that everyone is hawking don't have to be. Never mind all the paper products (patterns, invoices, etc) that will be in house. I do love logic.

Name a four letter word to describe the fun of inside-outing 36 feet of 2 1/2" wide tubing. Yes, that is the one.

 Adding the embellishments to Market Slave East Renae's "Sunflower and Sky" sample she made for me and in the process became converted to batiks. Woo hoo!

Not sure why this is blurry, but it really is lovely in person! 

 

 

 

 

Made first of two storyboards of how to put together the blocks for the two quilts I will highlight in my Schoolhouse - "Kickin' Stash" and "Taking Names." Since both have a way to make the blocks both "planned scrappy" and "completely scrappy", each storyboard shows one way on one side and the other way on the back. I've even rented an easel to put these things on. I am out of control.

I kind of felt like I was making a 5th grade science project.

The one thing I just have not been able to do was actually make the quilt in my head for my guild's "Calendar Challenge", which is due this evening. We were to create a 16" x 20" quilt representing our birthday, and the best one from each month as determined by vote this evening will be put together into an actual calendar. I LOVE this idea and think it may have been the best challenge ever, and I have run two of them in the past. However what with the crazy of the last few months, it just didn't get done. And I had the best idea too, which included this poem:

Celebrate Quickly!
The shortest day of the year

Is all about me.

Because of course my birthday, December 22, is also National Haiku Day.

I'm hoping maybe Judy will let me make it up by the show and still get included in the display even though I can't win for December's calendar entry. Even though we all know I WOULD have had I gotten my act together. I'll try to post some photos of the winners soon!

For those still stuck on "pole condoms", this is what I am talking about:

See the fabric scrunchy looking thing on the top pole? It just makes it prettier.

Photo of Bonnie Sullivan's booth from a past market. And now you have learned something today.

Awareness Bribery and FB giveaway

May 8, 2013 is the first annual "World Ovarian Cancer Day", and I've spent several weeks trying to figure out a way EPQD could take part. What with all the pre-Market craziness of the last few months, many of the bigger ideas I had, like a blog party with official buttons and linkies, or a swap party, or some such thing that would take way more time and energy than I currently have, have had to be put on hold until next time. So we are falling back to the quickest and easiest event - a giveaway including bribery leading to a donation. Awesome.

 Whatever it takes, though, to make you hotties aware. As many of you know, my mom died of PPOC 11 years ago. She was 59 and in the prime of early retirement, which is exactly when it strikes the majority of women. That's really close to the average age of quilters, huh? Scary for many reasons, but let's add in all those prime quilting years taken away and it becomes even sadder. So please, if you do nothing more this month, check out the WOCD site (the graphic under Fact 2 of "Five Facts...." is particularly telling as to the deadliness of this disease) and make yourselves aware. I can't afford to lose my peeps!

So here's the giveaway and the deal.

Yes, that does say "Modern Family" on the polish. The color is "Candid Cameron." "I'll Phil for You" is also lovely, but didn't work for this giveaway.

This is a giveaway confined to my FB page. It is where I wax poetic M-F in a quick "Morning Meeting/Morning Tea Break" sort of way by sharing something silly, interesting, or hopefully inspiring, and finding out what you are up to as well. I love the community I have built there and I hope if you are not a member, you might consider joining. If not, I totally understand as FB is not for everyone, and I am thrilled you are part of the QHH community.


Between now and May 8 share the top post or become a new liker on the page and you are entered.  I'll also be donating $1 to Ovarian Cancer Research Fund (up to $100 - I can dream) for every new FB liker between now and May 8. Honestly, I will be thrilled to give them $1, as every little bit helps.

 But most importantly, become aware. I don't just want you for the numbers, I want you for your spirit, advice, inspiration, and community, and I won't let this disease have you!

Market Mash-Up

Wow - it's really been almost three weeks since I had a chance to sit down and do a blog post. That is what happens when one goes on vacation four weeks before Market, like a complete idiot, and said vacation turns into a bit of a people version of that movie "Homeward Bound" where the dogs try to find their way across California. In this version, my family of five became trapped in Chicago/en route home for three extra days of a week long trip when we chose to spend spring break in Chicago the same week of the Boston bombings and a 36 hour melee of Midwest weather and flooding that together made it next to impossible to fly between the two cities. So that was fun.

The part of the grumpy cat was alternately played by me and Mr. QH, depending on what the airlines had to tell us at any given moment.

 

There was more than one moment where I wished people really could fly.

 In all seriousness though, I am thankful this was the only "bad" thing that happened to my family last week, as I know plenty of victims of the marathon bombings would be thrilled to have had our trials and tribulations. My thoughts are with all of them as we all struggle to make sense of random evil in our world. I am proud to call Boston home and am glad the world has seen that we really are a people full of heart. Or haaaht. Either way, you have to admit we totally rock a National Anthem.

Since we had arranged for the post office to start delivering our mail again on Thursday, but didn't get home until Sunday evening, I must take this moment to thank the 11 year old girl across the street for bringing us three loads of mail via her bike and backpack like an adjunct member of the USPS last night. Most exciting to me was a parcel containing this fabric from Art Gallery:

I. Love. Them. And Art Gallery as they are the nicest people ever.

 I have actually already whipped them into most of a quilt top today. I needed a smaller version of "Garden's Gate" for my booth at Market, as it is the smallest booth one can get (ie "Barbie's Dream Booth"), so this one will be gorgeous and modern and not take up an entire wall.

Look at me go. It's more fun than laundry, after all.

 In other mail news, I also received two enormous boxes from Smartpress.com, my favorite printers, and I now officially have all of my patterns in paper form and after a stuffing festival of immense proportions this evening, I will be ready to ship all the paper products to my Portland hotel. Yay! Checking things off the list!

All I can say is Castle better be good tonight to alleviate the horror of stuffing 9 million patterns.

Having now exhausted the theme of what I got in the real mail while I was gone, let's move on to the ever popular topic of "What I got in my email that was exciting and Market related" today.

1. Room C121, 1:55pm on May 16. Be there for my Schoolhouse Presentation "Kickin' Stash and Taking Names." Woo hoo!
2. This cool badge so I can post it on things (like my blog, my FB page, and even I suppose my forehead if I wanted to) and remind everyone of my commitment to twice in a month fly across America and hope to God I make it home again, as apparently this is no longer a given when flying in 2013.

It's quite official, no?

  3. And just now, while I was madly typing away, Market Slave East Renae Mathe sent me a photo of the new Sunflower and Sky sample I begged her to make for me out of a pile of purple and yellow batiks I handed her at school pickup one day. Squeee! Moral of the story - don't offer to help me or you will get a job.

She claims it is better in person, which I am sure it is, but I am loving it even now. In large part because I didn't have to make it.

Did I make my mail sound as exciting as yours? One can hope.

More Market Prep and Necessary Diversions From Market Prep

It's way fun around here as my family watches me turn into more of a crazed lunatic than usual and wonders why I keep forgetting to make dinner. To them I say "Thank God for Stop and Shop pickup service or you might not even have food in the house, so enough with the whining and eat a cheese stick."

Yes, the countdown to May 21, when Mom is back from Market and this person who can't stop worrying about steel, drapes, floor mats, shipping, signage, drayage, postage, and bank account balance-age goes back to wherever she came from.

It's been a long road, but I have finished all the writing and layout for the last of my Market debut and Market rewrite/refresh patterns, and a print order the size of which is about to give me heart failure is going out today. You are welcome, Smartpress.com. The office party is on me.

I am thrilled to report that "Taking Names" is one of the patterns I have finally finished. Those of you who visit my FB page now and then may have seen it already, but for those who don't, feast your eyes.

 

I am so happy with how it came out; being both a group project AND a scrappy triangle block, there was a fair amount of trying to figure out how to get everyone's blocks the same size during the testing process, but in the end it really became a stunner. The block size stuff got ironed out too, have no fear. Many testers/group participants loved making the block so much they just kept going and making more and more, and I really hope I get to see photos of them all soon.

Every participant had their own special color scheme for the blocks everyone else was making for them. As you can tell, unless color blindness has set in and if so WOW you are awesome for still being a quilter, my theme was black and white scraps with a lime background. Here are a few other color schemes chosen:

Anna D. chose b/w and yellow. It kinda makes me wish I still had my varsity jacket from high school.

Kelli F. chose totally scrappy with mint green background. You really can't get more fun, or simple, than that.

Kelli's blocks that I actually made. I believe some of these scraps are still all over my studio floor.

Glen P. wanted shades of grey to go with her orange background. She was the most challenging to us all, as very few quilters have many greys beyond in their hair. But the blocks turned out pretty cool!

"Taking Names" is finally available for download on Craftsy and Patternspot and will make its print debut in Portland. I hope you'll try it and show me your creations!

I did mention that there were some issues with consistent size of triangles among the participants, right? While in the end I had plenty of triangles to use for my cover quilt, I did end up with several that were just too small. This led to a big fix in the pattern, and I am forever grateful to my testers because without them we wouldn't have gotten it right. It also lead to my having 20 extra blocks, which lead to the brilliant idea to make them into a pennant style sign for my booth in Portland. 

You know Eva will want to hang this on the wall after the show.

Waste not, want not, reuse, recycle, and don't let all the work and fabrics from those blocks go to waste. I think it will be the perfect way to pull the booth together. Plus I got to use my newly acquired "knowledge of the color wheel" mad skills when choosing that purple, so I felt really cool. My family may even get dinner tonight in celebration.

Because I never feel complete without 45 more projects waiting in the wings in some capacity, be it in my head or in a pile of fabric on the cutting table or whatever, I couldn't resist stocking up on a few more projects last night at my guild meeting's UFO auction. I have to say, holy crazy awesome projects that were up for grabs. Almost every item was a kit complete with fabric and pattern, often with most of the blocks done, or tons of fabric yardage put together into one offering, or even quilt tops or other almost finished projects. All told, with the help of our fabulous auctioneer, we raised over 2K to help with our show expenses in just about an hour. I'm really just so impressed.

I brought home two projects I need like a hole in the head, and didn't realize until this morning that they were both holiday themed. I must have needed a little Christmas right that very minute and not even been aware of it. That would explain the egg nog craving.

My first winning, for a big fat $9.00, was this angel quilt. As Barb T, our auctioneer whom I think may have made her, said, "She needs a little help. Like maybe a face would be nice." Then the word "embellishment" was thrown out there and my Jewel-it bottle and I held up our numbered paper plate to bid on her.

Consider this the "before" photo. My goal is to make her stunningly fantastic before Christmas 2013.

So many ideas of ways to glam up this slightly dull angel. When I am done with her St Peter won't know what hit him.

For $28, I brought home 32 blocks that were orphaned from a BOM so that they could spend Christmas with me. Just call me Mommy Warbucks.

 I don't love the actual blocks - way too much white going on here - but I DO see a ton of possibilities for ways I can funk these up and, as Laurie B, who was sitting next to me, said, "Bethify" them. I've considered making a Christmas quilt for my bed for years, but just haven't ever gotten to it. Perhaps these will be the quilt starter and this will be the year.

Plus look how cute these fussy cut fairies are.

So for a grand total of $37, I now have two new projects waiting for me. Love it.

Back to the banner!

So your printer didn't let you print the perfect template for "Taking Names"

How horrid for you.

Technology sometimes does the opposite of rock. Not sure what exactly that would be .....Technology Hard Places? Technology Rolls? .....but my utmost apologies to anyone who landed here because you bought my "Taking Names" pattern as a download and could not for the life of you get the template to be the right size. Thank you for coming to the place I directed you rather than throwing it down in disgust. As getting the right size on my own printer can be a challenge, to ask me to do the same for all of you would be an exercise in complete futility.

To quickly and easily whip up the right sized template, you will need:

• one sheet of paper (8 1/2" x 11")
• a pen or pencil
• a ruler with a 60 degree line

1. Place the paper on a flat surface in the landscape formation.
2. Draw a line exactly 9 1/4" long no more than 1/4" up from the bottom edge of the paper.

It really is okay if it isn't exactly parallel to the bottom of the paper.

 3. Place your ruler's 60 degree line directly on the line you drew, with the right edge of the ruler lined up with the right end of your drawn line.

 

4. Draw a line all the way along the ruler's right side, extending the line all the way up to the top of the paper.

 5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 along the left side of the bottom line.

6. The intersection of the sides of the triangles should be 8" from the bottom line and centered perfectly.

7. Cut out along lines. Done.

This tutorial can be used to make any sized 60 degree equilateral triangles. As long as you know how long your sides are supposed to be, you are golden.