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!