The Seattle Quilt Show

The Quilt show is Seattle was wonderful. Some of the quilts were just amazing. I took lots of pictures but I am not sure if I would be breaking some copyright laws to post a few pictures. The large quilt that won the Best of Show had just beautiful machine quilting on it. If I can post a picture of it I will. A lot of the large quilts had been machine quilted - and I am sure they had been done on a long arm because the detail in the quilting was just amazing. Nothing I could have done on my small sewing machine. One quilt that I really like was a Canoe and the quilting on it was so detailed - and it didn't win anything.

There were a number of booths selling Long Arm machines. I stopped at one and tried it out. I have never even touched one before. The one I tried was really nice - auto stitch length so it didn't matter how uncoordinated I was. But next to it was a machine that was being guided by a computer. No hands required. Beautiful. $35,000.00 - can you imagine. But I bet for people who do it for a living it would be a great investment. Much easier than standing and bending and guiding the machine. As the Bare Naked Ladies would sing --- "If I had a million dollars".

I like to take the bus trips with the Guild down to the show. It is a nice trip - it always seems to go quite quickly at the border and the border guards, both American and Canadians have always been so good to deal with. (I'm sure they realize a bus full of quilters is very little threat to security!) It is also nice to be able to shop and pick up a bit of fabric and such at the shows. We are not really allowed to bring anything back across to Canada with only a one day stay. I think the border guard really don't have the time to bother with $35.00 worth of fabric when there are more important things to be looking for out there. (I did spend more than that though)



The interesting thing is the booth that I bought the most fabric at was "The Pine Needle" from Lake Oswego - a shop that I was really hoping to go see when I was down in Portland last January. Now I know for sure I will need to go back to Portland. I bought a bunch of Amy Butler Fabric. That seems to be my new "need to have" fabric lately. I usually don't even realize it is Amy Butler until after I have fondled it for awhile.

The other booth I bought fabric at was Bear Paw Quilting Inc. I bought two fat quarters of Kaffe Fasset (which I didn't realize was his fabric until I got home) I don't think I have any other of his fabric. Might need to get some more. I also love the Jane Sassaman fabric lines - but I have a bunch of her fabric already. I was looking at a booth that sold reproduction fabrics - they had this most wonderful Dutch Chintz fabric --I didn't buy any although I really wanted to, but by this time I had really reached my limit. I found their website and they do mail order - they are from Montana. So I think I will order a bit of the chintz........soon.


Of course I also bought a Quilt show bag -- because I always need another bag.





At the Bear Paw booth I found this little needle case. I thought it was such a nice little case. Easy to open and holds lots of needles. It is about 4 inches from the top to the tip. and about 4 inches across when it is closed. So it is a nice size and then opens up and has all these different sections so I can put different needles in their own section.



It is apparently made for the shop by a women that lives in the Eastern U.S. somewhere. It is really well made -- it was $8.50. Isn't it lovely? My find for the day!!