A day of loot...

Well, I spent the day at the National Quilt Championships at Sandown with my friend Lana today, and enjoyed looking at the quilts (including the girls' two) and of course, buying stuff. I bought very little fabric this year - in fact, didn't buy any at all until right at the end, when I remembered that I needed binding for the blue & white quilt, which has now come home from the longarmers and looks great (photo later - too photo-heavy already today!) and also, I passed The African Fabric Shop & decided to get a piece of African fabric to use in my one-on-one African block swap with Karol Ann. Almost all of the African fabric I have now (other than the 3 cats indigos, which are very different in style) came from her, so I thought it would be fun to be able to make her a block using fabric she wouldn't have sent me in the first place...

Anyway. Mostly I bought "bits" although I did get a few things I needed like Miracle Fabric Sheets and a darning foot for my machine (so I can do free motion quilting - or rather, attempt it - it's kind of weird trying to do it on a domestic machine after using a longarm, but as I'm doing more small pieces, it makes sense to learn.) Other than that sort of thing (and some needles, a rotary cutter blade & a new long measuring tape as mine has gone walkies), I had always intended to spend the day looking for embellishments and other things I could use for postcards, journal quilts, art quilts, fabric charms - that sort of thing. And wow - what a fabulous selection there was there. Much better than last year - obviously, the demand for this sort of thing has increased and the suppliers and working to meet the demand.

The top photo shows everything I bought, and the smaller photos are closeups of sections of the display. I'll leave you to browse and wonder, but I bought lots of sequins, some buttons (there were some amazing teeny tiny buttons, which I know I'm going to have fun with), some bits of semi-precious stones with little holes drilled through, to use as beads, some beads, some sequin punch, gold angelina (I have lots of colours, but not gold), coloured net, a piece of metallic silk fabric, invisible thread, some interesting paper net stuff and some crafty bits (I think that's what they were called, actually). And probably some other stuff I am forgetting. I look forward to using all this stuff, and actually, I feel good about this, as I really have been using the stuff I own lately, so I don't have to feel guilty about buying things and leaving them in a drawer somewhere.

And as if that wasn't enough, I got home to find a bunch of really great stuff in the post. A triangle card from Beth, and the gorgeous wool I ordered from Simmy, as well as some extra free bits (I do love extra free bits). But wait, there's more! I also received a big package from Karol Ann, with my latest African block - and a big selection of novelties- she's trying to reduce her novelty stash and I mentioned that Olivia was thinking to do a story quilt for her 2008 Sandown entry (we try to plan well in advance - it's the only way these things get finished!) so she's sent a big selection of useful novelties. Since this photo was taken, we have had them spread out on the table and the selection is superb, Olivia will have great fun with them. Being a person who remembers what it was like to be a kid, Karol Ann also included a small bag of bits for each of the other kids - bears and doggies for Alex and some very funky fabric for Sarah - for someone who has actually never met my kids, she did a very good job of suiting fabric to each child. OK, Alex probably wasn't so hard, as he's a 4 year old boy :) but Sarah is harder, and it was just right. In fact, she liked it so much (particularly one which is kind of like funky flames - it's in the baggie at the front right, the bottom of the two purpley blue fabrics) that there were no complaints about Olivia getting more fabric than she did. Perhaps that was also helped by the promise of buying fabric for her 2008 quilt on Sunday when we return to Sandown with the kids, but still!

And isn't the African block lovely? I have an idea I might try for the next one, but not sure how it will turn out, so have to play around a bit. But not for a week or two. Watch this space.

Oh, I did take some photos of quilts, too, but as there are all those copyright issues about quilt show photos, I'm not going to post them here (though you'll get pics of the kids with their quilts and my friend Lana with hers at a later point) - most of the photos I took won't be of much interest to everyone else as these days I mostly tend to take closeups of details of technique that interest me rather than whole quilts. Whew!