Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Too much work!

Not Enough fun time! (I always forget how busy I get in Spring, doing this stuff.)

I just looked at my blog and realized it has been entirely too long since I posted. But I have no pictures of finished things to share :(

I did buy one little thing...
I have been eyeballing the Eco Market Tote pattern by Favorite Things, so I broke down and bought the pattern. No time to make it, but I am satisfied because I will be able to make it when I have a moment.


So what sewing fun have I been doing?
  • Adding a hanging sleeve and label to the auction quilt.
  • Working on the next round of the Robin- this month's round is "rectangles".
  • Puzzling over the Doll Quilt- I am still in that brainstorming stage for that one, but I saw a great one at the guild meeting tonight that has captured my attention.

My quilt guild had our fun meeting tonight (we also have Business Meetings the first Tuesday fo the month). One of our members is a certified & very experienced quilt appraiser did a seminar about what judges at juried shows look for. She reviewed the different judging standards and talked about her experiences with that. And she also did a lecture about the different kinds of appraisals she works on- in this area, she does mostly appraisals for people getting ready to send quilts off for big shows!
I hope other guilds have the kind of expertise ours does, and remember to call on them to share what they know.

The most interesting thing (fiber-related) I did in the past couple weeks was during my Weaving guild's meeting last Friday. We had an absolutely inspiring speaker- a fiber artist from Northwest Washington named Anita Luvera Mayer. She is not only incredibly funny and talented, she is dramatic and passionate and vibrant. And if you ever have a chance to hear a lecture from her, GO!
I loved her story about how when she went to the first weaver's Convergence in Chicago, she made a commitment to herself to make her own clothes. And she did! She was wearing this amazing dress, which is all small squares of hand dyed silks, over the surface, like little prayer flags. It was on the cover of one of her five books, so if you look her up, you will be sure to find it. She is currently having a show at the LaConner Quilt Museum (which is a really fun place to visit).

The other interesting thing that I did is attend the South Sound Yarn Crawl. Actually I only went to a few of the shops, but there were 16 shops who were part of this little yarn shop hop. Such YUMMY fibers!
I was very good and only bought a little bit of alpaca fingerling (on clearance at the Lamb's Ear in Tacoma). I have no idea what I will do with it yet- a lite alpaca hat would be nice??
But I loved it because I had not been to any of the shops I went to this weekend and I met some really fun shop owners.
Here is the website for the South Sound Yarn Crawl, if you are curious what we have available around here. (We are spoiled in this, much like we are for quilt shops.)

I think I may need a second job to support my fiberlust...