No Touchey the Quilts!

This past weekend I went to my very first quilt show! Lots of beautiful quilts and nice little old ladies (not all), it was a really fun time. If you have never been to a quilt show (I didn’t know they existed either, until I started quilting), my only advice to you is, do not touch the quilts!! There’s a story behind that comment, I will share another time.

So at this quilt show, you walked in the front doors of the building where it was being held, and there were two women at a sign in table. You got to put your John Hancock in the guest book to state that *you were here*.  We were then given a little slip of paper that you were to write the name of your favorite quilt on after walking through. I went with my parents on this fine adventure, and my mom’s first comment is “how do I pick only one!?”  Mind you, we hadn’t even seen the quilts yet, and she was already being indecisive :P. So her brilliant plan, which both my dad and myself utilized as well, was to write all of our favorites on the back of this slip of paper and pick one in the end. So once we had this crisis all figured out, we moved on to actually viewing the quilts!

Actually no, we moved on to the next table the two women pointed us to, where we got to buy some raffle tickets to try and win a quilt. So we bought some raffle tickets, spat on them for good luck (just kidding), annnnnd we never got a call so we’re out $6. Sadness. And *now* we moved on to checking out all of the quilts.

They were all absolutely beautiful, I wish now that I had actually taken more pictures. What I noticed about most of them was that they were quilted with fancy patterns. Which then got me wishing that I had a long arm quilting machine, buttttt, those cost anwhere from $5,000 and up, and yeah I can’t afford that luxury. This is the longarm I have my dream eye on at the moment, the RAM by TinLizzie. But, alas I’ll be sticking with my sewing in the ditches. Not quite as pretty, but it works.

 

As a side comment, there were signs evvvveryyywherrrreee stating *do not to touch the quilts*! As we were walking down a hall looking at all of the quilts, a little old lady comes out a side door with a white cotton glove on and informs us that if we'd like to have a closer look at the quilts, to let her know. That's why she's the one with the white gloves. That's right ladies and gentlemen. We take this quilting stuff seriously, you do not touch peoples quilts with your hands so that you keep your gross little hand oils to yourself! Yes, I understand, the dedication and time it takes to do these quilts is astounding and they're pieces of art in and of themselves. But, I'm also of the belief that they're quilts, they're meant to be loved and used and abused-just a tad. My mom spent the whole time using her pen as a pointing wand, with my dad cringing every time her pen got anywhere near a quilt! I promise it never made contact! Well except for that one time.........I kid! I kid!

After it was all said and done, my dad had written 1 quilt down on the back of his paper, I had written 2 quilts down on the back of my paper, and my mom had about 5-6 quilts written down on her paper. She narrowed it down to two somehow and had to go back for a second look to make her executive decision :P. This is the quilt that I chose as my favorite:

 

 

 

The quilt my dad chose had fabric panels depicting soldiers and scenes of the civil war and the quilt that my mom decided on had a whole lot of purple (her favorite color).

 

There were vendors selling all kinds of fun quilty stuff...note to self for the future, bring more cash! I'll share my purchases and plans for these purchases on my next blog, so stay tuned! Untili then, just keep sewing, just keep sewing, just keep sewing, sewing, sewing.....