Wednesday, January 16, 2008

California or Bust!

Well, the problem with the Nine Patch blocks being too large was not as bad as I'd feared. I was a little worried when I measured them against the ruler, but the next morning I measured them against the other 3.5 inch blocks and they were only off by 1/16th of an inch on each side. I can live with that. Now, having used up the precut pieces and adjusted to the change in sewing machine, my Nine Patches are coming out right on the money.

Tomorrow I'll be visiting Road to California in Ontario, California. It's a huge quilt show with an enormous number of vendors. I've only been twice in my life, but one advantage of my recent move is that I'm relatively close to it now. In fact, I bought an unlimited pass so that I can visit it more than once and have a nice leisurely look at everything.

I'm planning to pin one of the 3.5 inch blocks from my Carolina Crossroads mystery quilt on my shirt when I attend the show. I thought that one of the Nine Patches with the accent color in the corner would be distinctive. So if any of you other Quiltville Mystery Quilters you see me there, be sure to say hello! (I'll be there on Saturday too.)

Besides the quilts and the vendors, I'm also looking forward to the special exhibit of vintage aprons displayed by Ellyn Anne Geisel, owner of Apron Memories and author of The Apron Book. I now have a heightened awareness of aprons thanks to Kitchen Madonna who not only sews and sells aprons here, but blogs about everything from recipes to John Paul II's Theology of the Body. Plus she's now got a neat-o job working in a museum where she gets to do such fun stuff as spinning wool and learning to weave. (How do people manage to get jobs like that? I wish I knew.)

I've always been an apron wearer in the kitchen because I am such an energetic cook. But my aprons tend to be strictly utilitarian ones. Thanks to Kitchen Madona, I'm beginning to appreciate pretty, though still functional, aprons. In fact, I even bought some batik fabric which the local quilt store marked down 50%, which I plan to make into an old fashioned apron with a bib.

2 comments:

BitnByAQuiltingBug said...

Hope you had a great time. Hasn't this mystery quilt been the best? I don't know when I've enjoyed anything so much.
Did you cut up a billion 1.5" strips like I did? LOL
Regina

Catholic Bibliophagist said...

No, I pretty much cut them as I needed them. But I'll probably have some left over anyway by the time I get to the end. Inspired by the pictures on your blog, I'm thinking of maybe making them into a doll's quilt for my granddaughter.

(BTW,folks, bitnbyaquilltingbug cut lots of extra 1.5 inchs strips and is now making them into 8 inch blocks. You can see pictures on her blog. Click on her name on her comment to go to her profile where you will see the link.)