A Trip to Hemet for Valley Quilters' Quilt Show

Patty S. and I drove up to Hemet yesterday to attend the Valley Quilters quilt show. It was a very nice day and it took us about an hour and 35 minutes to get there. There were about 100 or so quilts, all very nice. Also, about 15 vendors, a boutique (sort of a quilter's garage sale) and a consignment shop. We saw all the quilts in about an hour and spent some time looking at all the stuff in the boutique. All kinds of crafting, quilting and other items, some 40 or more years old. I'd hate to have to store all of it in between quilt shows. Click here to view the photos I took at the show: http://www.flickr.com/photos/karensphotos2011/collections/72157625916563121/

The show was in the gym or auditorium at the Valley-Wide Recreation Center. There is a large park with playground and some athletic courts for tennis and basketball. We ate our lunch under a big tree and then went back to see the vendors. I bought another cute "male hunk" fabric with an outdoorsman theme. After we left the quilt show we stopped at a new quilt shop in Hemet called Cotton Lane Quilting. I forgot to take a picture of it.

Outdoorsmen fabric

Before we left Hemet we walked through the Farmer's Market. Patty bought a Kubocha (Japanese for squash) squash and some asparagus. I bought some avocados and an Asian fruit called "jujube." And you all thought jujubes were just candy! It is a smallish, reddish brown, very wrinkled fruit (because it is dried) with a flavor similar to dates and a texture similar to dried apples. You can eat them or brew a very delicious tea from them.

Jujube fruit

We had a nice drive home so it was another great quilting experience.

A Road Trip to "Road to California"

Three friends and I took a road trip up the I-15 on Saturday to the Road to California Quilt Showcase in Ontario. Barbra S. was kind enough to drive the other three of us--Barbara L., Anna L. and I. It was a little bittersweet, as another friend was supposed to be in the 4th seat, but came down with a nasty bug and couldn't go, so I was able to take her place. Sorry Patty. Hope you're feeling better.

It was a gorgeous day and we arrived around 10:45 and went our separate ways to visit vendors and see all the gorgeous quilts. Pictures I took of the quilts can be viewed here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/karensphotos2011/. You can visit the show vicariously if you weren't able to attend. Click on the thumbnails on the right side to view the various groupings I organized. Here are a few pix to entice you. If you click on each photo, it will enlarge. The parrot was one of our favorites. It looked like you would feel real feathers if you touched it. Don't miss the pictures because they were fabulous. One group of pictures was an exhibit from the Rogue River Art Quilters in Oregon. They each took a section of the Rogue River to depict in a small quilt and all the quilts were displayed so the river ran through from one quilt to the next. I think there were more than 15 quilts. Be sure to look at those.

We met again for lunch and played photographer with another group of sister quilters from Fallbrook. We took their picture and they took ours. Here's the result.

The quality of the quilting seems to just get better and better every year. There were so many gorgeous examples of exquisite quilting. I didn't take pictures of every quilt, but tried to take as many as I could. Really enjoyed perusing the vendors. Cozy's was there. Here's a picture of Maureen. They were pretty busy.

I bought some really nice landscape fabrics at Cynthia England's booth. Some mountain, rock, tree bark, night sky and some other trees. Also bought a product called Retro Clean, which is supposed to remove staining and yellowing from old quilts and linens. And a handy storage box for buttons, beads or bobbins. It has individual little containers inside a larger box. Here's a couple of pix.

We left to come home around 5 and had a lovely ride chatting about the show, and how the world has changed since we all raised our kids 30-40 years ago. If you've never been to Rd to CA, you should really go next year. There are usually a couple of buses that take people who don't want to drive.

Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival Slide Show

Already one week into 2011, 51 more to go! I'm trying to actually quilt every day, so I am journaling what quilt related things I do every day--hopefully to keep me on track. Yesterday I cut out the rest of the pieces for a Stack 'n Whack UFO from a number of years ago. Today I sewed the rest of the blocks (5) and assembled the quilt top. It still needs borders and a backing. I have a feeling of accomplishment, even though it isn't finished yet.



I ran across this slide show of some of the amazing quilts at the 2010 Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival on The Quilt Show blog. http://www.thequiltshow.com/os/blog.php/blog_id/2444 They had over 200,000 visitors over about a week-long show. I hope you can watch it because these Japanese quilters are amazing in their talent. The other two links below are photos from the 2009 show and the 2010 show by blogger Jennifer at http://movinghands.wordpress.com/

2009 Tokyo show http://www.flickr.com/photos/movinghands/sets/72157612622596385/

2010 Tokyo show http://www.flickr.com/photos/movinghands/sets/72157623220079522/

Enjoy!