Home from Vermont Quilt Festival

We are home safe and sound, having travelled a total of 1,512 miles through New Hampshire and Vermont. We visited 6 quilt stores in addition to the 80+ vendors at the quilt show, and we still found a few things to buy at our last stop - the Fibre Junction in Rouses Point, New York.

This was a lovely store with the friendliest quilt store staff member that we met on our whole trip. It's interesting to reflect on the variety of experiences you have when visiting so many stores/merchant booths. You get a sense of their personalities through their fabric choices and their interaction with customers, and each one had a completely different "feel" to it, even when some of the fabrics were the same.
On the way home we were joking about who would be the first quilter to have their fabrics in the washing machine, and who would be the first one to actually cut into them. I left all my purchases in the trunk, with a plan to bring them in the house a little at a time...I'm sure you know what I mean! But before the day is over, I plan to do some cutting and sewing. I have been away from my machine for a week and have been in withdrawals!

Vermont Quilt Festival

We have enjoyed a whirlwind of a week! We hit every quilt store we could find, and spent every cent we brought along...  and then some!!! We did lots of sightseeing and went to all the popular tourist attractions, including the Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream factory.

I LOVED the Shelburne Museum  and wish they had more of their wonderful collection of quilts on display. My favorite quilt in the permanent collection was made by Clarissa White Alford, who lived 1806 to 1890. She raised 9 children of her own and 6 step-children. In her later years she made this fabulous scrap quilt from QTS's and this quilt has 6,048 pieces! It inspired me to continue to keep every little scrap of fabric, because one day I'm going to make a Clarissa inspired quilt!

And of course we had a great time today at the quilt festival. One of my favorite things about this show was the number of French speaking visitors. I live in Canada which is considered to be a bilingual country, having english and french as the 2 official languages. There is a lot of pressure to have bilingual services, and laws to provide bilingual schools, signage, etc and I do speak some French myself. But in my day to day life, I have never been in a public place and overheard people speaking French. Today in Vermont I frequently overheard women chatting in French about the quilts. I tried to eavesdrop and figure out what they were saying but the technical terms were hard for me to translate. It was totally serendipitous for me to experience this at the quilt show!
I saw many inspiring quilts and I was delighted to discover that we were allowed to take photos at the quilt show, as many shows I have been to in the last couple of years have prohibited any photography. This show states in their program book that photos may be posted on websites, and full credit must be given to the quilt makers. 
This policy is generous and refreshing, and I hope that the visitors abide by it, and that future quilt shows will follow this example.  The one quilt I want to show you is this scrap quilt made in 1909 by Philea A. Spear when she was 84 years old. It has 12,976 pieces of fabric and it was amazing!!
It is sometimes hard to sleep with so much inspiration and quilts being made in our dreams!

Another quilt store in New Hampshire

We travelled around New Hampshire today searching for a store that one of the quilters in our group saw in the Quilt Sampler magazine. It is a beautiful quilt store called Quilted Threads and I was able to find a set of fabrics for the mystery quilt that I want to make in the Quiltmaker magazine. I consider myself to be an experienced mystery quilter, but I found it very challenging to pick out 9 fabrics that co-ordinate, yet have enough contrast to be different enough from each other when you don't know which fabrics will be beside each other in your quilt. (To see 3 possible colourways - click here.) I couldn't decide on fabric #7 so I bought 2 possibilities.  I think my choices will make an interesting (but maybe not visually appealing!) quilt.

And speaking of Quiltmaker magazines, my travelmates picked # 17 to win the 100 block magazines that I am giving away from this post...and the winner is Anita. I will send the magazines out to you Anita as soon as the Canadian Postal Strike is over!

New Hampshire

You may have noticed that for the first time this year, I do not have a Monday Design Wall posting today. The reason is that I am not in the same country as my design wall!

I am on my way to Quilt Festival in Vermont... via New Hampshire. It's not exactly "on the way" but we had to go to Keepsake Quilting since we were so close!
This photo shows one of the staff members cutting my first purchase - "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" fabrics. 


We did some major damage to the credit cards and then headed off to visit Castle in the Clouds and saw some beautiful scenery.
I realized today that I forgot to draw the name for the winner of the magazines, so I'll do that tomorrow while we're driving.