AQS Quilt Show

Last weekend I attended the American Quilt Society Quilt Show in Lancaster, PA.  The day spent at the show was both exhausting and enjoyable. I was in need of some new patterns so the three floors of vendors allowed me to prowl many vendors before deciding which patterns to buy. The best part of this search was getting to talk to some of the pattern designers. My favorite was Laura Blanchard with Plum Tree Quilts. We so enjoyed talking with Laura and her husband and ended up buying 4 patterns from her.  The patterns are relatively simple but the blocks can be set in different layouts so one pattern can make several quilts with varying designs. From Plum Tree Quilts I got the Kaleidoscope, Center Court, and Two by Two quilt patterns and the Glory runner and placemat pattern. I also got a crib quilt pattern from Starr Design Fabrics that uses graduated colors and has prairie points on the border.

My friends and I also visited many quilt shops in the area.  Honestly I have never been to one area that had so many large quilt shops. The good part of this is that the prices are lower due to the competition. The Batiks were everywhere and so many of them. A few of my favorites shops were The Old Country Store in Intercourse, Burkholders in Denver, Sylvia's and Weaver's Dry Goods in Lititz.

Another aspect was getting to see the many hand made items for sale, mostly made by the Amish. It was good to see that they attach a suitable price for most items.  It takes so much time to make the items that I hate to see them being sold at a low price because this devalues their work.

When I got home on Sunday, I went through my purchases and knew I had to make something on Monday. I chose the pattern for a Fanblade Table Topper, shown above. It was an easy topper to make and I plan to make several more. I free motion quilted the blades after it was all pieced together.
One of my other purchases at the show was pounce and several pounce design sheets from Full Line Stencils. I have never used pounce so I tried one of the linear designs on the dark blades. I discovered that following a marked design is actually very different than FMQ. The trick is to go slower and have your eye on the design ahead of the needle. I am going to need quite a bit of practice to get the hang of it.