maine quilts 2006

("shadows in the garden of mauve" quilted wallhanging by roxanne wells of south thomaston, maine)

friday was the 29th annual maine quilts show.

at 9 am, mum and i took off to the augusta civic center (a scant 10 minute drive from my house) and already there were at least a hundred cars in the lot.

the place was hopping with vendors selling their wares, many many women and a handful of men. we hit the vendors first; some booths consisted of just buffet tables covered in fat quarters, embellishements and bolts of fabric, while others were set up to look like mini versions of their shops. all had quilts, quilted wall hangings and quilted clothing in all the colors of the rainbow (and every color in between) displayed around them, on walls, hanging from the railings of the civic center's balcony seating. this was the set up, here.

not 5 minutes inside, and we run into marge, the wonderful proprietess of maine-ly sewing on route 1 in nobleboro (where my parents live). and of course we have to stop and talk for a few (10) minutes! then it was time to move on, until we got to the sanford sewing machines booth, where they had a representative from the baby lock company there showing you how to use the different machines. i was so psyched, i got to try a newjoy personal long arm quilter and a serger (thoughts of what next years tax return will be invested in came to mind several times at this booth!) if i purchase a new machine of any sort, i believe that i will go to sanford sewing, as they fix machines right there at the store and never send your machine out of state! how very handy!

i was very proud of myself. i could have gone hog wild buying fabric, but i showed restraint. i only bought 5 fat quarters for the pink and green quilt that i will be making for myself soon (hopefully this winter). you can see them here, here (this may not go into the quilt - it may become something else), here (reminded me of pajamas!), here (loved this hummingbird fabric from australia) and all together here. i'm on a mission to collect pink and green fabric between now and...november (just giving myself a deadline) and i'm trying to come up with a block design for it. i've already gone through my stash to pull out pinks and greens i want to use in it; i need to go through my scraps bucket, then it will be off to find new fabric wherever it presents itself.

after finally completing the vendor circuit, it was on to the quilts. i took pictures of all the ones that i really thought were incredible and felt inspired by. you absolutely have to check them out, here. really, all i can say is wow! as you can see, trying to describe them would be difficult; descriptions truly pale, even the pictures pale as compared to experiencing them up close. there are some truly amazingly talented quilters and quilt artists out there! it was so inspiring! i was so excited, all i wanted to do was go home and create. so i did! i started creating "grazing" and will continue to work on it when i can. i'm so happy that i got to go to the quilt show this year.

anyhoo, must go enjoy the rest of this day off! have an inspiring day all!