Kansas City Regional Quilt Festival

On Thursday my mom and I drove up to Kansas City to go to the Kansas City Regional Quilt Festival to meet up with my friend Twyla.  We met her at Hawthorne Suites and caught a quick lunch at Freddie's which has pretty good veggie burgers and fries.

We got to the show in early afternoon and caught the shuttle from the off site parking lot and took leaf from my aunt's book to visit all the vendors first thing.  That took a good three hours since there were about 120 vendors and I could have easily spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars. But I decided to wait to buy anything substantial until Friday.  That way I would be sure I really wanted it and it wouldn't be as much of an impulse buy.  I left thinking about this giant cat quilt kit by Moda called Meow Or Never by Erin Michael.

I've been coveting this kit since it came out but was disappointed when I found out the cat was a panel rather than applique.  So I have been resisting it for months.

I was also thinking about getting this kit called Papa's Pickup from Material Girl.  The pattern is by BJ Designs from my home town of West Des Moines, Iowa.  I just love her stuff, it is so whimsical and fun.

I also found some great solid color fabric for a Jinny Beyer quilt I'm thinking of doing.  They are by Paint Brush Studio out of Kansas City and have 168 colors.  Pineapple Fabric had them available for $6.99 per yard and the feel of this fabric is so nice.  I will definitely be ordering some in the future.  I did purchase a really cute pattern by Sew Sweetness for some small make-up type bags.  

I also bought some 100 weight YLI silk thread to use for hand applique.  I found that 100 weight just gets buried in the fabric even though I'm not a great at hand applique.  While purchasing the thread we ran into our friend Karen who had come up with three of her friends, EJ, Kathy and Sue.  We made arrangements to meet up for dinner later that evening at BRGR which is one of my favorite spots in the Kansas City area. 

Here are some of the things that caught my eye in the vendor area.  We stopped at Stephanie Brandenburg's booth first.  She is mom's favorite designer and we got the chance to talk to her for a few minutes.  She was very nice and has some amazing new fabrics that are being printed in the USA.  So cool.

I thought this quilt was cute and I loved the title, "Monkey Wrench".

  I also was enamored with this quilt at a booth that had numerous cute quilts with yo-yos.  

Before meeting for dinner, Twyla wanted check out IKEA for a table she needed for her new house.  She just moved into the church she converted to her home, she is so talented!!!!!  I love IKEA.  I didn't buy anything but mom found this cool table that goes up and down.  So she can sit with the sewing machine at exactly the right level and then raise it up to cutting height.  So perfect for those with small sewing rooms.  We weren't able to get it this trip as it wouldn't fit in the car but we'll get it in July.

After checking into the hotel we headed over to BRGR and had a wonderful evening of food and conversation..  We laughed, shared information and just had a wonderful evening.

I was pretty happy to climb into bed as I was dead dog tired.  

Friday morning, we met Twyla for breakfast and worked out plans for our trip to the Sister's OR outdoor quilt show and Seattle trip in July.  This is going to be such a great trip.  I've never been to that part of the country and am looking forward to it.

We were at the door of the convention when it opened and I made a beeline to buy the cat quilt kit.  Once the shopping was completed I headed to check out the quilt show.  I have to say there were so many awesome quilts that I felt super intimidated so much so I started to think I should give up quilting entirely.  Here are some of my favorites.

I love this quilt.  So mid-century modern.  I mean don't you just love those cats.  I'm trying to track down Linda Frost to get the pattern.  Wish me luck.

These two quilts really struck a chord with me.  The message was spot on and the quilting on both were wonderful and creative.

This one reminded me of a character my dad used to draw.  He wasn't much of an drawer but this little guy always entertained me.

There were several one block wonder quilts which I am always fascinated by.  I'm going to be trying my hand at one in August thanks to Twyla teaching a class at the Table Rock Quilt Guild.

This Harry Potter Project of Doom quilt is on my list of quilts to make.

Words really aren't necessary for these amazing quilts

So many talented women!!!!

We left the show a little after noon and headed up to Liberty MO to check out Angela Walters' shop, "Quilting Is My Therapy".  Cute shop but after all the quilt vendors at the show it was not as impressive as it would have been otherwise.

Mom and I caught dinner with my brother and part of his family before heading home.  It was a wonderful couple of days and can't wait to do it again.

The Fair

Yesterday was my daughters birthday and she was really excited to take me to the Orange County Fair which is one of her favorite things on earth.  She has been known to go up to 10 times during the fair's month long run.  Her favorite part is the food especially the grilled corn on the cob which I can now affirm is a wonderful thing.  I also really liked the Australian potatoes, which Bre informed me are not really from Australia.  However, they were yummy and Australia should take credit for these beer battered slabs of deliciousness.

She sent out an invite to a bunch of folks on social media (aka Facebook and Instagram) to join her in celebrating her birthday at the fair and 10 of the funnest folks ever showed up.  Keeping them headed in the same direction was like herding cats but then it is the same way with my friends at a quilt show.  I do have to give the kidlet cudos, she made sure we got to the pig races just in time for the start of the festivities.  The show was very entertaining and I cheered loudly for our section's pig whose name escapes me.

Bre and I made a beeline for the craft building before meeting up with her friends so I could check out the quilt exhibit.  There were a few really nice quilts but for the most part the show and tell at Table Rock Quilt Guild is better than most of the quilt on display.  I really liked the Yellow Submarine quilt which was not only a fun quilt but very well executed.  I think it was my favorite at the show.

I also loved the Doctor Who quilt which is currently one of my favorite shows on TV now.  The pillows were done in counted cross stitch.

This quilt won first price in the machine category.  Sorry for the poor quality of the picture but take my word for it, the quilt was really lovely.

I'm a big big fan of bright colors so this quilt had me at hello and impressed the judges as well since it won in the handwork category.

I saw this art quilt and thought my mom would really like it.  In the picture the gray face jumps out at you right away but in person I didn't really see the face until my daughter pointed it out to me.  This made the quilt extremely interesting to me as well as it just being lovely.

To wrap up the evening, Bre decided the die hards should walk 100 more miles (at least it felt like that to me) to take an old fashioned selfie at the photo booth way on the other side of the fairgrounds. At the time I was thinking she was nuts.  We all had cameras why not just have someone take our picture all together since there is no way we were all fitting in that booth at once.  But as usual the kid was right, the booth was way more fun.  The first go round we tried to all fit in there at once which didn't work at all.  The second set of shots Bre and I started out and then each of the other three couples jumped into the booth in turn.  Those shots turned out to be so much fun.

 I had a great evening and would gladly go back again even though my dogs were barking by the end of the night.