Out and About

Even before we knew it was Worldwide Quilting Day yesterday, my mom and daughter and I had planned an outing to the La Connor Quilt & Textile Museum. It's housed in a historic Victorian mansion in a quaint little town about an hour from our home. The current exhibit is Color, Design, & Inspiration: Kaffe Fassett & Brandon Mably. And honestly, I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did!

The mansion of course, was a lovely setting, and the knits that were on display were beautiful. But the quilts were really a treat to see. Unfortunately, no photos were allowed, nor is it easy to find photos of the original quilts on the web. But if you do a little web/Pinterest searching, you can get an inkling as to the style and use of color that Fassett and Mably are known for. It was very interesting to see some of the design decisions that had been used in the quilts, one of the most surprising to me was that of unequal ratios. For example, usually when I quilt, ratios are pretty regular, such as the 3, 6, 9 I used in my recent Emerald placemats. But that wasn't always the case with these quilts. With the one being 7:12, seam lines didn't line up where I would expect them too! And in one quilt, diamond points were cut off! Just a good reminder of what can be 'ok' with the end result still being absolutely beautiful. 

After a bit of shopping and lunch alongside the Swinomish Channel, we visited the local quilt shop, Fabric D'eva. (Of course, had to pick up some "souvenir" Kaffe fabric + found walnut shells for the pincushions I'm making!)

As we were walking out the door, the shop clerk mentioned a stash sale that just so happened to be very near where we had parked! 

 

Well we had never been to a stash sale! So we headed there straightaway and wow! This pic shows just one row of the massive amounts of fabric - and all cottons were $5/pound. So we had some fun looking through much of it, putting our prized finds into color-coded bags that were then weighed upon checkout. Let's just say we all walked out happy, having made awesome deals. Great fun and a bit of excitement to cap off our girls day!