More Amish Country purchases

Seriously you didn't really think all I bought was the two pieces of Minky Cuddle and the lake quilt beach-themed fabrics?  I had just short of $200 mad money from covering extra yoga classes this summer while other instructors were ill or on vacation, and I spent every dime of it. :-)

The fabrics below are going into a quilt a wee bit further down on my list of quilts to make.  Again, I had not planned to shop for this quilt, but you know how it goes, they percolate on the back burner of your quilt inventory in your head.  Well, mine do anyhow.  The bottom green I just liked, thought it might go in this quilt; didn't realize until closer inspection that it says "meow" or "mrow" on it amongst the yarn.  Darned if that nice grey isn't the same line, 'Purrsnickitty' - great name, very clever.

Most of the feature fabric is hidden, as the person for whom this is destined reads this blog--mysterious, I know.  It's background reads black here but it is a delicious deep navy.

Below you will see the run of fabric so far.  (recognize the Figures fabric by Zen Chic I picked up in Guildcrafters a little over a month ago?  I need to add some blue into this yet.  The two yellows are from my stash, the Sphere fabric by Zen Chic is left over from Pocketful of Sunshine, and the other is just stash, not sure if both will end up in the quilt or not.

I immediately fell in love with the green whirligig fabric, which will go so well with the balloons and moons fabric (do you see the blue pops in it?); it's an Alex Anderson, my first quilting guru, and love.  I taped so many of her "Simply Quilts" shows, made copious notes, did a Stack 'n Whack table topper just after watching Bethany Reynolds demo one of her quilts, took it to my guild, wowed everyone as they'd never heard of it...hmm, I'm suddenly seeing a pattern here, so allow me to digress (shocker):

Last night at my Erie Shores Quilters' Guild meeting, I showed my Graffiti Quilt, told them of Karlee Porter (a few had heard of her, but not many), told them, and I quote myself, "I've heard it said that blogging friends are not real friends, but I stand before you to say they absolutely are.  My friend Julie of Pink Doxies and I met up last week"....and I proceeded to tell them of our trip to Amish country and the wee-ooh, wee-ooh, Amish Mary incident.  They were as blown away as Julie and I were.  Anyhow, I seem to keep mentioning online things when I go up for Show 'n Tell.  The treasurer said to me last night that she had "gone on that site I mentioned a while ago...Leah Day? No, Angela Walters.  It's very good." The guild librarian asked me to repeat Karlee's name.  Someone else told me they checked out "that housework and quilting site"...  Grin!  An educator I am to the core.  Love showing new stuff I've discovered, new ways to do things, how I did something, seeing the lightbulb moments, the sharing...  That is what guilds should be about, right?  Anyhow, they needed a bunch of new people on the executive, and my hand went up for librarian.  I get to buy books!  Yippee!  I'm going to add some modern quilting ones, you betcha along with as many as I'm allowed to buy on free motion quilting.

Can you see the embossed daisy and dahlia-type flowers on long stalks on the white backing fabric?

I need (very embarrassed here) to get the borders designed and sewn onto Dayna's grad quilt (which was May 7), and then quilt this puppy to death.  I am practising on Avril using the Parisville Weave quilt right now, and my precision is improving!  See below.  I picked up this wide backing at Zinck's Fabric Outlet.  I wanted a solid or reads-as-a-solid since I plan to...well, as I said, quilt it to death.  It is 108" wide, so I got 2.5 yards, as she wants a queen size quilt.  I also got a yard of this purple there because I thought it might work in the quilt back if I don't have enough of the white.  I could probably incorporate it into the front because it is that perfect of a match.  I have a bit of a photographic memory, served me well throughout school, but I seem to have it for colour too, interesting.

Here are some other non-quilting purchases from Amish Country, which do act as incredible aids when quilting, voice of experience.

What you do not see here is the homemade fresh loaf of bread we devoured, along with cheese curds (haven't had them since I got some in the French quarter in Edmonton, yee-um) for an on the road lunch as we travelled home. 

From left to right:   Pearl Valley Swiss cheese.  Not only is there a huge contingent of Amish and Mennonite people in this area, there is a pretty strong Swiss contingent.  Cheese made right there.  In this factory.  Family owned since 1928!

Raven's Glenn Merlot.  Local winery.  A glass of wine prior to beginning FMQ is the ticket.  If that doesn't work, have a second one.  Your shoulders will relax, your body will sway, and your quilting will flow.  Uh HUH!

Walnut Creek Foods Elderberry jelly.  Oh MAN, it was hard to settle on just one kind, as there were so many varieties!  This spring I discovered a beautiful tree grown in Essex County, Black Lace Elderberry, so this one 'spoke' to me.  The jam is divine, as is the tree with its soft pink flowers and black lacy leaves.

Walnut Creek peanut butter spread.  Julie introduced this Amish spread for toast (or, ahem, just squeeze some onto a spoon and eat it) when we had lunch at Boyd and Wurthmann in Berlin.  (said BER-len.  Not Ber-LIN as in Germany, cool!)  She aptly described it as peanut butter mixed with that Smuckers-type marshmallow topping.  She bought this for me.  As if she hadn't done enough...but wait, there's more.

We even went south to Roscoe, in Coshocton ("kuh-SHOCK-tun" cool huh?) County where there is a historic village restored to the original look of the 1830s town it was.  I felt many times that I'd stepped back in time over the course of the day, and this was another of those moments.  I bought the fudge in a little shop there, a shop that happened to have no power, a glitch with the company, the clerk said, which only added to the ambiance.  It's almond chocolate fudge, to die for.  I've been picking away at it every day since we got home, not sharing except for one sliver, with MacGyver.  Nope.  Mine!

My WIP, Parisville Weave, is still on the frame.  I'm just past the half way point, hoping for a Friday finish.  I'm really enjoying the quilting I'm doing, a little Christina, a little Angela, a little Kathleen... à la Sandra, of course!  Here are two shots to show how I've broken down the motif (one of Kathleen's) I'm using in the setting triangles:

I stitch in the ditch around the triangle, and then echo inside 1/4".  Then do a 1" line inside that echo.  Echo that line 1/4" again.  Do ribbon candy in the 1" trench.  From there I travel to the centre of the triangle and stitch a line perpendicular to the border edge, ending at the point of the setting triangle. 

Then do two lines of dot to dot inside the two facing triangles I've created.  You can see that on the lower portion of the setting triangle.  Fill in with figure eights, which you can see in the upper portion.  Cool, huh?  I love the look of two of these together (as in her quilt in the above link).

All right!  Off to get this baby done!  I just might have to get some energy after writing all this...hold on while I sip some wine, or munch on some cheese, or maybe nibble some fudge, slurp some pb spread... Ahh, and dream of Amish Country.

A barn quilt in Amish Country, pinch me

Oh! One last thing!  For a chance to win a bunch of Gütermann thread (and you all know how I love to piece with it, have since I started quilting 20 years ago) check out the Canadian Quilters Association giveaway on Facebook.  You can get there by clicking the link to their blog.

Linking up with Freshly Pieced and Sew Fresh Quilts.