A Merry Pace

Life is tumbling along at a merry pace, as I've been preparing quilts to ship to Austin, Texas, to be delivered for February 21-24 QuiltCon in Nashville, Tennessee.

Also, Quilting Guild of The Villages local show called "Showcase" is coming up January 25-26. That too has required quilt preparations and planning, as I submitted two quilts into the modern category. This is a new category to the show, and two is the maximum number of quilts any member can enter. Quilts were judged last week.

During a slot of time, quilts had to be delivered to a specific rec center, in their own fabric bag, labeled with personal information and a quilt number, and then three days later be picked up.

I entered these two quilts.

Urban Trek, 59" X 71"

"Always Add Orange," 15" X 15"

When we picked up our quilts, each quilter learned if her quilt was a "winner," though not what the award might be - first, second, third, or honorable mention. I'm happy to say that both my quilts are winners. It will be when the show opens next Friday that we'll learn what ribbons were earned. If you're in Central Florida and interested in attending the show, here's where you can get more information.

Also, I've been prepping quilts to sell in the show's "Boutique." QGOTV has a shop where members' items can be sold. The guild gets 10 percent of each sale; the buyer pays Florida's 7% sales tax. I've gone through nearly all my quilts, and came up with (only) 33 to sell! I've photographed, measured, and written brief descriptions for each, as well as prep sales tags with assigned numbers, dimensions, and prices.

The pricing... that's so difficult to do! While I want (most) of the quilts out of my house, to free-up closet storage space, I need to price them to sell. But I also don't want to undervalue the cost of making a quilt - both the expense of materials, and the time put into making. It's tough to decide what to charge for each quilt, especially as sentiment tends to play into my decisions too. So, I'm pricing higher those quilts that I'm having a hard time parting with, some of which I made as recently as last year! But I also don't want to return 33 quilts to the closet where they've been stored. What good is that? In my opinion, it's a no-win situation. This topic is also a conversation trigger for every quilter I've ever met.

Yet I keep making quilts anyway! Ha, ha. What can I say? Makers gotta make. Besides, I need to justify the cost of that Bernina 770QE!

Here's a picture of it with its latest embellishments. I saw this on the Bernina blog. A sewist used small, hooked, suction cups to keep handy items like scissors, and tweezers. I'd like to hang a few more gadgets here, like a seam ripper and 1" X 6" ruler, but those don't have hanging holes.

These 4" triangle-in-a-square blocks, pieced with solids and cut using Bloc Loc rulers, have seen several iterations on my design wall. I still can't decide what arrangement I like best.

When I ask, everyone has a different opinion. As if I expect otherwise. 

Orange circles? Or no circles?

I like all of them! These may be on the design wall for a while longer.

A finish this week is this Double Zip Gear Bag, a pattern from ByAnnie.

I made it at our son-in-law's request. He saw the cosmetic bags I made as Christmas gifts for our girls, and commented that he'd like a bag. I thought to make him something more masculine, with shale-colored Essex linen.

I like that it looks like a bonafide shaving kit.

Mesh pockets are on the outside and inside. Inside, I also added a layer of vinyl, not called for in the pattern. The vinyl definitely made the whole thing harder to work with at the sewing machine, but the Bernina handled the thickness extremely well. 

I love using the dual feed zipper foot (#4D) to install four, purse-type 14" zippers.

Of course, I had to use the alphabet, to personalize the bag for him. See how I even figured out how to make the design on the right side mirror the design on the left?!

Coming up next week... the anniversary of my 10th year of continuous blogging. How time flies! Linda