Blue Ribbon Blues

 

Well, well, well. It's quite a strange thing to experience winning a blue ribbon, at anything really, much less at a quilt show. It was only for the category of the quilts that the BAMQ group entered, not overall or anything like that. But, I keep seeing it up on my design wall and getting surprised just at the visual reminder. I also got surprised at the judging sheet, no improvement needed. Not sure I agree with that, but it's nice to hear. This was a rather traditionally made quilt, at least for me. So I guess that I'm glad I was up to snuff on those terms even without a ton of practice. Then I got a little check in the mail, which makes the whole thing somewhat more concrete.

Okay, deep breath. "Hey look, here's my prize-winning quilt!"

Retreat Treats

 

Pre-retreat shopping at Family Threads Quilt Shop, I didn't go too crazy. I found a selection of the ombre confetti fabric 1/2 yards. I've always wanted to work with this fabric, it's just so pretty and I love the idea of trying out using ombré in a quilt design. I also had just seen this Ombre Triangles pattern from V and Co, and had it in my mind. I also got some Magic Pins fork style as I enjoy using their straight pins. They are marked as "fine" but I found them to be way too thick to use in cotton, maybe they'd work on upholstery or canvas?

The goodie bags were filled with fun stuff like Quilty stickers, one special sticker made just for the retreat, a sparkly scissor guard, really nice thread, candy & gum, a keychain. Best of all, one of the retreat committee people made everyone (wow!) a table pouch. The part that sits on the table is a fabric covered heavy piece of tile, so the bag that hangs down won't fall off. Really fun.

And lastly, I won something at the retreat! One of the larger prize bags got divvied up into smaller things which let more of us get the thrill of the win. This lovely bundle of fat 1/8ths. Norma Rose by Natalie Barnes for Windham Fabrics. Such great colors and the fabric designs are super interesting, all of them will play very well with many other fabrics that I already have.

Giant Hexies

 

I won something from the Quilters Take A Moment event! A package arrived from Hoffman Fabrics, and inside were two  packs of 40 enormous pre-cut hexies. 

The fabrics are a nice range of colors and the printed patterns are contemporary.

When I read the list of winners and what we each had won, it just said Hoffman Fabrics hexies, so I had pictured something in the 2" range, to use in English paper piecing, etc. So I was surprised to get these giant sized ones, I think they're 8" across.

These are not that by a long shot, or well...several extra inches.

And they helpfully included a pattern as well, A Hop Skip & A Jump. Some of which involves cutting up the hexies into equilateral triangles (?) and adding sashing to each shape. These will be fun to play with and I'm surprised at how happy it made me to win something.