Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival

I had a lovely day last Friday. I drove down to Hampton, Virginia (about a 3 hour drive) to go to the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival. It was good to see my friend, Alice. She is doing well and it was fun to see a show with her – just like old times!

If you are ever in the southern U.S. and looking for a quick bite to eat, stop at a Chick-fil-A. I had a yummy chicken biscuit sandwich around 9:00 am and it held me until I ate dinner at 5:00 pm. The service at Chick-fil-A is the best. It is fast food, but they often stop at your table to offer extra napkins or to get you a refill on your drink. On Friday the gal didn’t just hand me my tray of food – she walked it over to a table for me. Be forewarned – they are closed on Sundays.

But I digress. Here are some photos of my favorite quilts from the show.

Unfortunately, I missed getting the maker of the above quilt.

The above quilt got my vote for “viewers choice”. Feathered stars! Am I just noticing these more because I want to make one? If you’ve been reading The Jubilee Quilt Project blog, you know I plan to make a feathered star as the medallion for my jubilee quilt. I wish I had taken more photos of this quilt.

Hope you enjoyed the show. It was a good day even though I drove through a thunderstorm on my way home (in February?!!!). There were more art quilts than I expected and I think more floor space was allotted to vendors than to quilts. Not complaining! Here is what I purchased – 

a wool pincushion kit, marking tools, hand quilting thread and needles, honeycomb papers and just 7 fat quarters (I didn’t even look at bundles or yardage) and a book. The book is Lucy Boston Patchwork of the Crosses by Linda Franz of inklingo. I didn’t even know I wanted this book! I’ve visited the inklingo website before and found it a little confusing. I’ll have to give it another try. Lucy Boston was a novelist, first published when she was in her sixties. She sewed and gardened into her nineties. What an inspiration! I haven’t finished going through the whole book, but from what I can tell it gives instructions for making Lucy’s Patchwork of the Crosses quilt using three different methods and how to design your own quilt using the two shapes – the honeycomb and a square. To find out more about Lucy Boston go to www.greenknowe.co.uk

I’m interested in the English paper piecing because I think it is the most portable quilting project I’ve ever done. What is your opinion on this?