Quilt Shop, Quilt Show and Fun With Friends

Big news! We finally have a local quilt shop with the opening of Davidene’s Quilt Shop just a few minutes from my home!

One of the great things about this quilt shop is the fact that they sell Connecting Threads thread! It's a little more expensive than in the catalog, but really handy when I find I need a color I don't already have.

It will also be nice to be able to take classes nearby.  Ellen, Karan, Margareth and I stopped by on Thursday to pick up some goodies and check out the facilities after visiting the quilt show. 

This week the Utah Quilt Guild held its annual Quilt Fest, this year at the Zermatt in Midway. I was unable to take any classes this year, but it was fun to go to the show with friends, and then to lunch at the Spin Cafe in Heber City. Of course, I can't show you all of the quilts in the show in this little blog, but you can see all the photos I took here. Here are a few that especially appealed to me. I'm always drawn to quilts made from scraps (or look as if they were), like this one:

I really like this one, too. The cattails are appliquéd.

And then there was this one.

They also had the vendors' mall, with some really great quilting supplies for sale, along with some goodies that quilters just naturally like, like chocolate!

Joanie's birthday was Tuesday, but she was busy all week, getting ready for her annual "Spooktakular" (garage sale kicked off with a party the night before). Ellen and I got to treat her to breakfast on Saturday. We went to a little cafe connected with a local gas station, where they have great food.

This week brought some progress with knitting, spinning, appliqué and weaving, but most of it you've seen before, and it doesn't look much different. The big news, though, is in weaving. I warped on Monday for a scarf for a friend:

The warp is Knit Picks' Palette (one of my favorite yarns) in Green Tea and Edamame. The weft is Koigu hand-painted merino. I ripped it out after I had about 10" done. I was beating too hard, I guess, because the warp threads were sitting tightly against each other, making it almost weft-faced (all weft and no warp showing). It was pretty, but I had wanted the two shades of warp threads to show through, and I was going to use up the weft too fast, meaning I would run out of weft yarn while the scarf was still way too short. I had worked out the weft for 12 picks per inch (12 weft threads per inch), and this about twice that, so it was going to make it take much more yarn than I had. Here's what I mean:

See the two different colors in the warp? The only place you would see the warp was in the fringe. After picking out the weft and starting anew, here's what it looks like:

I've made more progress on it, but it looks about the same as in this photo. When it's finished, it will be a gift for a friend who gave me a lot of quilting fabric she wanted to get rid of, and a big box of yarn for charity projects and weaving practice. The Koigu was in the box. It's expensive yarn, and she must have liked it, so my weaving practice will also provide her with a scarf for the winter.

On Sunday Rocky and Sunny took me to the Park City Community's annual Blessing of the Animals, held to celebrate the feast day of St. Francis. This year it was at my church, St. Luke's Episcopal. The rain stopped about an hour before the event and started up again as we were on our way home in the car.

I haven't given you a gratuitous baby photo for a while, so here's a cute shot of Daphne after the family got home from the Children's Museum. The "Cat in the Hat" she's sitting on is the back side of her "I Spy" quilt. She had her face painted at the museum.

What's on my needles: Dogwood Blossoms, Christmas Waffle and Green Tea socks with a few more pattern repeats finished.

What's on my loom: "Scarf for a Friend," nearly half done. 

What's on my wheel: Full Circle Roving in "Wolf". I'm still on the first bobbin. 

What's on my Featherweight: Delectable pathways, appliqué panel #3, more than half of the stems done. Still need to sew the blocks together for the pieced strips between the appliqué. 

What's on my iPad/iPhone: I really enjoyed The Making of a Marchioness by Frances Hodgson-Burnett (author of Little Lord Fauntleroy and The Secret Garden) on Audible. I guess I need to read more by this author. Now I'm listening to Icebound by Dean Koontz on the Overdrive app. The eBook The Hannover Square Affair by Ashley Gardner is still on my iPad Nook app for bedtime reading. Listening to the Fiber Hooligan podcast and the Knit Picks podcast.

What's my app of the week: MLB, the free version. When I can't watch my beloved Red Sox on TV, I can still keep track of the games using the scoreboard in the app.

What's in my wine glass: HRM Rex-Goliath Free Range Red, nice for a change of pace. "Sweet and juicy," although it isn't really what I would call a sweet wine. 

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals were harmed during the production of this blog post.