notes from Terry Ann

The Bag Ladies do Market

We're back from Quilt Market - Kirk flew home while Megan and I drove back with a little detour to Cedar Point in Sandusky Ohio to ride a few roller coasters. Megan and I both came down with a nasty cold as soon as we got back last Wednesday, and are now finally starting to feel better.

Here are a few pictures from Quilt Market: first just a little portion of the show floor - you can see us waving right in the center. To our right is the Red Rooster Booth - our "Neutral Territory" quilt is the third one over with the rust lattice strips.

 
And a closeup of the four bag ladies: Debbie Bowles from Maple Island Quilts, Linda Hohag from Brandywine Design, me, and Heather Mulder-Peterson from Anka's Treasures. We're in my booth posing in some of the new bags from my new book "Big bags, Little Bags". The four of us are participating in the "Minnesota Road Show" which is a teaching trunk show that travels all over the country - check at your local shop to see if it will be in your neighborhood sometime this next year.

The four of us traveled all over market together too - here are a few of our stops:

First a stop in the Brandywine Design booth where our husbands were definitely goofing off! Oh wait - that's us!

 

Next we popped across the aisle to model a more youthful look at the Taylor Made Designs booth.

 

And a stop in the Maple Island booth to freshen our lipstick. Debbie is using blue lipstick to go with her quilt in the background.

A little clowning around with a party animal - we fit right in, don't you think?

 

Finally, we're all pooped out so we had to rest in Heather's booth - we sat right on top of one of her quilts!

After all of that clowning around, I went back to my booth to find my kids hard at work!

An Ode to Oilcloth

One of the testers for our "Popcorn" Yo-Yo bag  brought her supplies to class in an oilcloth bag. It was love at first sight and I had to have some oilcloth too! Unfortunately, the class ended late Saturday afternoon and I had to wait until Monday to go shopping for oilcloth! But I was there Monday morning right when the shop opened and bought some cherries and polka dots. (and a few more for my stash - you never know when you'll need a new bag!) The bags in the photo are from our new Big Bags, Little Bags book.

Here I am making another bag for our Quilt Market booth. Instead of pressing the oilcloth with an iron, I'm rolling and pinching the seam with my fingers.
 

I smoothed some "Press'n Seal" on my machine bed to help the oilcloth slide through the machine better; and then used a seam ripper to cut a hole for the feed dogs.

The oilcloth was easy to sew, in fact the hardest part was turning the bag right side out because it was so stiff. I wonder if it counts as an aerobic exercise - I'm sure I worked up a sweat turning the bag!
 
Here is the finished bag, with a Peppermint Purse from our new book. I always set up my Quilt Market booth in my garage ahead of time - you can see part of the booth in the background along with a pile of book boxes. Tomorrow we'll pack the van for Market - do you think it's too soon to sew the handles on the Peppermint Purse? They look pretty good just pinned if you ask me. My next post will be some fun pictures from Quilt Market! I'm off now to get all the little Market details finished up . . . and then off we go to Pittsburg.

Popcorn, no butter please

The only way to ever eat popcorn without butter is if the popcorn is really a big bowl of yo-yos.These are some of the yo-yos that I've been making this winter. They are going to be made into a yo-yo quilt, using the quilt as you go method. (The table runner is Seven Layer Salad from Let's Do Lunch.)

 

First the yo-yos are sewn to strips of fabric, and then the strips are sewn to the batting and the backing - no quilting will be needed because you quilt it as you sew the strips down. I've finished just a few strips and they are hanging up for me to see every day. Along the way I got just a little sidetracked and decided that it would make a great tote!

 

Here's the finished tote - and it was a lot faster to finish than the quilt will be! The pattern for the tote is in my new book Big Bags, Little Bags. There are two sizes in the book so you can use charm squares for the little purse or fat quarters for the tote. Just two days until we get the book from the printer. Yay!

Two for the show

I can never resist stripes - here are two bags that use striped fabric in the mix. Both are from our new book "Big Bags, Little Bags".

peppermints and popcorn

Two little zipper pouches quilt as you go with yo-yos too! The little red one is the perfect size for my sewing machine feet - I keep it next to my machine, and the pink one is hiding my Hot Tamales . . . I named them Peppermints and Popcorn.

Market Meltdown

You know I meant "Count Down" - I would NEVER have any kind of meltdown right before Quilt Market!!  Just 12 days until we head for Market in Pittsburg, and what better way to count down than to  show you a different bag from our new book every day? (I've gotta make up for my long absence here)

Since my keyboarding skills leave a little to be desired I just found out that if you leave out one little letter, Two Tone Tote becomes Two Ton Tote. It might be easier to make this quilt-as-you-go bag than it is to type the name. (for me anyway)

We went on a little shopping excursion to find red sunglasses for the picture - but had no luck at all. The red ones were all HUGE with big curved frames and they fell off the bag. So I had to settle for a white pair and a little red coin purse. BUT the good news is that I found some reading sunglasses - they have plain sunglasses on top (like bifocals) and the bottom half is like the little reader glasses that magnify! What fun - you know I will be on the deck soaking up the sun and reading after we get home from Market . . . and Kirk will have to answer the phone and say "I'm sorry, Terry's not in the office right now".