A busy weekend

On Saturday, Thing One and I went to Bennington, Vermont to the Bennington QuiltFest, put on by the local guild in that area (Quiet Valley Quilters, I think).
This is a nice local show with a good number of vendors. It makes for a very enjoyable day. It seems that someone in that guild must teach scrap quilt workshops for the guild members on a regular basis because every year there are always lots of scrappy quilts made from the Nickel Quilts books. I have both of these books, but haven't made any projects from them yet. Again, I left the show saying "I really need to work on a couple of those designs". We'll see if it actually happens this year!

I only took a few pictures at the show, and maybe I'll share a few later in the week, but today, pictures of projects I have been working on myself!

A couple of Friday nights ago, Thing One and I went to the Gallery Walk in downtown Brattleboro Vermont. This is a monthly event held on the first Friday of the month. Finally we made it to this, I only wish we had been before. Almost all of the shops in the downtown area stay open late on Friday night ('till 8:30 or 9) and there are all sorts of art related things going on: most of the shops have some sort of artwork on display (photos, sculpture, paintings, etc). There are also lots of live bands, street performers, the local circus arts school puts on performances in the little park. It is a very festive, fun atmosphere and there are tons of people around. Thing One and I enjoyed many of the sculptures and creations made from found objects. It was a very inspiring evening, both Thing One and I came home inspired to work on several new projects.

One of the thing I bought that night was this book. It came from the Indian store and is a tree of life applique on the outside of a handmade book. According to the information in the store, the fabrics are old Saris. Isn't it pretty? There were lots of other textile things like pillows, curtains, quilts etc made from the old Saris, and on some of them the beadwork was amazing. If I had more money, I sure could have spent a lot of it there!

I've been stitching up a storm lately, mostly because I can sit and watch movies with Hubby while I stitch, using the sewing machine is too distracting during the movies!
I'm working on the armchair pincushion pattern that was provided for the Stitcher's Angel Swap (the pattern is here). I've got the stitching done and the pieces cut out. Now I've just got to assemble it.


I finished the August block for Bea's block of the month. I was ready to Septembers, but I ran out of the right color of floss. In the next few days I will get going on Septembers block.


I completed the bag from May Britt's pattern for the Stitcher's Angel Swap. The pattern is here


Finally, I decided to make myself a bucket. These have been popping up all over blogland. I found the patternhere. There are definitely going to be more of these in my future, perhaps in different sizes, this is quite small, but oh so adorable!