Sewing and Stitchey Expo 2009

Yesterday I took the afternoon away from the kids to go to the Sewing and Stitchery Expo. I wasn't sure what my goal was in going, but since I've been doing some sewing things of late, I figured I'd check it out. Most of the show was geared towards quilters or clothing makers, of which I do neither. I had heard there would be great deals on all sorts of things, but the prices all seemed high to me. But it was fun to wander the booths and see the amazing variety of things that people do with fabric and thread. And let me tell you, there are some super duper fancy sewing machines out there in the world. If I had $8000 to blow, (yes, there are three zeros after that 8) I would buy this fancy thing:

It does free-motion stitching and you move it with those handles. The faster you move it the faster the needle goes so your stitches are all the same length. That sure would make my little embroidery projects look much nicer. But alas, no $8000 here.

I got to see a little DIY clothing demo done by the Threadbanger folks. They are all about repurposing clothes and fabric rather than throwing things away. They do cool videos weekly. It's where I got the idea to do freehand machine embroidery.

The coolest thing I saw was a booth where they made quilts that looked like those photomosaic posters. I've tried to find a picture of a quilt that looks like the ones I saw, but I can only find simpler ones. You can check it out here. The quilts I saw weren't pieced with squares. They used shaped pieces of fabric, and they were absolutely gorgeous. If was ever going to quilt, this is what I would do. So sad I can't find a good photo. ... Okay, so after some hunting I found a close example. You can see some in this Etsy shop. The ones I saw weren't all people and there were a greater range of colors and stitching accents, but you get the idea.

All in all it was a pretty good break from the kids. And I managed to get myself a little something too.

Yep, two spools of thread. Such a big spender I am. But it's supposed to be good and it was 40% off, so we'll see how it goes!