I'm in Recovery Mode

I’m in recovery mode from yesterday. Had so much fun at the Martha Pullen Market. Took us about 1.25 hours to drive from our meeting point to the Arlington Convention Center. I drove; we had 5 from our group including me.

I went to 3 of the 45 minute classes/demos. I went to a serger class where the instructor demoed “other ways to use your serger.” I got some good tips and hints and saw some wonderful examples of the various projects.

Went to Linda McGehee's “zipper” class. Her way to put in an exposed zipper is great. And a great tip I picked up when making purses is to put a “secret zippered pouch” in the bottom of the purse. Such a neat idea. I bought one of her patterns and another that is not her’s but by another designer that is a square of fabric that uses 4 zippers to turn that, when zipped, into a bag. So you have a picnic bag, a child’s toy bag, or such—take out the food/toys – unzip the zippers and you have a small table mat, or a child’s play blanket for the child to sit on. Such a cute idea I think. And of course I had to buy some Riri zippers from her. She had some of last year’s stock at buy one, get one free.

My last class was “Londa’s Sweat Shirts.” Wow! What she can to with a sweatshirt. Lovely, lovely jackets, and no two are alike. One of the keys is to have a really nice (at least 75% cotton) cotton sweatshirt. I bought two sweatshirts; one for myself and one for Sis. I might get them made up before fall….I can hope anyway!

So many vendors; so many beautiful and fun things. Lots of embroidery designs. So much creativity bottled up at that convention.

I bought the 2 sweatshirts, a jacket pattern, a blouse pattern, one of Louise Cutting’s books, some felting supplies to try my hand with a felting needle (hmm), a serger tote that I had been wanting for a while (they were 25% off at the show), the two purse patterns, the zippers, and some silk power dry. It feels so nice.

There were several things I “almost” bought, but talked myself out of the purchase. (You know I still have things I bought at the show last year that haven’t been used/made/touched.) I’m sure you know what I mean.