Road to California Quilt Show

I was lucky enough to help my friends Bruce and Diane Magidson in their booth at Road to California in January. They started their business, Sew Batik, about the same time we started. So we have traveled to the same shows for years. I LOVE their fabric. It was always torture for me when our booths were across from each other at a show because I'd want to buy "one of each". I even used their fabrics in the Chevron Charm Table Runner I made for our booth. So when they asked for my help at the show I jumped at the chance.

Who wouldn't want to be surrounded by gorgeous fabric for three full days?! The fabrics behind me in the picture are their Wide Backs. These are the perfect size for large quilts so you don't need to piece the back. What a great idea. I'm wearing the jacket I made from one of the Rayon Batiks that I bought last year at the show. You can read about the jacket in this Blog Post.

If you have never attended Road to California it should be on your Quilt Show Bucket List. It is one of the largest quilt shows in Western US and in the country. They use up every square foot of the Ontario Convention Center. There are incredible quilts on display as well as a wide variety of classes to attend and of course LOTS of opportunities to shop.

It is also a very busy show for the vendors. As a result at a show like that usually there isn't much opportunity to leave the booth to look at the quilts. Which is exactly what happened in my case. But here is a link to the award winning quilts on the show website. The Best of Show Quilt was a Whole Cloth Quilt. It is the first time ever that a quilt like that won Best of Show. The quilt is called "Vivaldi by Moonlight." Here's a picture of the quilt.

All weekend as I was surrounded by beautiful fabrics and was looking at everything that people bought, I found some things that I just had to take home with me. Here are the additions to my Stash from the show. I'm proud to say that I have either started or completed two of the three projects. I think that's a new record for me.

I used these to make a Birthday Banner for my granddaughter Elsie's First Birthday. You can read about that in this Blog Post . Here's a picture of the finished product.

I also bought this fabric and pattern.

The fabric is a Rayon Batik. I love how the jacket I made turned out so I had to buy more for another project. It drapes so nicely and is so figure flattering. I have the dress finished except for the hem. Here's a picture of it just before I sewed the side seams.

The last thing I bought was the Honey Bun Pouf pattern and some fabric for that. The sample was in perfect view of the cash register where I was working all weekend. The fabric reminds me of water, and bubbles. Since we live at the beach and the fabric coordinates with our color scheme I thought it would be fun to have a couple of these for the grandchildren to sit on when they come to visit. I have to buy some canvas fabric so I haven't started on this one yet but it is in the queue.

I had a great time. It was fun to spend the weekend with Bruce and Diane. I saw so many of our customers and vendor friends. That is one thing I really miss about being off the road. We made many good friends over the course of those 10 years.

Happy Quilting,

Carol