Sewtopia Boston

My sister and I had a great time at Sewtopia Boston with a couple dozen other women of all ages,  sewing away.  Kathy and I were lucky on our midweek flight out and had an empty seat between us to pile all our stuff onto.  We did not see much of Boston besides the airport, as the event hotel was in Waltham, about 15 miles away.  The Embassy Suites was very quiet and our suite in a good location away from the elevator and ice/vending machines :)   We had a shop hop the first day, starting with Fabric Basement, which had every type of fabric imaginable and excellent discount prices.  

This button display had a bags and sold by the scoop, so fun!  I picked up a few pieces of yardage here and bought my sister her birthday present, a folding Olfa cutting mat.  We visited another nearby discount fabric store and finished up in Cambridge, where Harvard University is located.  By this time, we were exhausted and spent most of our time restoring our energy at a restaurant across the street from the "gather here" quilt shop on Cambridge Street.  It was late in the afternoon as I was trying to capture some of the great old buildings and houses from the bus. 

 Loved this red one with the multipaned windows of different sizes.

 And this cool triangular building only wide enough for a single door on the end.

We enjoyed a little leaf peeping and the quaint houses on narrow old streets.  The next morning the sewing lounge was opened and we chose our tables.  Kathy and I were opposite each other on one end, and our guild president's mom and a friend took the other two spots.  Luckily we were near a design wall, which I hogged the whole weekend. 

Here Kathy is fending off my flashing tiny four patches, she cannot handle it!  She nearly had a nervous breakdown when she had to sew some four patches from 2.5" charm squares for a Christmas panel she was bordering, and tossed the remaining charm mini pack to me.  So funny.  I spent most of my time on the Happy Tiers quilts I am making for my cousin to give to his granddaughters.  

Although this pic doesn't show it, I got all the blocks sashed and the top complete with borders (fabric is Badda Bing by meandmysister designs).  It took way longer than I thought due to lots of seam matching while constructing the rows.  The second Happy Tiers quilt was not even cut out, so that task took some time.  I had sewn about four blocks together before noticing that my seam allowance was more than 1/4".  This mistake was due to my assuming the foot on the loaned Juki was 1/4", and not being informed by staff that a separate 1/4" foot and shank was needed.  I got a bit upset but all was fixed; the staff leader, Amy, helped me by ripping one quilt block. I left the sashing and borders the way they were on the first Happy Tiers.  The next day I sewed and sewed and by the closing hour finally had all the second quilt's blocks made and sashed. 

The second Happy Tiers is from the Meadowbloom line by April Rosenthal.  I'm thinking this one will be for the older granddaughter; and am considering using Minky on the back of the quilts to make them extra snuggly. My goal is to finish the quilts and mail the first week of December.   Other projects I brought with me were never touched at all, but we enjoyed our time seeing familiar faces from New Orleans and plan to go to the Seattle venue next year.  We hosted a special guest I'll tell you about next time, and show my swap goodies, make and take project, and Michael Miller Challenge quilt.

Our flight plans had to be changed due to the terrible fires in Los Angeles and Ventura County and the closure of the 101 and coast freeways.  United Airlines graciously allowed a flight change for no charge, and Kathy set us up to fly to Denver, then change planes and come into Santa Barbara, where Grant could easily pick us up.  We were let off the plane at Gate 23, and our connecting flight was, believe it or not, 70+ gates away at Gate 95, the very very LAST gate in the whole terminal.  Naturally we only had about 10 minutes to get there and checked in, and were practically running all that time. It was snowing in Denver as we boarded the plane outside, quite a novelty for this Southern California girl, then we waited and waited for de-icing before heading home.  

The night after I arrived home, my sewing room had to be broken down the second time in a month to allow the handyman/painter to prep and paint the room as well as add baseboards.  Tomorrow I'll hopefully get most of the room put together.  However, since there will likely be a table full of Thanksgiving guests in here some stuff will not go back yet...and I do have a LOT of stuff!  

We still do not know the final guest count, some have been subtracted, others added.  One brother and his family have an elderly relative who may need extra attention so they may not make the long drive here.  It will either be 23 or 30 of us!