Road trip!!!!!

In order to save time yesterday morning, I loaded my two boxes of paper to be shredded into the car along with the girls and we were off to the park. Then they got to come with me to the recycling depot. I'm not sure they were impressed to be in the car for that length of time, but they were good as gold. Surprisingly!

Back home where Ronda picked me up and we were off to the quilt show. In my clean up process, I came across something that I had purchased at the M&M shop in London a couple of years ago. Hmmm - these need to be used NOW - why save them.

I didn't have time to use them before I got in Ronda's car, but once we were on the road, it was time.

Look at how boring those black shoes are with those black laces. Boring!!!!

Boring black shoes and black laces

Now, look - orange laces pop up those shoes and make them a whole lot more fun. Hey - if we don't have fun now, it'll be too late. No sense saving anything for a rainy day - use it NOW. My black sneakers are funky with those orange M&M laces.

Funky orange laces from M&M store in London

It was a great show. Took lots of pictures. I remember the days when I would take that big camera of mine to the quilt shows. Then I took a small camera. Now - I just use my phone. The pictures are already downloaded to my hard disk and deleted off the phone. I don't need super quality pictures - I just snapped a bunch of things that were of interest to me. Am I going to post them? Nope - you would have had to go to the show to see the quilts yourself.  It does drive me crazy that people will come home from a quilt show and post a ton of pictures (most times without referencing the quilt label from the show) - more on that in a moment.

I walked out of that quilt show without spending any money except my entrance fee. Now how did that happen? I did look at all the vendors. Can't buy any books because I may already have that one - I so need to get those books scanned into my software so I could check - or not. Do I need more fabric or patterns or kits? No.

The idea was to go to lunch after the show and then back home. However we had seen something at the show that was at one of the stores (they didn't have it at the show) and so after lunch, we had an entire afternoon mapped out and we were off.

We stopped at The Quilted Cardinal in Lincoln. I had never been to this store before and it's closing at the end of June. Everything in the store is 40% off (a few things are 25%). Well, I couldn't pass up that opportunity so a few things jumped into my bag. I had visions of this shop being in the town, but it's out in the country amongst the vineyards. A beautiful shop and the fabrics are to die for. I could have brought a whole lot more home with me, but I tried to be good. There's still a good selection, but I'd get there fast!!!

Then we were off to visit a used bookstore that is holding a few books for me. Unfortunately, it's in the fellow's house and he wasn't there. That means we have to go back!

And then off to Kindred Spirits in St. Catherines. I haven't been there in a while. The shop has moved - same plaza just down a bit. I love the inside of the "new" shop - it's great. They moved two years ago!  Bought a few things at that shop and ordered two things. Yep, another reason to go back to that area.

It's was hilarious - we had seen beautiful quilts by the Hamilton guild members and one of the popular ones was a quilt designed by Jen Kingwell called Long Time Gone. I saw the book at the Kindred Spirits booth at the show. I didn't buy it immediately - I would come back. I came back five minutes later and the book was GONE!!!!   ACK!!!!!!!   The shop owner didn't think there were any others at the shop, but we checked anyway and she was right - no more. So I've ordered one through her. Can you believe that? I guess the moral of that story is - when you see something and you want it - buy it IMMEDIATELY!!!

I think Ronda said she used to live in St. Catherines. Did I get that right? I was getting tired by then and nothing was processing in my brain. The last stop was Avondale Dairy Bar which was also out in the country right on the farm where they make the ice cream daily.

Out in the country

The line was out the door at Avondale Dairy Bar

There was a line out the door. No big deal, but when we got inside, the line was HUGE.  We did have to wait a bit and while waiting, I was trying to decide what to buy. I see they had a couple of plant-based ice creams and I was very tempted (thinking of M), but I decided that my first ice cream of the season should be something I'm familiar with. I got sea salt and caramel. A very good choice I might add. They sell their ice cream cones by the weight which is a great idea - good for them and good for us!!!

Yummy ice cream

I have another beef today. Part of my beef has been around for a long, long time and the other part is fairly new. I'm not a negative Nellie - I'm going to call it education. I'll bet that many people do not even think this is important or even realize what they are doing.

So - when you go to a quilt show, all the quilts are labeled? Right? A SMALL story about the quilt always makes the quilt more interesting. Let's say that you see the quilt hanging in the quilt show and it's something that you want to make or get more information about. There should be a Design Source on the label. What should be on that section of the label?  The NAME of the pattern and the name of the DESIGNER and perhaps the book/magazine where it came from (if applicable). If all of those items were on the label, this would be ideal. However, even one of them would give the viewer a means of tracking down the pattern/designer.

This was one of the labels from the show. Notice in the very brief story - a fun ADAPTATION and then the design source is ORIGINAL. Now isn't that a wee bit of an oxymoron???  I recognized the pattern - someone has designed this pattern and is selling it so how can the maker of this quilt (in the quilt show) call it an adaptation and then say it's original????  Seriously?????  If you're like me and you don't get the quilt quilted for a long, long time - then put the pattern with the quilt top so that you have that credit information handy. That's why we need to put labels on our quilts!!!   You may not think it's important, but it is!!!  I know that I have a HUGE task ahead of me in labeling my quilts, but I've got a plan for that. Most of the ones that need labels are my own design so that's easy.

 A wee bit of an oxymoron????

The other thing that drives me crazy is not giving the entire story. There was one quilt and the moment I saw it, I knew what they had done. They had, in fact, changed the sizes of the original version of the pattern and they had done a great job. This was a very famous and very public project. On the design source part, they had listed the name of the designer. OK - that's great, but why not put the project name in the description or the design source. That would have made the information a whole lot more interesting and more people could relate to it since most people would recognize the project name, but not the designer. At least credit was given and someone could find that project with that information. But still - the name of the project should have been on that label.

Now here's the other thing that is going to cause me to go to my grave early (not really, I don't lose sleep over this stuff, but it drives me crazy). If there is one social media site that I could eliminate from this world it would be PINTEREST!!!!!   It's the most ridiculous thing in the world. Oh - don't get me wrong. It's a good thing - people can pin pictures and create storyboards, but there is ZERO credit for lots of ideas and a lot of the images were reposted WITHOUT permission. I've even found pictures pulled from my blog on PINTEREST with NO CREDIT to where the photos came from or what they were photos of. THAT IS BAD!!!!  And then you have this - Design Source - PINTEREST. Seriously????? 

The design source is NOT Pinterest. It's whoever designed that pattern, not Pinterest where they saw the picture. Do people not get it?????

But here's the other bad thing. Let's say you're searching on the internet for a quilt pattern. The other day I was searching for something - I don't remember what. The first FIVE links were Pinterest. NOT the real pattern or the designer. So how does the uneducated know that this quilt actually was a pattern designed by someone? Sometimes, I think quilters think of the quilts and who made them, not as patterns that were designed by someone. Shoot - I can't remember what that example was.

Now to call the kettle black, I posted a picture on one of my QUILTsocial blogs of a Charlie Harper quilt that I had made. The quilt wasn't important - it was the fact that the binding had been repaired that was important. Technically I should have listed the name of the pattern (it wasn't an oversight - I made a conscious decision to not mention the name). I've had people ask about the pattern. Someone even asked if it came from Pinterest?????  ACK!!!!   Shoot me dead now!!!!

If any of you saw that picture, here's the finished quilt and you can buy a kit from Missouri Star - that's the reason I made the quilt so that it could be photographed for that Missouri Star kit - (OH - I see the kit is currently unavailable - well order one and if enough people order it, they will restock). Keri Duke (Keri's Designs) (who has a contract with the Charlie Harper estate) interpreted the original image into a quilt pattern which she sells at major trade shows and on her website.

LImp on a Limb by Keri's Designs (adapted from artwork by Charlie Harper)

Oh - it just gets very complicated. Please try if possible to provide credit where credit is due. I'm always trying to link ANYTHING that I mention on this blog back to the original source rather than me steal pictures from the internet and put them on my blog which is a no-no.

That's it for today.  I didn't get a chance to show you what I've been working on. I guess that will have to wait until tomorrow.

Thanks to Ronda for the great day. I had to have a wee cat nap in the car on the way home as I was exhausted. Not sure why. And then I watched a movie when I got home. Black Panther. Not sure what the big deal was with that movie. It was OK and I fell asleep.

Have a super day!!!

Ciao!!!