ICS Quilt Guild: Fabric Auction

My quilt guild, Illinois Country Stitchers, had an auction last night and was I ever excited! I actually found out about the auction before I decided I was going to join the group, but I am so glad I joined.  It is truly amazing how there can be so many committees doing their own thing all at once. As a young person in a new area who is used to college life--having built in social networks--this was the perfect type of organization for me to join!

Before I attended the auction, I made a large list of all the things I needed. I recently formally moved out of my parents home which meant moving away from the comfort of my mom's wonderful stash! I still have her old Singer sewing machine, but it was time for me to start stocking up on things for my own projects! I have so many goals to improve my cotton quilting stash, find new notions, and pick up materials for projects for my partner's nieces. I think I successfully did that and more!

The first think that I was able to do was go through notions, books, patterns and random other scraps. I don't have pictures of everything, but I ended up with about $4.00 of items which included an awesome 2016 quilt calendar with patterns, 5 embroidery hoops (that I plan to use to decorate my sewing room), a small used rotary cutting board, two gallon sized zip-locks of scraps and finally a square cutting template that is meant for making flying geese easier to cut out!

 

The second thing that I ended up with was two boxes of flannel for $9.00. I think this was one of my favorite purchases of the night! This wonderful selection is easily worth double or triple what I paid and I have plans for all of it!

Some little girls I know would love these colors!

Now all I need to do is whip up a baby quilt!

scrap Christmas flannel

So many interesting, coordinating scraps

I really like the taste of the person who coordinated these reds and grays! All I need to do is supplement the selection a bit!

This wall-hanging that I found in the flannel box is already made and bound! All I need to do is add it to my holiday decorations! 

I also ended up with a box of Christmas fabric for $1. I wasn't terribly excited at first but there is a lot of yardage in that box and I will be making LOTS of nice warm winter blankets with my selection.


I purchased two partial quilts as well.  The first one is really an interesting quilt. The previous owner clearly started hand quilting at the top. They added Sunbonnet Sue/Sam patterns to the middle of the blocks. Also, they had a fun time experimenting with fabric. Some of the blocks are old fashioned-type fabric, others have all one color fabric or metallic-typed fabric. Many of the blocks have fabric that I recognized from my grandmother's stash as well.  There is really nice batting in the middle and a neutral backing. I might add to the sides a bit to make it wide enough for a queen sized bed because right now this is a very square quilt and if I tried to use it on my own queen bed my partner and our dogs would end up with all the blanket!

Overall I'm pretty happy with the piece.  Even if I end up selling it later, it has a lot of character and I got it for a great price!

My second quilt I picked up from the silent auction was this gem, for THREE DOLLARS. It is a really beautiful quilt top! It was advertised as a feed sack quilt, but after further review with my mom, we think it's more 50's style print. Either way, whoever created it did a great job of balancing the colors and transitioning to new colors.  I like the character it has as well. The creator used the fabrics they had, so one of the selections ends up in multiple places (at both the top and the bottom) to fill in where a pattern or two was lacking. I also like that this quilt is not too feminine or too masculine. I think I might adventure to finish this for myself! It would look wonderful in my navy blue and gray themed master bedroom. I have to decide whether I would need to add any more border to make this a queen sized quilt or not. Since it is just the topper I have a lot more room to play with what has already been made.

I am so thrilled with all of my purchases and the event as a whole! My only regret is that I didn't pick up any more boxes of flannel to add to my collection ;) I can't wait to start creating in the next few weeks!!