The Quilt Show

Hi Everyone,

A few weeks ago down in Indianapolis was a big event called Gen Con.  Until last year, I had never heard of it.  Apparently, the board game industry has become very big and Gen Con is THE convention/show.  It's like the Comicon of board games.  If you don't understand that reference, its to board games what Houston is to us quilters!  I know about it because my daughter, who lives in the Indy area, has a boyfriend that is big into the board game world.  This year both of them worked at a booth promoting and selling the hottest game of the whole show--Heroes Wanted--as her boyfriend did some of the graphic art for the game.

During one of the days that she was there, I got an excited text from her that she found me the perfect thing!  Last Friday she drove up to spend the day and brought it.

It a game designed by Judy Martin and her husband, Steve Bennett.  They seem to be avid board game players, too.  (And yes, I should have written this post on Monday as I see that Bonnie Hunter had a post about it yesterday!)

I loved the blurb on the back:  "Award-winning quilt makers devote considerable effort to collecting fabrics for their stashes.  They shop for specific colors, often ranging into neighboring hues to achieve a nuanced, scrappy look.  If they cannot find the colors they want, they sometimes hand dye their own fabric.  They use their time and skills converting fabric into blocks, which they combine to make quilts.  Often, quilters work on more than one quilt at a time to keep things interesting.   They may embellish their quilts with intricate quilting stitches.  The best quilters make good color choices, combine blocks skillfully, use their time will, and win generous purchase awards when they enter their quilts in shows."  Doesn't that describe us quilters perfectly?  And that is what you do to play the game.

The game parts and pieces are really cute.

You have a shield that features a sewing maching.  It is referred to as your "sewing room."  See the piles of blocks in between us?  Those are the blocks.  You "buy" blocks by collecting fabric stash cards.  The fabric cards are either one color, such as yellow, or may be two colors, like red and purple.  There are a few "dye goods" cards, which are essentially the "wild cards" which can be used as any color.  Play consists of either gathering stash cards, or else using them to buy "make" blocks.  It is hard to see in the picture above, but there is a number value on each block.  That value number decides how much fabric is required to "make" the block.  It may "cost" three cards, two cards, or one card.  The card must be of the same color as the block.  So the purple blocks there will cost the appropriate amount of purple fabric cards and so forth.

We all know, though, that the clock is always ticking--especially before a quilt show!  For each block that you get, you also take a timer card.  Once all of the timers cards have run out, it is time for the quilt show!

In my sewing room, I have been assembling my quilts.  A quilt can be of two types:  all the same color and different blocks (a sampler quilt), or all the same block but different colors (a scrap quilt.)  I have two scrap quilts.  The quilts can be all sizes:  a table runner is three blocks.  A wall quilt is 4, arranged 2x2.  Lap quilts are made of a 2x3 block arrrangement, queen quilts are 3x3, and 3x4 is a king quilt.  Quilters do not have to enter all quilts they have started in the quilt show.  The game consists of 3 quilt shows--so there will be other chances to enter the quilt later, perhaps when it is larger.

Before entering, there are 3 round tokens with 1,2, or 3 on them.  This is the quilting that you can add to your quilt.  Quilts are "judged" based on the total points of the blocks and then the additional points of the quilting.  It is good to "make" blocks with high points, or assemble the largest quilt--that means the most points.

  Here you can see that my wall hanging has 3, 5, 5, and 5 point blocks.  (Five is the highest)  I added the most intricate quilting, the 3 token, so my quilt totaled up to 21 points.  It won first place!  In this case, $13,000.  There are 3 prizes chosen randomly for each show.  Cash is paid out to the winners.  Losing quilts are given $1000 and then they are removed from play.  You play the second and third round and at the end, the quilter with the most money wins!  My daughter and I only had time to play one round--to get the hang of it.  I won.  Then I got my husband to play a whole game with me.  I won.  I would really like to play with more than 2 people, though (you can have 4 players) as the game would be really different.  With 2 players, I knew that if my opponent didn't take a card, I would get it if I wanted, so playing with others would be more challenging.  Also, with just 2 players, it was beneficial to enter at least 2 quilts in each show as one of us would win 2 prizes, and the other would win 1.  That would change with additional players.

If you like this game, you can find it here.  I think it is really fun and just plain cute!  The only problem that I can see is that it will take more time away from actually quilting!

Oh, and just in case you are interested, here is my daughter at the Heroes Wanted booth at Gen Con.

She's the one in the pink skirt!  She was costumed as a butterfly super hero.  Also, Heroes Wanted was so successful that they have already sold out of the first production of the game!

Have a great day!
JoAnne

Inspiration: Found

Hi Everyone,

Last time I stopped by, I was sharing how I was having trouble getting back into quilting and what I could do for inspiration.  I asked all of you for advice, too.  I'm back to share with you some of the things that I did.

I had mentioned blogs.  On Friday, there was  this post from the wonderfully insightful Carrie Nelson.  It is a post answering some selected questions that were asked of many designers/bloggers, covering topics such as "What are you working on?"  "How does your work differ from others?" "Why do you create what you do?"  I found reading Carrie's answers to these ideas to be very thought-provoking.  It is a great post and really had me examining my quilting mentality.  (Perhaps that will be a blog post for a later date once I do some more thinking.)

Next I said that I needed to get out some of the fabrics and kits that I brought with me and look at them, and touch them, and start warming up to possibilities.   Right now, the idea of breaking up a large kit, and sorting out all of the pieces in this small space, seems too intimidating, so for now I chose one small kit.

Shopping for fabric is great motivation.  One day last week, I got an email from Michele at Island Life Quilts telling me how the Fat Quarter Shop was having a flash sale on fabric that looked like my type.  I immediately checked it out and put in an order.  It arrived on Saturday.

Linda left a comment sharing how she likes to look through magazines and books.  That was something that I forgot to mention in my post. Last week I purchased the newest issue of AP&Q.  It has a great feature article on Lynn Hagmeier of Kansas Troubles.

I mentioned that if I got desperate, I could visit a local quilt shop, and several of you agreed.  While I wasn't desperate, I did want to check out "the scene."  As it happens, Fort Wayne doesn't seem to have much in the way of LQS's, although there are some good shops in the area.  Shipshewana is about an hour away, although I haven't yet gone there since moving here.  However, while checking out the listings for the Row by Row Experience (Yes, I've been collecting some license plates,) I discovered that the little town of Leo, IN has a quilt shop!  This is amazing because the house we are buying is actually in Leo--just a few miles outside of Fort Wayne.  On Saturday, my husband and I wanted to drive by the house (we jokingly refer to it as "stalking the house") as we hadn't seen it all week, so then we found the quilt shop (my husband was checking out the barber shop just a block down the street.)

This is in the shop:  Needless to say, I felt very welcome!

The shop is called A Quilt of Many Colors and right away I met the proprietor, Sandi.  Her husband is retired Air Force(!) but they have lived in Leo for nearly 30 years.  The shop is small, but has a really nice selection including the batting I like to use as well as some Moda, etc.  Most of the fabric is for the traditional quilter--I think most of the local quilters quilt in that style and if you are a small shop, it is important to serve your customers.  I'm mostly a traditional quilter, so I wasn't disappointed.  While we were visiting, a group of Row by Row Experience shop-hoppers came into the shop.  They were from Iowa and came for the day to Indiana to visit some of the participating shops.

Most importantly,  Sandi told me that every Tuesday is "Sit and Sew" at the shop.  Wanting to meet other quilters, I gathered up my hand applique and went back yesterday.  There were four other ladies, and it was fun visiting with them and "talking quilting."  I'll be going back next week.

When it gets right down to it, though, you can have all the inspiration/motivation in the world, but as Jackie at Adirondack Urban commented:  just sitting at the sewing machine will get you going.  Once you get started, you won't have any problem!  Other than applique at Sit and Sew, I actually did get out my small kit--its one of Temecula Quilt Co's monthly minis--and I got started!  It's a slow start, but so far I have 6 of the 12 small nine-patches done and the others are all laid out.

Thanks to all of you for your advice and support!  It really means the world to me.

Have a great day!
JoAnne