One more stack of loot to share from the AQS Quilt Show in Des Moines:

Here we have a very mixed bag. From the top center:
- Beads! Couldn’t pass up the Miyuki beads since I’ve been wanting to see what all the fuss is about. Interestingly enough, though Miyuki beads are purported to be the “be all and end all” of high quality seed beads, I’ve kind of decided that I like plain old average seed beads just as well for my purposes. The Miyuki beads are TINY, as well as being more cylindrical and uniform, and while the uniformity doesn’t bother me, sometimes they’re too small (though maybe that’s just the combination of the colors that I have with the fabrics that I’m using them on at the moment), and the more rounded edges of a regular seed bead work better for what I’m trying to do than the cylindrical shape of the Miyuki beads. So now I know.
- Next are some hand printed fabric panels from Block Party Studios. These are really fun printed panels with sayings on them like
- The fabric is four fat quarters of Halloween type prints with holographic or iridescent overprinting which was just too unusual and fun to resist!
- The bundle in the middle is a few bits of hand punched, hand dyed wool fabric, and the curly stuff below it is also wool, hand dyed but more “au naturale” just as it came off the sheep. There was a booth that had all kinds of wools and other things for needle punch, and they had these overflowing bins of curly, colorful wool that you just grabbed what you wanted out of, and they sold it by weight. Think embellishments…
- The packets in the lower left corner are Painters Potpourri from Tentakulum, a German manufacturer. Each packet contains a paper-like background card, silk cocoons, a bit of silk fiber fabric stuff, and a hank of different fibers, all hand dyed in a coordinated colorway. These were too unique to pass up when I came across them in the YLI booth. I’m sure that any of you who are into the altered art or mixed media thing would know just what to do with these, but so far, I’m just admiring them. Their day will come though.
- Last we have the Bo-Nash bonanza bag. Bo-Nash was at the show with their newest products, a line of super fine glitters, Tonertex foils, glue pens and fabric adhesive in a fabulous squeeze bottle. I bought some of everything, and can’t wait to try it all out. I’m not sure it’ll be as “no-mess” as they claimed though. 🙂
Even that’s not quite all the loot from Des Moines, since we did spend one day at the local mall where I found the leather coat I’ve been searching for for years, and a pair of Anne Klein brown patent leather boots to die for. The boots were quietly waiting for me to discover them in the giant shoe department at Von Maur, but the coat positively screamed my name from across the store, and what could I do but answer the call? Everything else I bought is cool, but the coat was the best buy of the entire trip!
Believe it or not, I’m getting on the plane again on Thursday morning (yes, just 10 days after returning from Des Moines) for a super quick, four-day trip to Houston. Kimberly and I are going to Quilt Market to see whats new and news in the retail quilting world. I’m planning to make connections with distributors in preparation for stocking my new online shop which should be opening by the second quarter of 2009. My head is already spinning with products and plans, but I’m sure it’ll be doing a negative 4-g rolling dive by the time I get back!