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Acquired

You know you haven't been to a quilt show in years when the prices for fabric, notions and trims doubles (and some tripled) while you were absent. I really didn't need anything, so I mostly bought Christmas gifts (some of which I am not showing you) from the guild's boutique and a few bargain bin items from the vendors.

I did buy myself these two spools of new, pretty thread, as I don't have any variegated thick rayon. Also, I love these colors.

Since I don't want to buy new fabric I did get a couple of scrap bags, also sold by the guild, for $5.00 and $3.00.

The $5.00 bag of scraps; looks to be about four yards altogether.

The $3.00 bag of scraps, which I thought had nicer fabric than the pricier one; about three and a half yards of fabric in this one.

I saw a lot of vendors selling hand-stitched penny-rug type kits, as evidently prims and candlemats and little rough pincushion kits are a trend again, or maybe they just sell well here. The new fabric I saw was not very attractive; they seem to be mostly batiks, girly prints or sixties and seventies retro. Still, the vendors were super nice and I had fun, which was the whole point.

Other things have changed with the guild; very few members seemed to be present, which made me wonder if they lost a lot of them during the pandemic (this guild was mostly made up of seniors.) The raffle baskets were all stocked with a lot of booze -- two or more bottles per basket -- so I passed on buying any tickets. In the old days they might have had one basket with a single bottle of wine and stuff to make an Italian dinner. Now raffle basket row looks like a tavern. There was no silent auction as in previous years, and only about half the vendors and quilt entered into the show. Looks like in a few years they will likely have to give up on the show or maybe merge with another guild in the region to do one together.

It made me a little sad, to be honest. But time marches on, and quilting takes plenty of patience, practice and precision, three things that don't much tempt the youngsters. I expect it will eventually give way to tufting or candlemaking or macraweaving, whatever the heck that is.

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