Central Alberta Quilt Guild Show

I had a delightful day out yesterday at the Central Alberta Quilt Guild Show in Red Deer.  This is a fantastic show, attracting vendors from all over western Canada!  Frankly, I prefer this show to the (for profit) Creative Stitches show in Calgary.  And if the weather is good, as it was today, it's a very pleasant drive!

April is a pretty iffy month for weather around here.  The show is always held on a Friday and Saturday.  One year, I took the Friday off from work and went up.  Good thing, as we got about 6 inches of snow on the Saturday.  Last year, I had every intention of going, and got up to fog!  Pea soup fog!  Now that may not be all that unusual in some locations, but in bone-dry Alberta, it is rare.  I started to drive anyway, but could barely see in front of me.  The thought of driving 90 minutes in that was not inviting.  I turned around, dejected, and came home.

But yesterday, the sky was blue, and spring was truly here!  Even though the fields were still snow filled, the roads and ditches were pretty bare.  I turned on some of my quilty podcasts, and the trip flew by.

I've created a slideshow with the photos - at least I think I did.  I can't see it in preview mode, but hopefully it will show up when I hit "publish".  I didn't take photos of most of the quilts - just the ones that struck my fancy.


 Edited to add:  It worked!!

Central Alberta Quilt Show

Mr. CQT and I had a nice trip to Red Deer today for the annual Central Alberta Quilt Guild show.  Actually, I dropped him off at the motorcycle dealership, and went to the show myself.  That way, we both enjoyed the trip.

This is a great show, with gorgeous quilts and LOTS of vendors.  It is really well done for a show done by a smaller centre. It has a huge draw, with people coming from Calgary, Edmonton and beyond.

I arrived just before the door opened, and there were about 100 people in line!  I made a good choice - I decided to go look at the quilts first.  The other 99 people headed over to the vendor booths and I was all by myself wandering amongst the quilts.  Since I actually remembered to take my camera, it was great.  I could take lots of pictures with no one getting in the way!

After that, I wandered around the vendor booths.  I only bought one thing - a DVD, "Sally Collins teaches Precision Piecing".  Mostly, the vendors this year were selling kits.   Tons of kits!  I looked at them, but kept thinking about all the fabric (and a couple or six kits) I have sitting in my sewing room.  I really, really don't need any more!  So, I looked for new templates and notions, and really didn't see any.  I looked at books and patterns, but nothing jumped out at me, so my Visa did not get the workout it expected.

Here is a slideshow of some of the quilts.  I probably took pictures only of a third of the quilts that were there.  These were the ones that inspired me.  I discovered something -- I really have to learn to hold the camera straight!  I hope you don't get too sea sick looking at these!