Sewing & Stitchery Expo 2011

I took a little trip to Puyallup, Washington last weekend. Every year, they have a sewing and stitchery expo- a smorgasbord of all things fiber.  It's a few hours north of the Portland area and I try to attend most years.  This year, I drove up with my friend, Jean.  She was sweet enough to drive so I could knit in the car. :-)     The show is held at the fairgrounds, and is a very nice facility.

They had about 200 vendors- quite a bit to get through in a day!  Most were fabric and sewing related.  A few sold yarn or beads.  They also had classes and trunk shows and a few other events.  I've taken classes in past years, but this year I just browsed through the marketplace.

One of my favorite vendors is always the Pendleton Wool Store.  Pendleton wool is made in Pendleton, Oregon and has a history that goes back to the early days of settlement in the northwest.  We have a few of their blankets and I treasure them.  They also sell the wool by the yard.  I just DROOLED over this coat!  The little pin that matches is a flower made from a twisted zipper.  Zippers were big at the show--- fashion zippers sewn into garments and zippers used to make jewelry.

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Those of you who are familiar with my website know that I carry a lot of patterns and kits from Bigfork Bay Cotton Company.  They use the fusible applique technique.  Of course, I HAD to spend some time looking at samples from Bigfork and stop to chat with my sales rep who was helping in one of the booths. (Hi, Tracy!)  Check out the elephant!  His ears are 3 dimensional- flopping in the breeze.  So cute!

This little guy has always been one of my favorites.  I guess you have to like contemporary interpretations of dogs to appreciate this--- but this guy reminds me of my Golden Retriever (who is feeling better, by the way).  The pattern name is Sundance.  Anyway- I think he's a cutie.

I stopped to chat a bit with Lorraine Torrance.  I carry some of her patterns.  She only has a few quilt patterns.  Most are by other designers that are published by her company.  Lorraine's specialty is designing clothing patterns.  She does gorgeous work.

I love the vest on the left.  It's like a quilt that you wear, isn't it?

This is the Sunspots pattern.  This sample looks so different from the pattern cover!  I've seen it done by several quilters and I'm always amazed at how each quilter interprets this design.

This made me chuckle.  I love feathers.  The above sample was in a thread company booth.  I wish I remembered the name of the thread (sorry!).  Anyway- the embroidery designs are really cool and the threads really bring them to life.  But what made me chuckle was remembering a shirt I used to own.  It was a white shirt, and had a feather embroidered on the back shoulder.  Everybody kept trying to pick it off!  It looked like something was on my shirt.  No more embroidered feathers on my shirts!

And finally.... no event at a fairgrounds is complete without funky farm animal art.  I'm guessing this mosaic tile animal is supposed to be a cow.