We Went to a Quilt Show. Because I Said So.

Searching is half the fun; life is much more manageable when thought of as a scavenger hunt as opposed to a surprise party.
–Jimmy Buffett

{The Quilt Mobile, as seen at The Original Sewing and Quilting Expo}

Last week I mentioned that we were going to a quilt show. Unfortunately, it wasn't the show with The Quilt Mobile. I mean how cool is that? My dad is going to be asking for one for Christmas.

I planned a little Scavenger Hunt to keep the Not-So-Little Bugs interested while I looked at the quilts. The show was rather smaller than I remembered it was in past years, so I had my fill of looking at quilts before Grasshopper had finished his scavenger hunt. How's that for irony ? A little bribery motivation in the form of an apple pie from McDonald's was all it took.

In the end, I came up with a list of twenty different quilts to find while we were there. I wanted the Not-So-Little Bugs to relate the quilts to themselves, but I threw in a few technical items as well. I came up with most of the list, but a few are from suggestions left in the comments on my post about it last week.

Find a quilt that reminds you of Summer.
Find a quilt that reminds you of Spring.
Find a quilt that reminds you of Winter.
Find a quilt that reminds you of Fall.
Find a quilt made for a specific holiday.
Find a quilt with your favorite color in it.
Find a quilt that only has two colors in it.
Find a rainbow quilt.
Find a quilt that you would like to have on your bed.
Find your favorite quilt.
Find a quilt with a blue ribbon on it.
Find a wholecloth quilt.
Find a hand quilted quilt.
Find a quilt with pinwheels in it.
Find a quilt with stars in it.
Find an appliqué quilt.
Find a quilt with feathers quilted in it.
Find a quilt with a grey background.
Find a pictorial or art quilt.
Find a scrap quilt.

When we got home, there were a few more suggestions in the comments.

Find a quilt with a cat/dog/animal on it.
Find a quilt that has a movie/tv/book theme.
Find a quilt that most resembles Mr. Bug's personality.
Find the ugliest quilt.

If I do this again, I will probably take some of the technical things off the list, shorten it a bit and add in a few of these items. Probably not the ugliest quilt, because that's just not nice. And with my luck, the person who made the quilt one of us deemed "the ugliest" would be standing right behind us while we photographed and recorded it on the Scavenger Hunt list.

It was really fun to come home and look through the photos and see the quilt show through LadyBug's and Grasshopper's eyes. Some of their choices were pretty obvious, or even a little off the mark. But some of them really surprised me and I loved seeing the quilt show from their perspectives.

We'll start with one of the more obvious choices. Both Grasshopper and LadyBug picked the same hand quilted quilt and I thought it was the best of the half-a-dozen or so there. It is called Simply Card Tricks.

The detail was amazing. If you click on the larger picture above, you can see some of it, but here's a close-up of the quilting in the card trick blocks.

One of the surprising picks was the quilt that Grasshopper wants on his bed. It was part of a collection of spotlight quilts done by Sharon Wright. There is a picture of The Savior in the center of the quilt. You can see it best when the picture is smaller, but make sure to click on it so you can see the beautiful detail in the Celtic knots.

Grasshopper chose this Super Mario Brothers quilt, as seen at the Cut to Pieces QAL and featured at Fandom in Stitches, which has 3888 – 1" squares, as his favorite. The quilt is 3x4, but Grasshopper's photography class doesn't start until school gets back in .

LadyBug chose this quilt, which was the first one inside the door, as the quilt that reminded her of summer! It is such an adorable quilt. I would have picked it for the appliqué quilt, but doesn't this just sing Summer to you?

LadyBug picked this pretty quilt, called Stepping Into Spring, as her appliqué quilt. I love the pretty colors.

Here's a close-up of the appliqué, which also has some embroidery.

This quilt, also by Sharon Wright, reminded Grasshopper of Summer.

I found it interesting that this quilt reminded Grasshopper of Winter.

It was probably my favorite quilt {but that's really hard to say for certain}, and what drew me to it were the colors, the Dresdens and the quilting.

But once Grasshopper said it reminded him of winter, it reminded me of it too.

I hope the Not-So-Little Bugs don't hold it against me too much that I dragged them to a quilt show, because I'm probably going to do it again later this month .