New Zealand to Pittsburgh and home again!

(Alternative title - The Country Yard goes to International Spring Market)

(photo heavy)

Wow!

Wow!

Wow!

Our feet are firmly back on the ground now after a fabulous week away. What a great experience going to Pittsburgh for Spring Market!
On the way over there we went through 5 airports and clocked up a fair few hours in the air. Got there in time to have a good night's sleep before hitting Quilt Market running and not stopping for the three days it was held.
Talk about huge!! Hundreds of stalls, lots of people, plenty of walking, talking, stalking of our favourite designers and of course discovering new ones :-)

26 aisles of booths. Numbering of booths went from 101 to 2655 (some booths took up several spaces but that was still a lot of selling spots!)

We were lucky to be able to do classes on two mornings, these were held before the doors opened on the main area so meant a couple of early starts, however our body clocks were all out of kilter anyway so what's a little more confusion?! We both found these inspiring and gave us great ideas to bring back to NZ.

Eleanor Burns class on Saturday morning.

There were dozens of fabric houses at Spring Market; we looked at these a little to get an idea of what was coming out soon but as we are served pretty well by our NZ distributers we didn't get into too many conversations with them.
We were delighted to see a strong appearance by our neighbours the Australian designers - catching up with favourites and meeting new ones - their booths looked brilliant and they certainly held their heads up high amongst the dozens of other designers.

So much to take in, new patterns, products, and ideas. Many reknown and clever designers. We literally shopped until we dropped and are really pleased with everything we have brought back with us or ordered, plenty of goodies, inspiration and future projects and programmes .... we see many hours of sewing ahead of us :-)

Laundry Basket Quilts booth. One of many beautiful booths.

Special exhibit presented by the International Quilt Assn

We had two days to sightsee before we started the long haul home again. Monday after quilt market we needed a quiet, low energy day and went on a tour around the city. The guides were entertaining and the commentary interesting.

City tour in a WW2 Amphibus or Aquabus.
 Sadly we couldn't go on the water as the current was too strong.

A lovely taxi driver then took us under his wing and showed us a few spots we hadn't seen - without the meter on (but we were good tippers by then) and then we spent a few hours at a mall doing a little shopping.

446 bridges in Pittsburgh! 

 On Tuesday we had a private car tour booked to take us into Amish country. We visited Volant, an hour north of the city, which I think is the third largest Amish community in Pennsylvania. There were touristy type shops there but we also went along back roads and were able to visit some shops on private properties. With our connection to the quilting world, we found this to be a great delight. Buggies on the road, horses ploughing up paddocks, children potting plants, home made crafts. We loved it. So interesting to see the way of life the Amish people have, and we were full of admiration of how they continue to live as they wish in spite of this fast paced technoloigcal world we all live in.

Naturally we did our bit to support the local community... this rug was made by an Amish lad in a shed at his home. He has Cerebral Palsy and works diligently producing dozens of these colourful rugs. I had imagined it would be perfect by our fireplace, and wasn't disappointed. The pets already think it is great there too.

Love the texture!

And our goal was to find an authentic Amish quilt. On another property we found a quilt shop. It sold finished items, and had a great variety of quilts and other items, most of which were sewn with a treadle machine and hand quilted.
We were treated to a genuine bed turning - what a buzz. Our guide was also blown away by the beautiful queen sized quilts and all three of us were considering which one we would like to take home....!
We went for lap quilts in the end though - this is the one I purchased.

The first quilt I have ever purchased :-)

It looks perfect in our dining room. All the family approves!

And so ended a whirlwind 6 nights in Pittsburgh. The next day saw us starting the long trip home, only 4 airports this time. A relief to finally touch down on NZ soil, to find all our bags and drive up home to our loved ones. Now spending the weekend recharging our batteries. I look forward to going into work this week and unpacking all our treasures :-)

A favourite photo taken during the flight home.
Sunrise in Sydney, Australia.

Thank you to everyone who left 'safe and happy travelling' messages in my last post. I appreciated them all but just ran out of time to reply, sorry. I do look forward to seeing what has been happening in blogland and in your sewing rooms so hopefully I will get to visit soon.
Have a great day, and happy creating,