Craft fair and current sewing project

Daniel and I drove to Wilmington today for a craft fair hosted by the PA Guild of Craftsmen. This was a juried show, something that was obvious in the work displayed - there were some really stunning booths. My favorite of the day was something called Sculptured Papercutting created by Sue Keefer. From a distance it looked similar to quilling (interestingly, the only booth that I recognized today that I visited at the Kutztown festival last month was Paper Petites quilling), but up close it's entirely different. She uses a combination of painting, cut work, lifting, and shaping to create 3-D work from a single sheet of paper, and her work is beautiful. Unfortunately she has no website and we didn't have the money today to spend on artwork since I start school next month, but I hope to see her again at local festivals.

There wasn't a lot of needlework available at today's show - one booth of full size quilts, one of really lovely miniature quilts, and this woman, who creates fabric pictures through the use of applique and decorative machine stitching. Up close, her work had a really amazing amount of detail in it. The rest of the fiber artists were mostly weavers or selling clothing or purses; there was no needlepoint, cross stitch, or embroidery at all which was a bit disappointing. Daniel did find several glass booths to browse, though, so it was fun for both.

Over the past several days I've been working on a long coat for which I cut the pieces my freshman year of college, but that I'd never gotten around to stitching. I don't remember why I laid it aside; it's too bad that I've taken this long as I love the pattern and the fabric combination (a red felted fabric with a gray lining and a gray tussled-looking faux fur trim) and it is cut to fit the freshman me rather than the me of today. But I needed something to work on earlier this week and I thought it would be nice to clear out the space in my sewing cabinet while finally seeing this coat sewn, so I pulled it out. Right now the outer coat is assembled and I've begun to add the trim and sew the lining. I love having the serger here as it's making seam finishing much quicker, particularly on the easy-to-fray lining. I'm not sure exactly what to do about a closure for the front of the coat but otherwise it should be complete later this week after which I'll post some pictures.