Partying with Pam Buda (and Fran and Pati)--photo heavy

Back in 2019 the Pam Buda Circa 1880 Club (sponsored by Marcus Fabrics) that met at Village Dry Goods submitted a video of our club to Marcus for a contest they were sponsoring. We happened to win. The prize? A visit from Pam Buda herself. It was scheduled for April 2020. Of course, it was canceled due to COVID. Fast forward to July 2023, when it was finally able to be rescheduled (thanks to the persistent people at Marcus). And that is where I spent two days a couple of weeks ago.

We started on Friday morning with a special party just for our Circa 1880 Club members. The three ladies pictured below made it delightful.

Left to right: Fran (owner of Village Dry Goods), Pam (fabric and pattern designer extraordinaire, and owner of Heartspun Quilts), and Pati (Director of Marketing for Marcus Fabrics).

Though the photo below is a bit blurry, I love it, because it looks like they are all trying to "make a point". I do not recall what they were trying to say. Maybe they were singing. There was a little bit of that happening at one time. (I promise, we were only drinking water with the refreshments of fruit-kabobs and banana cake.)

Below you can see where we enjoyed a little game to help us get to know Pam--and win prizes. Pati asked the question, we guessed the answers, Fran held the bag of our ticket stubs, and Pam drew the winner, then Pati distributed the prize.

After learning much about fabric production trends from Pati, and about Pam's many upcoming fabric lines from both of them, we then had an opportunity to share our Circa 1880 quilts. First we saw Pam's--the one that inspired this whole Club. This was based on a vintage quilt Pam had seen in an older publication.

Then club members had an opportunity to share their quilts. There were so many great versions. I have only chosen photos of 2 that are each set a different way from the original pattern as shown above in Pam's quilt.

Following the fun of this gathering, I had lunch with a couple of friends, and then we visited the Brigham City Museum of Art and History, which currently is hosting the "Light the World" quilt exhibit, featuring art quilts from around the world. We returned to Village Dry Goods to do a little shopping, and I was startled by a familiar voice behind me, calling my name. There was Lynn Hopkins!

Lynn is the designer of the Tiny Blocks that I had been teaching each month in my guild this past year, in Lynn's absence. He is currently serving a mission with his wife for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but he was back in town briefly for a family event. He'd hoped to be able to make the party with Pam, but schedules didn't work out. Above, left we are holding his Circa 1880 quilt, and above, right he and my friend Ruth were looking at something he had made from his Tiny Blocks. You just can't talk to Lynn without ending up laughing, as this photo attests. He has very big plans for the future of his Tiny Blocks. They may get even tinier!!! So maybe I should say he has small plans?

That evening in my hotel room I was  Zooming with Chooky and the Chookshed Stitchers while having my dinner, and stitching some tumblers. Below left, you can see my machine set up on the hotel desk, and to the right you can see some of the global participants that evening. It was the perfect way to close out a quilty day, and it is always a lot of fun.

This is all I got sewn together that evening before calling it quits--just three rows from the box of large tumblers I have had cut for years. This is a start--and I am trying to be totally random. We'll see how long that lasts. These are laying on the Kingsize bed in my hotel room.                                                                                                                                                                                              Next morning we were at the Brigham Academy Center for a full day class with Pam. I love this venue--all kinds of natural light. This class was open to all, not just those in the Circa 1880 Club. They capped registration at 50. Below you can see my table-mates in the foreground.

We made one block from each of the three small quilts featured in her new  pattern, Haunted Halloween. I'll show my progress on those in a later post. 

We had a break for lunch, after which Pam did a trunk show with many of her beautiful quilts. Here are just a few of them.

This was just what I needed after a couple of crazy busy and stressful months of summer. These ladies in the photo below made it so very fun and refreshing. My thanks to Village Dry Goods, Marcus fabrics, and these three gals, for all of the work and time it took to make this great for those of us attending.

Pam has been a special friend for many years, and it was very sweet to spend time with her again. I hope there will be a "next time". Thank you, Pam!

Before I close this I need to announce the winners of the drawing from my last post, celebrating my 12th anniversary of blogging. Sadly, 18 of the comments were from people who did not have an email attached to their comment and did not include their email address in the comment, so they could not be included. 

I had the random number generator choose the winners.

*First place went to Denise @ Count It All Joy blog--she will get her choice of the kits.

*Second place goes to Nancy @ Joy for Grace blog--she will get whichever kit Denise doesn't choose.

Apparently you had to have a blog with the word joy in the title to win this time around.

I have notified the winners via email and will get their prizes sent out to them this week.

I have several things I want to blog about that will need to wait for a time when I haven't already written a chapter book for a post.

Until then, be creative and be kind.

Janet O.

p.s. If you love Kim Diehl, another blogger is having an anniversary giveaway that you might want to check out. Click here.

A sunset from an evening walk during the last week of July.