Quilt, Craft, and Sewing Festival: Part 2

Updated February 2026.
Originally posted March 2020.

While the Quilt, Craft, and Sewing Festival has great fabric and pattern vendors (some of which we featured in Part 1 of this post), that’s not all that’s there.

Quilt shop clock — Quilt shop cuckoo clock from Cheryl Ann’s Design Walls booth

You can find booths for guilds and organizations devoted to keeping handmade traditions alive. There also are lots of vendors selling tools, embellishments, and materials that go along with quilting and other types of crafting. It’s impressive how many of them have invented, made, or designed the products they’re selling!

Continue reading “Quilt, Craft, and Sewing Festival: Part 2”

January 28, 2026January 28, 2026

Quilt, Craft, and Sewing Festival: Patterns + Fabric

Although I haven’t been to the Phoenix Quilt, Craft, and Sewing Festival since I moved to Tucson, I wanted to update information about the last show I went to and the vendors I met. The 2026 show starts tomorrow (January 29). Not all of these vendors will be there, but plenty more will be participating!

Enjoy!
–S

It’s Quilt, Craft, and Sewing Festival weekend in Phoenix!

Last year, I went to two days of the Festival – one with my Mom and one with sister-in-law Dinah and friend Kelli.

The first day, we ended up parking in a lot that was actually meant to be for a dog show, which we needed to walk through to get to our Festival.

The second day, I parked there on purpose. We walked past booths of dog stuff and people with impeccably groomed and well-mannered dogs. I really wanted to ask one of them if their dog was available to tutor our little rascal Quijote. But that’s not why we were there.

Walking into the Festival building meant being surrounded by a dazzling array of colors and patterns, handcrafted items, crafty inventions, and big ticket items like long arm sewing machines. It was fun to check in with favorite vendors from the past, meet new ones, and see things I hadn’t before.
Continue reading “Quilt, Craft, and Sewing Festival: Patterns + Fabric”

April 15, 2023December 9, 2025

10 Things to Know About Gem Shows in Tucson

Large mineral at the UArizona Alfie Norville Gem + Mineral Museum. — Mineral on display at the Alfie Norville Gem + Mineral Museum.

1. The Tucson Gem & Mineral Show® (TGMS) is the original.

When the Tucson Gem + Mineral Society held their inaugural show in the 1970s, it was the first of its kind, welcoming both professionals and the public. It continues to be the largest gem and mineral show in the world!
Continue reading “10 Things to Know About Gem Shows in Tucson”

April 18, 2019February 23, 2022

Updates on 2019 Arizona International Film Festival

vintage film equipment at the Screening Room

The 2019 Arizona International Film Festival (AZIFF) is still going on! You have until Sunday to get to Tucson and check it out!

We were there for the first week of AZIFF and are back home now. You’ll be able to read about our trip and films we saw soon!

In the meantime, I’ve been posting updates on Instagram Stories and Twitter. You can also read short reviews of last year’s documentaries and narrative films I wrote as a Guest Columnist over at The Two Gay Geeks, a fun site (and podcast) that covers a wide range of entertainment topics and highlights work by independent creators.

So have you watched anything interesting recently?

– More AZIFF 2019 Info –

Dates: April 10-21
Location: Downtown Tucson. All screenings are at The Screening Room, except for one at Loft Cinema. There are also a few parties, etc. in nearby venues like Hotel Congress.
Schedule
Hotels: Lots of Tucson hotels support the festival and give discounts if you mention you’re attending.

We were guests of Arizona International Film Festival.

February 7, 2019February 5, 2020

Sampler

I don’t know if this ever happens to you, but sometimes I’m in the middle of working on a bunch of things and can’t seem to get anything totally finished before I need to move on to something else.

That’s where I’m at right now.

So I thought I’d share a preview of things I have in progress and things you can read, listen to, and share in the meantime.

Film Festival Reviews

I’m working on more in-depth reviews of the films we saw at Arizona International Film Festival (AZIFF) last year.

For AZIFF 2019, I’m planning to cover more days of the festival and would love to know what you’re most interested in hearing about!

Comment:

What film festival stories do you want to read?

Reviews of more films? Any particular type/genre (documentary, comedy, animation, etc.)?
The AZIFF experience and tips for getting the most out of it?
Filmmaker Q+As or interviews?
Would you prefer any of the above in video or audio (podcast) format instead of written articles?

Quilt Show

This year I went to two days of the Quilt, Craft, and Sewing Festival in Phoenix. The first one was with my mom (who introduced me to the Festival) and the second with my sister-in-law Dinah and friend Kelli (who was my co-presenter at Craft Camp and co-taster at Macayo’s Scottsdale).

I’ve been editing photos and am impressed all over again with the creativity and inventiveness of the exhibitors we met there!

Read:

A couple crafty posts from Kelli…

Festival Food

While we were at the Quilt, Craft, and Sewing Festival, I wanted to investigate the food vendors at the Fairgrounds a bit more.

I found out that the concessions actually come from several independent businesses, who really do care about the food they make. Over the 2 days we were there, my quilt show squad and I got to sample a huge Indian taco, several flavors of kettle corn, a whole buncha barbecue, and this ridiculous brownie sundae.

Local Art Loves

I haven’t done an official kick-off post yet, but I definitely want to celebrate local art you love again this Valentine’s Day!

Share:

You can start anytime by snapping a photo of art in your neighborhood and sharing it using #localartloves.

Read/look at:

Last year’s Local Art Loves

[UPDATE: 2019’s Local Art Loves kickoff post is up now!]

Phillip in the Wampa’s Lair

Okay, not really something I’m doing, but Phillip was recently interviewed on the Wampa’s Lair Podcast! It’s a Star Wars podcast that we’ve been fans of for a long time. (Phillip wears their t-shirt everywhere. And one of the hosts, Jason Hunt, shared some great tips for our Phoenix Comicon newbies post.) Anyway, they have a series called “Tales of the Lairians,” where they ask their listeners (a.k.a. the “Lairians”) to share Star Wars stories from their own lives, and Phillip is featured on the latest one!

Listen:

Tales of the Lairians #13 – Phillip Liebold

And that’s it for now! So at least I finished one thing. Hopefully, this starts a trend.

Just FYI: we received complimentary quilt festival tickets, food, and a 2018 AZIFF media pass from the respective organizations/vendors. More info will be in upcoming posts, but let me know if you have questions!