Annual Quilt Show

Well,  it's been a long week,  but our quilt show is officially over for another year!   It always feels good to have this behind us.   I was in charge of where the quilts were laid out.  Set up day was Wed.... and it was a long one.... We got started early... before 8 am... and it was right at 8 pm when I finally climbed into the truck to head home.... 32,000 steps on my pedometer later. 

Over 200 wonderful quilts and wearable art items plus lots of fabulous vendors... I purchased two extension tables to extend my quilting surface,  and some rulers for free motion ruler work.   I tried to keep my fabric purchases to a minimum,  but came home with about 10 yards of fabric.

Our show is a peoples choice show... and visitors our first 2 days choose their favorites in several categories.....  then the ribbons go up for the 3rd day.  

This is our Peoples choice... the most votes of all quilts.... First place for piecing... and first place for hand guide long arm quilting... plus the show chairmans' favorite.....  This gal deserved them all.   She saw a picture of this quilt which was about 3"..... and replicated it without a pattern to go by!   There are heat set zwarovsky crystals on the points and centers.....  As if the workmanship wasn't enough... this young woman made this quilt while her huband was dying of brain cancer..... it was her solice during a very dark time in her life.   Hearing her story brought you to tears....  She has titled her quilt... "He Calms My Raging Soul".

Curious Kittens tablerunner

I made this tablerunner as a gift for a friend last week. I found this really cute fabric and added a little bit of black, grey and gold from my stash to set some of the cute critters. I had planned to put the pawprint as an outside border, but the size was getting away from me, so used it on the binding instead.

Boysenberry Jam

I can't say I've been as industrious as some. There are many out there this time of year, making jam, jelly, relish, putting up veggies no matter how hot it gets in the kitchen.... My hats off to all of you.... I used to help my mom do alot of canning. For some reason, DH does not like home canned food. I made jam the first year we were together, and he never ate it. I'm not going to all that work if he would rather have it from the store shelves....

I made this quilt a year and a half ago. All the colors reminded me of good, boysenberry jam! This quilt went to our good friend Jane, who loves purple.

First quilts....

Ok, so what was your first quilt? I started my first quilt in 1974. I was taking a quilt class with my sister in law. My older sister, Lynda, saw some of the blocks I was appliqueing, and said I could give it to her.... LOL . I decided to do just that. I managed to finish 25 blocks and set them with a then stylish coin gold sheet. (YUCK). I presented it to Lynda for Christmas, with the intention of finishing it. I was in college at the time, and didn't have the space, the time, or the knowledge to actually hand quilt this king size monster I had created.

Over the next several years, I would come across that top as I was moving, or doing some deep cleaning. At one time, my sis and I talked about resetting it in a blue floral.... that never happened either.

It wasn't until 1999, that I dug that gold monster out of the tote it was in. (now.... I had actually purchased some poly batting for this in the 70's. I had wrapped that batting in a piece of cotton ducking fabric, tied it with twine, and hung it from the ceiling joists in my Mom's basement. It looked like a striped blimp hanging in the corner.) I had since used that batting on some baby quilts after Mom insisted I get it out of her basement sometime during the mid 80's.

Don't get me wrong.... I love the color gold, and have plenty of it in my support stash.... but that coin gold sheet was UGLY as sin! I finally decided to tear it all apart. I then put the bright blocks in one pile, and the pastels in another. more brights than pastels.... I chose two different settings, and treated each pile differently. The pastels I set with alternate white blocks, and quilted by machine with my first attempt at feathers. The brights I set in attic windows with black sashing. With Christmas just around the corners, and it being the 25th anniversary of my first attempt to give the quilt to Lynda, I put them in the washer and dryer.

Argh! some of the fabrics I had picked in 1974 were not 100% cotton, were not tightly woven, and had frayed when I washed the bright quilt. My origial zig zag was not close enough together, nor wide enough to firmly hold the fabric. I also didn't quilt it quite close enough to support the pieces in the washing process.

Christmas day came, and I presented Lynda with both quilts, and then promptly took the one that needed repair away from her.... "I'll figure something out to fix it" I told her....

That quilt made it's way to the bottom of a pile, and then to the bottom of a tote in my sewing room, and became forgotten over time.... This spring, Lynda mentioned that the quilt she used all the time was in need of repair.... It was raveling like the darker one had in a couple of places....

I am now proud to say.... that I have mended both of those quilts.... re zigzaged all the flower petals, (through the batting), and added extra quilting on each petal to help keep them from lifting and shifting. I will be giving her these tomorrow. Both of these quilts are pictured here. They have been a true learning experience for me.

MAD for PLAIDS II

I love working with plaids!!! I especially like the way that plaids work together in a quilt to give it a warm, worn, homey look. I have accumulated lots of plaids, and have a couple of ideas started for additional plaid quilts, but this is one I made for my younger brother. I worked off a sketch I drew up at a quilt show for the 9 patch settings. All those flying geese went together relatively quickly using Quilt in a Day flying geese ruler.

I do my own machine quilting on my Juki at home. Since marking the quilting takes so much time, I am trying to improve my techniques of quilting without spending hours marking quilts. This quilt I did by following the edge of my ruler, and doing stitch in the ditch.

I'm hoping that Alan enjoys it for many years.

My latest project

On a happier note.... I'll try not to bring so much emotion to most of my postings....

We will be traveling to Montana in the next week to see our grandchildren. Nathan, the oldest is on the varsity football team as a senior this coming year. With funding for athletics tight everywhere, they are trying to raise extra money for the team for traveling expenses. JoAnn asked me a while back, if I'd be willing to make a quilt for the team to raffle off this fall. I agreed.

The Capitol High Bruins, have team colors of brown and gold. In keeping with the bruin theme, I enlarged a bear paw from one of Nathan's t-shirts, to use for a center medallion. Then used a variation of the bear paw block, by setting the individual paws on points.

The writing on the small gold blocks was done with my cricut machine, and the marker stylus that is available. That was fun to play with!

I am working on the quilting now, hoping to finish sometime today or tomorrow. I want to have it finished to take with us, so I won't have to pay for shipping.

Go Bruins!

Wayne's Summer Cruizin' Quilt

What a month and a half it's been! After a long year of suffering from complications of Parkinson's Disease and esophogus spasms, my Mom passed away on May 14, and just a short week later, my husband's best friend passed away much too soon from stage four cancer that had been diagnosed less than 2 months.... He was ready for the fight, was undergoing radiation, hoping to start chemo. I had decided to make him a quilt to have while undergoing his treatments.

Needless to say, Mom's illness had put several delays in my sewing. In the week I took off as bereavement leave, as some needed sewing therapy, I put my focus into working on Wayne's quilt, so that he would have it. Wayne and my husband shared a love of cars, hotrods, classics, and streetrods. They had spent many an hour in each other's garages, either working on a project or "bench racing" as they used to call it.

I was working on his quilt the moring that my husband called me from the hospital to say that they needed me to come witness some paperwork, Wayne was going on hospice, there was nothing more they could do, his disease was so agressive, and they could not get a handle on his blood clots, which meant they couldn't do chemo.

That was on Tuesday morning. I worked the rest of that day and most of the day Wednesday, piecing and quilting. I finished at 11 pm on Wed, with the binding. We went early on Thursday morning, around 8:30 to see how Wayne was doing and to deliver his quilt.

As we walked into their house, Wayne was laying on the couch, his oxyge mask laying on the floor next to him. He had decided just an hour sooner, that he didn't want to prolong his suffering any longer. His wife Sam, and another good fried were sitting next to him, watching him try to get into a comfortable position.

What a change in his condition in just a day. He was unresposive the entire two hours we stayed to visit, but Sammy just clutched that quilt in her arms ad said how much Wayne would love it.

We stopped by twice more on Thursday, it was at 5 am on Friday morning that we received the call that Wayne was no longer in pain, and had passed. He had at one point opened his eyes and talked to Sammy for just a minute or two, but he had been able to see his quilt for a brief time before he went.

Now, even 3 weeks later, it is difficult to type this. Wayne we miss you!

Spring Table Runner

This is a table runner I made for my cyber friend Sandy, for a swap we had on Block Central. We exchanged names with one other participant, and then made runners for each other. This turned out so sweet, I had to cut one out for myself. I wonder how long it will take for me to finish mine?