At the Show

The Seven Sisters Quilt Show!

This is a local, regional quilt show. Members of participating guilds can enter quilts into the show without having to be juried in. There is a great variety of quilts: modern or traditional, hand or machine quilted, prize-worthy and humble, all shapes and sizes and colors... And there are lots and lots of vendors, with lots of fun things to see and try and buy! Here's a SLO Tribune photo page.

I had three quilts in the show.

For the Love of Sewing

For the Love of Sewing is the 2015 Skill Builder BOM Quilt by Alyssa Lichner.
This is the quilt I used as an example for my demonstration of Quilt-As-You-Go sashing at the guild meeting.

 See? Each block was quilted before I put it all together.

Click on the picture to make it bigger.

What on earth will I do with it now? I don't have a wall space big enough to hang it, and it's not really a bed-size quilt. Someday I gotta try opening an Etsy store. Could I really part with my creations, though?


 My son and daughter in law went to Hawaii, and brought back a fat quarter pack of Hawaiian print fabrics for me. Here they are, in Camilla Roskelly's Fireworks pattern.

Fireworks in Paradise

There was another quilt in the show made from the same pattern. It was bigger, with pieced borders, and more sophisticated, made with batiks, and quite lovely. (It's in the slide show linked in the newspaper article, above.) I'm very happy with the chaotic cheerfulness of my version!



 I dyed the fabrics for this next little quilt in a tie-dye workshop with a friend in Pittsburgh. My tie dye job was pretty amateur, and not very attractive, but I salvaged sections of beautiful colors for this Storm at Sea pattern, taught in a class by Wendy Mathson.

Fire and Ice

This one is hanging in my entryway. That means it's on a green wall. No, it doesn't match my decor, but it sure adds a nice bit of brightness and color. I think that's a nice feature of quilts: they fit in anywhere!

Quilt Show!

Harold and the Purple Crayon, at the Quilt Show

Of course, I listened in when viewers came into the room to see the challenge quilts. These 18x22" quilts were submitted anonymously, and viewers were invited to vote for their favorite quilt. The theme for the challenge was "Children's Storybooks," and everyone who saw the quilts could relate to them. (Maybe yours was there: Nancy Drew, Pippi Longstocking, Fancy Nancy, The Little Engine That Could?) When I heard viewers say they were divided between two quilts, I encouraged them to vote for both of them! (I had on an official badge, so they listened to me!) After all, are you voting for your favorite story, or depiction, or technique?

I'm dressed to coordinate with my mini quilt.
Not really.

People who knew the story of Harold and the Purple Crayon recognized it immediately, happily and sentimentally. Others just walked past, wondering, "What is that creature in the lower left corner?" (It's a dragon. Harold drew it to protect the apple tree. His hand shook and drew waves as he backed away from it, and he found himself sinking in the water, so he drew a boat...)

Country Girl

This little quilt was tucked away in a corner, below eye level, so it didn't show very well. It was popular with little girls.

Pretty colors!

Country Girl is another little quilt I'll be happy to hang in my sewing room. (I'm running out of room in there.)

Feathers

I submitted this quilt for judging, in the Group Quilt category. The judge's comments were minimal; pattern is a good choice for a group quilt, good scrap quilt, nice modern design, appropriate quilting. Okay. It's nice the judge didn't point out the obvious imperfections in stitch length and spacing, but I expected a little more direction for future projects.

Feathers looked great hanging in this space. It was the first quilt seen when a viewer turned the corner, and was in a booth with some fantastic neighbors. I felt very honored to see that Feathers held its own in distinguished company!

The 7 Sisters Quilt Show was a lot of fun. Lots of great quilts to see, friends to connect with. And vendors! I bought stuff: fabric, and a great basket for holding/carrying my hand project. I'll show you later!

Country Girl

I was so excited about getting my Harold and the Purple Crayon mini quilt finished in time to take it my guild meeting, and turn it in for the upcoming quilt show, I forgot to take a picture of it before I handed it over. I'll be sure to take a picture of it hanging in the show!

I've changed the name of the other little quilt I was working on for the show to Country Girl. Here she is:

You can click on any of the pictures to make them bigger.

I love this little quilt! I liked the Madrona Road fabric as soon as I saw it, and I surprised myself by buying a bundle of the entire collection, and in the pink/orange colorway! The fabrics begged me to put them in a sampler, but not just any sampler. I found the Perfect Points pattern on the Connecting Threads website.

From the beginning, this quilt has had me thinking of Flagstaff, AZ, my home town. Look at these design motifs:

We didn't have a truck, but my stepdad had a big, old, carryall. It's like an enclosed truck. It certainly drove like a truck; I had to use both hands to shift gears!

We didn't have a windmill, but we had a well for water. That's why I take quick showers, and turn off the water when soaping my hands or dishes, or brushing my teeth. We learned to conserve water, or we would run out!

We did have a donkey! My sister, Grace, begged to keep it, then she had the job of taking care of it. On mornings when she was late with its breakfast, that donkey made a lot of noise.

In the summer, fields around Flagstaff are filled with prairie sunflowers.

There's no better place to look at stars. At 7000 ft. altitude, you feel as if you could reach out and touch the sky. Did you know that Flagstaff is the first International Dark Sky City? Those nighttime views are protected!

Julie has been my friend since we were in high school together in Flagstaff. We encouraged each other in textile arts and other projects, love for the outdoors, and appreciation of all things quirky and/or beautiful. As high school friends do. Julie commented on a Flickr picture of this quilt, "That's an amazing amount of work!" I can't begin to add up all the hours that went into this quilt. Including the hours picking out stitches that didn't work, like the machine embroidered words I later covered with a Dresden/sunflower. 

Burying threads, so there is no backstitching on the quilt top.
This bandanna print is the back of the quilt. 

Every time I started or stopped a line of quilting stitches, I pulled the top and bobbin threads to the same side, knotted them, threaded them onto a needle and buried the knots in the quilt layers. That was a lot of loose threads to hide!

Even after I posted a picture on facebook, and called the quilt done, I went back and added a few more areas of free motion quilting. 

I added the vine stitching in some white areas to flatten them.

I loved working on this little quilt, and it's got me looking forward to visiting Flagstaff soon! I will enjoy seeing it hanging in the upcoming quilt show, and when it comes home, let's see if I hang it on the wall, or if I add some more quilting to the background! 

Although, I am already onto a new project...

Tie-dyed fabric, getting chopped!

Two steps forward, one step back.

I'm making progress on my Harold and the Purple Crayon mini quilt. After I'd fused and glued all the white foreground and purple cording, I remembered that I'd intended to quilt the background before I added anything to it. Now, like Harold, I am going to come up with another strategy to meet the needs of this project. I'm going to try to FMQ some words in the background.

I must enhance Harold's face and hand.
I'm nervous about doing it with stitching,
and may stick with permanent ink.

I'm also working on this small quilt, which I am currently calling Farm Girl. 

It also must be finished in the next two weeks so it can hang in the upcoming multi-guild quilt show. It needs more quilting in the motifs, quilting in the border, words in the center of the wreath, and some hand quilting. And binding, and a hanging sleeve on the back. 

It would be fun to quilt every inch of this thing, but I'm going to call it finished, soon!
You can see the wreath needs an outline stitch, and I'll add a phrase in the middle.
I'm going to try the lettering feature on my sewing machine.

I have bee blocks to make for this month, too. Lisa McG's request for paper-pieced Mosaic blocks led to flurry of fabric pulling to find cute features for the centers of the quadrants. Lisa has graciously agreed to me sending her the quadrants not sewn together into blocks, and  with their paper still on the back. She can mix them in with hers, and that's another project crossed off my list!

So much cuteness!

I have yet to make bee blocks for Lysa M, but I think I'll be squeezing those into the last few days of the month. Unless, of course, we decide to go away for Memorial Day weekend. Then I'll hole myself up in my sewing room, and the family will have to fend for themselves. ahhh, sewing stress is the best kind of stress!

Is this going to be as good as I hope it will be?

Do you remember this book?

Harold draws himself in and out of adventures and predicaments, all with his purple crayon. His story still delights me, as it did when I was a child. (I related to Harold especially since I shared the same round-shaped head.) I am encouraged to strike out and try something new, confident that any difficulty can be remedied with some creativity and some forward thinking. So, I venture to tell his story in a quilt, using methods that are new and experimental to me.

My drawing, hanging up as a reference.

There's a big, multi-guild quilt show here in June, and the theme for the challenge quilt is Children's Storybook. Make a 18"x22" mini quilt for exhibition and viewers can vote on their favorites.  "Of course!" I said. "I love children's literature!" I said. "What was I thinking?" I say, now. "I have too much to do!"

A patchwork background made of various neutrals,
and story shapes added with fusible webbing.

I thought about making something glittery with Rainbow Fish, or 3-D with the Very Hungry Caterpillar, or flowery with The Secret Garden. Those are good stories, and images that will catch the eye, and the votes. But the purple crayon is speaking to me these days, and I am going to put my time and energy into something that I like, that speaks to me.

A practice scrap, to see if stitching on the purple cording
with a zig zag will work. Yep, it works!

Finally committing to a healthy eating plan and taking off some unhealthy weight, taking steps to improve communication in my marriage, agreeing to take on a leadership role at my quilt guild, trying new approaches to reach students at work, saying yes to that still, small voice that is calling DH and me back into public service... These are all areas of my life where I'm engaging in adventures and predicaments.

Hmm, I wonder if I can glue the cording on first, to get the placement
I want, and stitch it on later. Yep, glue works!

I'm not going to push the metaphor too far, but the purple crayon symbolizes for me a "yes" response to possibilities and interactions.

At the end of Harold's story, he made his bed (Get it? He made his bed?) and drew up the covers (Drew up the covers!) and fell asleep. (I remember being amused by the play on words even when I was little.) I love spending time in my sewing room, where I get quiet  and thoughtful and peaceful. Have you heard this: Quilters lead pieceful lives.

Quilt Show!

Today, we did it! As 2nd vice president of my quilt guild, I headed up putting together our own, local quilt show, and it was fun!

In past months I've rallied support and help with posters, entertaining announcements, costumes and role-play. I had these buttons made, and gave them to all who worked on committees and who came to help set up and work the show. I had amazing support and help from really good workers and leaders.

I also made myself a t-shirt with this phrase on the back,
and a superman shield with a Q on the front.  

A lot of people were amused by the slogan on the pins and on my shirt. One woman replied that she had no superpowers, and another said she has lots of superpowers. I think one of the effects of putting your work on display is seeing that you really do have an ability to do something special. I loved seeing people admire our quilts.

We had a great variety of quilts, colors, techniques, styles... it was a beautiful show.

Some smaller art quilts.

Hanging quilts the day before the show.

If only you could see the detail in these!

We had quilts for sale!

A boutique with so many great items!

Granny's Attic is like a garage sale of
all kinds of sewing items and fabric
cleaned out from everyone's sewing spaces.

The quilts for sale were very popular!

Lots of shopping!

Opportunity baskets ticket sales and bake sale stayed busy!

Treasure hunting in Granny's Attic!

A beautiful art quilt gets deserved admiration.

Style, color, technique, innovation!

Our featured quilter put together a really attractive display'
and visitors enjoyed talking with her about her work.

Yes, that's one of my quilts in the show!
The blue and yellow star quilt.

So much to admire.

I'd made 220 programs, and even with asking visitors to return their programs for reuse, we ran out, which means we had lots of people come to see our quilts, and lots of them bought stuff! I'll be interested to hear how we did financially. Regardless, I consider today a complete success! I've rewarded myself with an adult beverage, and now I'm really glad I get to turn my clock back for daylight savings time, and I can get an extra hour of sleep. Good night!