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!

First Finish - Feathers!

Feathers is my first quilt finish of 2014

I'm part of a very friendly and creative online sewing bee called Stars in Their Eyes. When I asked my hive-mates to make me two feathers using Anna Maria Horner's pattern, they all said it was a block they'd wanted to try, and they produced some gorgeous feathers! My instructions were to use fall colors, including purple and aqua and blue, and to use any gray for the background.

I realized, when I'd received all the blocks, that I could put them in an ombre arrangement, which is quite fashionable these days. You see hair, clothing, cakes, all sorts of things with a color gradation from dark to light. I made a few more blocks to complete the rows, and sewed them all together.

When I saw it all together, I knew I wasn't going to give it away as a gift, as I'd first thought, but I was going to keep it for myself! Then I started thinking, maybe I'd make it bigger, because it would look so good covering a bed. Should I make more feathers? I didn't really want to have more feathers made by me, and I wasn't patient enough to wait for my next turn in the bee to ask for more feathers made by my hive-mates. I auditioned some borders, but they detracted from the geometry and bold colors of the feathers.

I like our feathers better than these printed feathers.

It was one of those evenings when DH was out of town, and I was reveling in being able to stay in my sewing room, and I could set up the ping pong table in the garage to spray baste, that I stitched up the quilt back and put the layers together and marked my first few lines and started quilting it! Time to "git 'er done!"

Have I mentioned how much I really like
the crinkly texture a quilt gets when it's been washed?

I quilted chevrons: big, wide zig zags, another current fashion. (Because I'm so stylish like that... ha!) I really like how the quilting plays with the angles of the feathers, and how it crosses the lines where the background grays change from one tone to the next.

I realized after I'd started quilting it that I'd forgotten to sew the "siggy" blocks into the backing of the quilt. Each of my hive-mates had made a small block with their signature on it. As you can see in the photo, I trimmed them to circles and hand appliqued them to the soft, gray flannel back.

Thank you, Lisa, Sam, Sue, Becky, and Brandy!

The binding is in a text print, in reference to the online conversations that I enjoy so much with this bee.

Here's the big reveal!

If only my photography skills were better! 

Cozy and stylish in my family room.

Linking up with Lily's Quilts: Fresh Sewing Day

and with

I Quilt at Pretty Bobbins