Quilt shows are a lot of work!

Today the guild hung the quilt show. With all the helpers (including Jerry!) the quilts were up in only a couple of hours. My feet and legs are killing me this evening. I'd blame it on old age, but my feet have always ached after being on them for a while.

The next time you go to a quilt show, thank the organizers for the work they did!

Quilt Judging

The quilts for my guild's show were judged today (some of them that is - the rest will be judged tomorrow.) I acted as one of the scribes. What an interesting experience. I've never seen the judging process before and it is very involved. We worked from 9am to 5pm and went through just over half of approx. 200 quilts. I could never be a judge and make the decisions! I've always heard how important good bindings are on quilts and it sure was driven home today. It was interesting watching the judge run her hands along the bindings to see if they were "full" or whether the joins were smooth or how the mitered corners looked.

The judging helpers can't make comments during the process and it's hard to see one of your quilts - or one made by a very good friend - being judged without making comments. Two of my 4 quilts were judged today. She didn't say anything I didn't expect and one got the usual "would benefit from more quilting" that I seem to get often. All in all a very enlightening experience.

Quilters of South Carolina

South Carolina has a great state guild. Our annual meetings are held in a different city every year. This year's meeting was in Rock Hill, which is just outside of Charlotte, NC. Our speaker was Janet Jones Worley author of Quilts for Chocolate Loves and Quilts for Ice Cream Lovers. You can visit her site here. What a delight her lecture was! She had us all in stitches talking about her experiences in the quilting world. I especially enjoyed how she talked about "BARBARA" which is the name she gives to every member of the quilt police. If you have a chance to hear her speak, jump at it. You won't regret it.

The state guild has announced an Art Bra Challenge which will be presented at our annual retreat in October. I think I have to come up with a title for my art bra before I actually design it. Jerry has given me one good possibility, but I'd sure welcome suggestions from you. I googled 'art bra' and came up with some great sites and ideas, but I don't want to duplicate what has already been done.

We're going into the home stretch for our quilt show. If you're planning to be in the Charleston, SC area next weekend (March 1 & 2) please check out our show at the Galliard Auditorium on Calhoun Street in Downtown Charleston.

Show quilts

Our guild's quilt show is March 1st and 2nd. I finally finished the bindings, sleeves and labels on my quilts for the show. I've learned that I need big time binding help. I don't know if I pull my binding too much or what, but my edges don't lay flat. I'm going to have to ask my expert quilting buddies for a binding tutorial.

Anyway, here are the 4 quilts I'm submitting. (click on photos for a larger view)

This is "Autumn Leaves" I started this quilt in a class with Judy Sisneros at Asilomar.








In order to get the texture on the tree, I used Judy's scrunch technique which involved lots of spray starch and a hot iron.


This is "South Carolina Palmetto" and is the result of a class I took with Judy Heyward.




















"The Fellow in the Pinstriped Suit" was made from a panel I purchased from a vendor at our last quilt show. When auditioning the squiggly fabric for the inner border I discovered you could actually see it through the panel and liked the way it looked so left it like that.





















This is Aussie Shadows. I really screwed up on the binding of this one. Karen Kendo quilted it for me and she said the edges were flat when she was done with it. I must have really stretched it out when finishing it.




Below is a detail of Karen's quilting.




If you're in the Charleston area the first weekend in March I hope you'll stop to see our show!

A bit strange?

I have a dentist appointment tomorrow. A week or so ago I called to confirm the time and date because I had it written on the calendar for one date and the reminder card they sent me had a different date.

I was gone all day today. When I got home I had two messages from the dentist's office about confirming the appointment. The first message which came in about 9:30 this morning said "I know you confirmed this appointment on Feb. 4th, but please call us again to confirm for tomorrow." The 2nd was at about 4:00 and again asked me to call to confirm and to leave a message on the machine if it was after hours. While looking through my caller ID to see if any other calls came in today I discovered that while the office left only two messages they actually called SEVEN times today. SEVEN! I almost feel like they're stalking me! Weird don't you think?

Art for Quilters

I'm taking a Quilt University class called Art for Quilters. This is what I did for the first exercise which was supposed to be a still life. Jerry took my camera with him on his snowboarding trip so I had to just put this small composition on the printer & scan it as-is. I notice now that the vase is a little crooked. I haven't gotten any feedback from the teacher yet, but I'm hoping she'll be able to tell me how to improve the piece.

Not much going on

I've been lax in posting lately. Haven't had anything exciting to share and I've also been fighting with a cold for several weeks.



Jerry and Craig left yesterday for a snowboarding trip at Mammoth Mountain in California. For the past 6 years or so Jerry has met up with my brother Ed & his family in various locations for a few days of snowboarding. I don't like winter sports so I don't go. Besides, I don't have an Elmer Fudd hat to wear like Jerry does. This photo was taken a couple of years ago on one of the trips. Isn't he cute?!

Craig didn't go last year, but he did go the year before. Here he is in the lodge during that trip. I suspect he wouldn't be caught dead in an Elmer Fudd hat!


(photos are clickable for larger versions)

I should be spending this alone time catching up on some quilting. I'm still finishing up the sleeves and labels for my 4 quilt show entries.

Super Sunday

I don't usually follow football, but do make a point of watching the Superbowl every year. I enjoy the commercials, but also enjoy watching the actual game. I was rooting for the Patriots to win so they would end with a perfect season so was surprised when the Giants upset them to win. I'm more of a baseball girl and now that the Superbowl is over it can mean only one thing...spring training starts soon!

While watching the game I did manage to sew the sleeve onto one of my quilts for the upcoming quilt show and started working on the binding of another. Perfect work for watching football.