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.

Birthdays

Since today is my birthday I thought it would be fun to post a photo of a past birthday. I don't know which birthday this was, but I suspect I was about 4. I'm the one on the left. Next to me is my brother Claude. Next to Claude is Liz who is one month younger than me. There there is Barb (half hidden) and Margie on the far right. I think that arm there on the left belongs to my brother Ed.

This photo was taken in our living room. Don't you just love those drapes? If I remember correctly they were green and orange and red!

Liz, Barb, Margie and I were always doing things together as kids. Barb lived 2 houses away, Margie lived 3 away and Liz lived across the street from Margie. A couple of times we put on shows for the neighborhood that must have been a real hoot for the adults. I wish we had videos of our performances!

Mass Hysteria?

There was a blood drive at the local mall today and I went to donate. It's always a well attended drive with about 10 - 12 donation seats that were filled pretty much the entire time. I have really hard veins to find and as usual, it took some time for a good vein to present itself. (they NEVER seem to take my word for it when I tell them exactly where to stick me. They always want to try to find a better one.) It took 3 people but finally one got things going.

All was well until the woman in the chair to my right got up after completing her donation. As she started to walk away she suddenly got really lightheaded and crumbled to the floor. The workers got her back in her chair and brought cold wet towels for her forehead and back of her neck. As this was going on I was ending up my donation and all of a sudden I started feeling lightheaded. I alerted the worker and they brought ME the cold wet towels. Then as I was sitting there feeling lightheaded and a bit nauseous, the woman in the chair to my left passed out. More cold wet towels were produced. I then looked up across the room and the big burly guy over there was getting his OWN cold wet towels. When I was feeling better the nurse told me it happens often that when one person goes down, others follow. The Red Cross version of mass hysteria.

This is the second time in a row that I've felt lightheaded after donating. I'm obviously not eating the proper food before going.

The Girl Who Stopped Swimming

A talented writer is a member of one of my on-line quilt groups. Joshilyn Jackson wrote Gods in Alabama and Between Georgia. Her next book is called The Girl Who Stopped Swimming and the main character is an art quilter! Jos asked another member of the list, Pamela Allen, to make a quilt to go with the book. Pamela makes wonderful art quilts with the most fabulous quilting you'll ever see. You can see the quilt she made for the book
here on Jos' blog. I think you'll agree that the collaboration between quilter and writer is fantastic.

I can't wait to get the book! You can preorder it on Amazon if you want!

Finally finished

One of the members of my guild, Judy Heyward, is a VERY talented quilter with the awards to show for it. One of her quilts, Charleston Beckonings, (which can be seen here scroll down to "First Entry in an AQS Contest and click on the link) has won awards all over and was a finalist in the $100,000 Quilting Challenge (winner to be announced in March.)

Judy recently taught a class on a simpler version of her winning quilt and I knew I had to take the class if only to have some of her massive talent rub off on me!


This is the quilt I made from the class. It is supposed to have another border and the leaves were supposed to be appliqued onto that border. I decided I didn't want to add that border, so I appliqued the leaves on the inner border. The outside edge is very narrow and needs a good pressing before I submit the quilt into our guild show. A day or two before the class I decided I wanted to do a pieced background for the Palmetto rather than use one fabric. I rather like the effect but all those seams ended up being a problem, so there isn't much quilting in that area. The quilt isn't really that out of square, I just pinned it to the wall to take the photo and didn't do it very well.

I wonder how many others from the class will submit quilts!

Happy New Year!

I've been neglecting my blog lately and don't really have a reason. We haven't been that busy, although I have been dealing with a cold the last few days.

I've actually been sewing this week. I finished one wall hanging and am in the process of quilting another. Our quilt show is coming up quickly (see the countdown over there on the right??) and I need to get some things done for the show.

I don't have photos of the quilts, but do have these cute photos of Hayden eating dinner tonight. Looks like she enjoyed it doesn't it?

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Christmas greetings from not so sunny South Carolina!

The holiday was quiet here. The Craig, Chrystal and the kids were here for Christmas Eve. We had a LowCountry Boil and then opened presents. We stopped by their house today to see what the kids got and it looked like ToysRUs in their house. All in all it was a wonderful holiday. I even managed to do some quilting tonight.

Hope your holiday was wonderful!

Hayden the red nosed reindeer?

Hayden is getting into the Christmas spirit. Cute isn't she?

Volunteer of the Year

One of the things Jerry does to keep busy in his retirement is volunteer for the
Trident Literacy Association. He teaches computer courses and has helped to keep their hodgepodge of computers up and running. He also recently helped them write a grant proposal to obtain funds for computer upgrades. They had hoped to get $2,000 but were thrilled to be granted $20,000.

Jerry was asked to attend the board meeting on Wednesday to discuss how to spend the grant funds. To his surprise, the real purpose of his attendance was for him to be honored as Volunteer of the Year! He doesn't say too much, but I think he was pleased with the honor.

Congratulations Jerry!

The truth comes out...

Back in September we were awarded yard of the month for our subdivision. (see my post about it here)

I finally found out what REALLY happened. Turns out the yard of the month committee called our house a few days before Jerry 'stole' the sign and told him everyone would be out of town for the holiday weekend and for him to just get the sign himself and put it in the yard. He then spent the next couple of days trying to make me believe that he was planning to steal the sign! I knew he hadn't stolen the sign, but it's good to finally know the whole story!

Christmas parade participants

We were in Savannah this past weekend. Jerry and our friend John ran the Savannah River Bridge Run on Saturday morning. Jerry & John have decided that they are "professional bridge runners" Neither of them runs a lot of road races, but they decided they like the challenge of running over bridges. They run the Charleston Cooper River Bridge Run every year and now have added Savannah to their annual list of bridge runs. John's wife June and I are the cheerleaders.

Last year we all went down for the run and only stayed overnight. This year we decided to spend 2 nights so we could enjoy a bit of Savannah. Saturday afternoon we strolled through areas of the city and ended finding a good vantage point to watch the Lighted Christmas Parade that started just after dark on Saturday.

As the end of the parade, behind the last police car, 3 college-aged kids were marching as the tail end of the parade. It was obvious that they were not official parade participants - especially since one of the women was carrying her purse. They were having so much fun that we decided to join them. We hopped in formation with them and ended up walking the rest of the parade as part of the entertainment!! It was loads of fun. At one point the parade organizer came up to us and told us all how pleased he was that we were enjoying his parade so much.

Hopefully the race and the parade are on the same day next year. Watch for us.

MIA

I've been missing in action lately. Not for any good reason, just haven't had much to post about.

I feel like I should always add a photo to any blog post I make so here is today's.




This quilt was made for a QuiltArt challenge called Why Is The Sky Blue?

When the challenge was announced I immediately thought about the beautiful cobalt blue Skyy Vodka bottles. I requested, and was granted, permission from Skyy Vodka to use images of the bottles in my quilt. It turned out to be harder to execute than I thought it would be originally. Probably because I used all sorts of non-traditional quilt fabrics. The orange background is rayon. The bottles are made out of satin, velvet, and lame' among other things.

You can see all the quilts submitted for the challenge here

One man's trash...

This year my guild, the Cobblestone Quilt Guild ran a mystery quilt in the newsletter. My buddy Karen was making the blocks but decided that she hated most of the yellow/orange blocks. I told her I would adopt those poor unloved blocks because I loved the colors. (I'm of the mind that you can't have too many bright colors!) Here are the blocks I got from her.




After playing with the blocks for a while I finally decided on a way to set them while adding some additional blues and greens. This isn't done yet. I was working on this at TTT (trailer trash Tuesday) at Karen's and we all decided that it would be fun to add something else. I don't have a photo of what I've done yet, but will post one soon.

I think I'm going to name this "Trash or Treasure?" Karen still thinks it's too bright, but I don't.







Karen ended up making 2 tops out of the mystery quilt blocks instead of one row quilt. I like what she did, and am glad she included at least SOME yellow/orange!