More MAQF

Here are some more quilts I liked at Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival held in Hampton, VA last week (click photos for larger view)

This is Calamari Time by Karlyn Bue Lohrenz


Autumn Road by Susan Brittingham



Aspen Wonderland by Judy Madigan



Another Susan Brittingham called Laurel Creek


Memory Loss by Judy Loope



Detail shot - trying to show the dimension on this quilt


A couple of Gloria Loughlin's quilts




The Solace of Persephone by Annette Hendricks. The roses on this are velvet and very cool



Closer shot of one of the velvet roses




More photos to follow

MAQF

I've just returned from Mid-Atlantic Quilt Fest in Hampton, VA. I've always liked the Mancuso shows both for the quality of the quilts and the numerous vendors. I went up with 4 other friends and we stayed in Williamsburg - about 25 minutes away from the show site.

We were thrilled that one of our group was a big winner in the show. Judy's Arabian Mystery took first place - traditional. Here's Judy with her ribbon (click photos for larger view)



And the beautiful quilt. Judy's quilting is fantastic and she does it all on her domestic machine.



This is Rhapsody in Rose by Barbara Clem. It won Best of Show



There were several guild challenges on display. One guild's subject was "Quilted Landmarks" and I was very taken by this Niagara Falls quilt by Margorie Marovelli.


I enjoyed "A Day in the Life of a Diner Booth" by Linda Cantrell. (this was hard to photograph)









This is "Little Peace in 2 4 U" by Martha C Hall. I like the movement in this work.


There was a special exhibit about homelessness and this quilt "One Paycheck" by Kathy Nida caused quite a stir.


The gulf oil spill was the inspiration for Sandy Curran's "Paradise Lost"



This was probably my favorite quilt in the show (well, besides Judy's!) It's "Port of Cassis" by Lenore Crawford



3 of us took a class with Gloria Loughman and we worked on making a 'mosaic' background like Gloria's



This is the start of Dotty's beautiful blue sky



I didn't get a photo of Judy's background, but did get her trying to cut some the mosaic pieces on the floor! She moved to a table pretty quickly. It's not easy to cut on the floor



I'm trying to depict a sunset in my background



I'll share more photos in my next post.

LeMons race

This past weekend was the spring edition of the 24 Hours of LeMons , an endurance race for cars costing $500 or less.

The team changed up the theme this time and transformed the car to look like a bumble bee. This theme seemed to be popular and lots of people stopped to take photos. (click for larger view)






During the technical inspection and the B/S session (where the team proves to the judges that the car really cost less than $500) the team decked themselves out with bee wings and head bobbers.

Here is Curt:


Here's Jerry:


And Craig:


Team with their supporters



The race was eventful. At about 4pm on Saturday the engine blew. But every good LeMons team comes prepared with an extra engine so they immediately started pulling the blown engine and replacing it with the extra.



At 10:17 pm the new engine cranked up. Unfortunately the replacement had issues of its own and there were numerous new problems.

Sunday's laps were few and far between but they kept at it and the car was actually on the track when the checkered flag dropped.

For their effort the team was awarded the "Most Heroic Fix" award.

Term Terminally Confused wasn't the only team that had issues. The guys in the paddock across the way (who were driving an old Plymouth Fury) altered their team hoodies to reflect how they felt about their situation.






We're on the lookout for a couple of new engines for the May race.

It's LeMons time again

It's only a week until Jerry and Craig run their 2nd 24 hours of LeMons race - the endurance race for cars valued at $500 or less.

Here's what the car looked like at the race in September.



A big part of the race is choosing a theme for the car. In September they were inspired by the scene in Dirty Harry where a school bus full of kids was high-jacked. The bright yellow paint worked out great because it made the car easier to follow on the race course.

They decided to change up the theme a bit but wanted to keep the car yellow - so this time they're trying to make the car look like a bumble bee. Can you see the back end of the bee taking shape?



All those rings are being welded to the car and I understand there may be some wings added.

Craig asked me to help him out with some costuming to go with the theme. I found some bumblebee wings with antenna head boppers that are made for kid's dress up. The glitter on the wings is an added bonus. Hopefully I'll get some good photos of the guys wearing their wings.

Valentine embroidery

I pulled out the embroidery machine over the weekend and did a shirt for Hayden for Valentine's day. (click photos for larger view)



This was a fun design to stitch out but I somehow got mixed up on the thread color changes and didn't do the hearts quite as I'd planned.



I thought that the shirt with the tights would make a perfect Valentine's outfit. Sure is a lot of pink!



It's exhausting having your photo taken all the time!

Birthdays

Yesterday was my 59th birthday. Thus far in my life I haven't had issues with turning a year older but perhaps next year I might have a hard time with the age. We'll see.

I bought myself a gift last week - a so fugly they're cute pair of Danskos.



I suppose the socks in the photo just add to the fugliness.

I also got a surprise gift - a new laptop because my old laptop died, It wasn't even close to 60.

Check back with me in a year to see how I feel about turning 60!

It's sewn!

I finished stitching the blocks together for my Monterrey medallion quilt. Hayden has decided that she really loves this quilt and wanted me to lay it out on the floor so she could sit on it. (I don't know why blogger flipped these first 2 photos because they were not flipped when I took them. click for larger view)



She also wanted to count the stars.



She thought it would be fun to make "quilt angels" and was a bit disappointed when she stood up and didn't see evidence of an angel in the quilt!



Now I need to make a couple of pillow shams to match.

Monterrey Medallions & Baking

Last year some of my quilting friends decided to make a quilt called Monterrey Medallions. After seeing their quilts start to take shape I got to thinking that I might like to make it in a black and bright color combination. I finally finished all the blocks and laid them out to see what everything looked like.

This is a bigger quilt than I usually make (it's supposed to finish 90 x 90) and I don't have design wall big enough for it so had to lay it down on the floor. (click on photos for larger view)






I just laid it down on the floor without trying to arrange things. Obviously I'll need to move some things around so that the colors are more balanced. It's funny how some of the colors stand out more in the photo than they do in real life.

Wonder how long it will take me to sew the blocks all together....

Every once in a while when the grandkids are here we bake what we call a colorful cake. We use a regular yellow cake mix and put the batter in numerous bowls. Then we use food color to tint each bowl of batter a different color. The batter is then spooned into the cake pans and it makes a really cool looking cake when it's done.

Of course the highlight of the baking venture is licking the bowl and there were 8 bowls to lick!






We didn't have any canned frosting in the house so I made a traditional butter cream frosting from the recipe on the powdered sugar box. Noah asked me if I could make sure to get 'real' frosting next time I was at the store because he didn't care for the frosting we made. Times sure have changed haven't they??

Happy New Year!

It seems like it has been forever since I paid any attention to my blog. Maybe one of my New Year's Resolutions should be more frequent postings.

We had a lovely holiday season. Our Christmas tree was a bit bottom heavy after Noah and Hayden helped put on some ornaments. (click photos for larger view)



The kids were so excited about opening gifts that they were even happy about receiving clothing!



There's always such a mess of paper and ribbon.



True to form sometimes the boxes are more fun than the gifts they contained. Noah had fun decorating this box.



We had our holiday dinner on Christmas Eve and several good friends were able to join us. Everyone (almost) always tolerates the Christmas crackers and the silly hat each contains.






When Craig was a teen he used to make a time-intensive Black Forest Cake for some of our holiday dinners. He recently mentioned that it had been a long time since he'd made one so I decided to make it in his honor this year. It takes a couple of days and I'm no so sure it's worth all the trouble. The most time consuming portion is making the chocolate curls. This photo has turned itself on its side for some reason, so you'll have to use your imagination (or tilt your head) to get the full effect.




Now that the holidays are over, it's time to get back into my sewing room. It will feel good to get back to some projects.