Asilomar Pinwheels

I'm posting this photo for Melissa who asked about a similar style of color arrangement. I started this quilt in a class with Miriam Nathan-Roberts at Asilomar. The focus of the class was to use a traditional block in 3 different sizes. The 3 sizes of my pinwheel blocks are 9", 6", and 3". It was fun to work with the color arrangement. This quilt was juried into Pacific International Quiltfest back in 1999 or 2000.

Happy Easter

It's been a while since I posted photos of Noah and Hayden so I thought it was about time to do so. Cute aren't they?

More Pigeon Forge

(as always photos are clickable for a larger view)
This is the gang just before leaving Pigeon Forge.
Back: L-R - Virginia, Janice, Sheila, Jolene
Middle: Joann, Maureen, Cindy (slightly lower than Maureen), Frances
Front: Corky, Betsy, Karen

Betsy's sister-in-law Janet took the photo. She joined us from Alabama.

Here are two of the three tops I completed while there.

Both of them still need borders attached. The orange/yellow/purple one actually wasn't supposed to have a border and I was going to donate it as a baby quilt to one the guild's community service projects. Lots of baby quilts are rolling in. We're also making lap sized quilts for our other service project and fewer are being turned in, so I'll add a border to it to make it bigger and then donate it.

The other quilt, using Paula Nadelstern fabrics, will have a black border. The photo makes it look like there is a lot of yellow in the quilt, but it's actually more of an olive color in real life.

Back from Pigeon Forge

I returned last night from a week in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee to attend the Mountain Quiltfest. There were 12 of us and we had a ball. We didn't spend much time at the actual show, but we did spend a lot of times at our sewing machines. I completed 3 quilt tops.

Virginia, one of our crew, was a ribbon winner at the show! She won 3rd place for her beautiful applique quilt. Here she is posed with her quilt. Isn't it beautiful?

















Karen was the winner of a quilt raffle and was able to bring home this quilt. The colors don't show true in this photo. It's not nearly as dark in real life as it seems. It's probably about a twin size.






















We attended two dinner lectures and one brunch lecture. This is some of the gang at the brunch.

From left to right we have Janice, Cindy, Janet, Virginia and Karen in the front.











Here are Sheila (on the left) and Frances. Doesn't Frances look like she's having a horrible time? I assure you she wasn't.

Quilt Show winners

I forgot my camera both days of the quilt show so never got a single photo. However, Karen has posted photos of some of the winners on her blog here. I was lucky enough to 'white glove' the Best of Show quilt on Saturday afternoon, and let me tell you it was beautiful. The back was just as spectacular as the front.

The TTT gang is off on Sunday morning to Pigeon Forge, TN for the Mountain Quilt Fest and a week of sewing and fellowship. We have a couple of condos and plan to sew, eat, shop, and sew some more!

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?