Just another Wednesday….

…HARDLY! It was day ONE of the American Quilter’s Society Des Moines 2009 Show, and I spent the day in QUILT HEAVEN! (Warning: this is an image-laden post, dear readers! Click on images to enlarge for better details.) Some detail shots from a few of the quilts that KNOCKED MY SOCKS OFF–full shots to come in another post…My personal fave, done by a member of my guild, Leigh Lussie, and shown in the AQS juried portion of the show…an applique bed quilt of a pattern by Kim McLean.
An amazing wall quilt of life-like sunflowers and grapes…STUNNING…I have to double check who made this one…
A detail shot of the BEST IN SHOW quilt, and yes, it truly was. Very hard to photograph (it’s HUGE) and I did my best, but my photos will not even begin to show the beauty and craftsmanship of this quilt…
Cynthia England is one of my quilt idols, and this is a shot of her shoreline pictorial quilt, One Fine Day, which BLOWS MY MIND. I’d love to know how many thousands of pieces go into one of these quilts of hers.
And a hand quilted, hand appliqued Broderie Perse style quilt done with older Amy Butler lines, Ginger Bliss and some Charm pieces. It is a beautifully done modern take on an age old technique. Artist is Jean Clark from Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin.
Okay, maybe this goldfish and water lily quilt was my fave…and could have been my vote for “Best in Show”, lifelike, gorgeous, and mouth-dropping. The artist is Sherrie Coppenbarger from Morton, Illinois. I’m going to have to reassess my vote for fave when I go back tomorrow… And, I have only seen about half the vendor booths, but I seriously doubt I will find one that tickled my fancy like this one did:
The display and vendor booth for Handbehg Felts, a supplier of felting tools, wool roving, hand-felted wool balls, jewelry kits, accessories, etc…They had a corner booth with this awesome dress form adorned with a wool ball kits and toilet paper roll skirt, and this great “bouquet” bursting from the neck:What initally drew my eye to the booth (I was in a daze at this point, and saw into the booth before I saw the dress form…yeah, really tired and in a daze….) were these fun stockings in the Christmas fabrics I have in my stash! How cute! I haven’t checked out their website yet, but I’m betting it’s awesome, too!

Our Des Moines Area Quilting Guild is fortunate enough to have our Annual Guild Quilt Show in association with this AQS show. In exchange, we provide them A LOT of volunteer hours to man the show, assistance in planning and set-up, etc. I entered three quilts in the Guild Show this year, and nothing beats seeing them hanging amongst other lovely quilts in a large space… my Gertrude and Friends growth chart and my Canoe Crossing quilt…


Well, okay, nothing beats that feeling except maybe rounding the corner and seeing your quilt hanging amongst other lovely quilts in a large space with a RIBBON DANGLING FROM IT!

That’s right, my Gypsy Django quilt earned a Third Place ribbon in the Non-Traditional Wall Quilt category. I was thrilled to say the least, and since I was alone at the time, I whipped out the cell phone and started calling people…three phone calls and NOT ONE ANSWER later, I ran to the nearest table being manned by a friend and mine to delightedly declare “I won a Ribbon!” She obliged me with the appropriate amount of enthuiasm and took a quick break from her duties to run over and view it with me. Gotta love quilt friends. (And seriously, loved ones, where are you when I need you to answer your phone?!?)

In the afternoon, I took a class with Frieda Anderson, called “Fast & Fun Freemotion”, and guess what?!? I think I finally get freemotion quilting! She’s a very thorough, no nonsense teacher and we all concurred it was a fabulous class. Here are shots of my four “sandwiches” of doodles I made:
stippling, square meanders, and M & E’s…
Sticks and twigs & shooting stars….
and there are even some hearts, McTavishing style echos, and feathers in there, that don’t look too bad for a first time attempt! Now, I need to find time to practice in the near future at home, lest I forget everything I learned…

And last but not least, there had to be some shopping…my booty:
a Supreme Slider and Magic Genie Washers, recommended by Leah, some fun Michael Miller and Monoluna FQs, a piece of Kaffe Fassett Aboriginal Dots in a color I didn’t have!, a new Clover thimble…two Minnesota fabric FQs for my sweetie who hails from St Paul, a stack of Art Gallery Blenders (yum!), and of course, some LOVE…Stay tuned for additional AQS Des Moines posts…good things are happening in our Capital city!

Happy sewing,

Doris

All Hallow’s Eve…

It’s no secret I love Halloween… love the decorations, love the color combinations, love the fabrics…

Yet, I lament for the Halloween’s of my childhood, trick-or-treating door to door with just my siblings and some neighbor kids, unaccompanied by an adult, roaming the dark streets (because, yes, it was after dark, not over before nightfall like it is most places these days, and yes, it was safe for kids to run around outside after dark in the 1970s). It makes me sad that some kids today only know trick-or-treating as going to planned events, or shopping malls, and having to go to only the homes of people you know, often by car (where’s the fun in that?! It was always an extra adventure to knock on the door of the creepy neighbor’s house, as a thrill, an adventure, a dare…) Also, I don’t live in a new sub-division neighborhood, where people in the Midwest tend to drive there kids to trick-or-treat in a “safe” neighborhood, so I don’t even get the thrill of passing out candy as an adult and seeing the creative costumes. I’m not dressing up this year, nor have I dressed up in the past several years…but I’d gladly attend a grown-up Halloween party if invited. Instead, this year I will be attending the AQS show in Des Moines on Halloween, and working extra hours at the shop. I will however, be donning my newest Halloween shirt, one I made with a Baby Lock Ellisimo embroidery sewing machine (not mine!), a few scraps of fabric, and a borrowed Bejeweler…
We made these at the shop one evening last week, after we closed up. They were made from this Lunch Box Design pattern. Can’t wait to wear it this weekend!I’ve also carved five jack-o-lanterns so far…three that I did with my nephew, and these two, that my sweetie and I made Sunday evening:Complete with curious black cat in the background!

Happy Haunting!

Pow!Pow!Pow!

As in “Sis Boom Pow!”, the block gather I joined, to sew a few blocks for a charity quilt being assembled by Miss V, of Bumble Beans fame. I also contributed blocks to her Nothing But Kisses charity quilt that raised funds for Love Without Boundaries. And a recent Pixie Dust Gather quilt that will also be sold to raise funds for another worthy cause.
My first block is a flower, a single gorgeous bloom, reminiscent of a stained glass Rose Window…
Inspired by a sudden glimpse of the Rowen Pillow in a recent Crate & Barrel catalog that landed in my mailbox. Love this block and will have a hard time parting with it… Both blocks are done in raw-edge applique, on fused pieces of fabric. The fabric from these are from Jennifer Paganelli’s Sis Boom collection for freespirit. She donated them to our group of thirty International quilters to create this quilt for charity.
The design for my second block grew from the decoration on the cloak of my Jim Shore “Love at First Bite” dracula…it sort of jumped out at me one morning shortly after I received the fabric from V, while I was eating my cereal at the table and mindlessly scanning the items decorating the table…
That’s what I like about creating my own patterns and designs, you never know when inspiration will strike…I hope you like them, Victoria! I look forward to seeing the quilts assembled!

My week in review

I have yet to make it home before 9:00 p.m. this week (I leave the house at 7:00 a.m.) so not much is happening in the new studio besides cat naps (the two cats, not me or Sweetie). But I’ve eeked in a few obligatory projects…

Four Red Dress blocks for the quilt my quilt group is making to auction off at the American Heart Association Gala in February:

These dresses will be the four cornerstone blocks in a sampler quilt with applique borders. I did fusible applique with a small zig-zag stitch to finish the edges.

I also made this star-in-a-star block for the same quilt, my contribution to the sampler portion. I had a little trouble with my star points in this one, and if I were to do it again, I would paper piece it for better points and precision…live and learn. This block shows the other colors being incorporated into the quilt:

I also got a good start on my Sis Boom Pow! applique blocks…only sneak peeks at this point, they are still works in progress!


These Jennifer Paganelli fabrics are to die for! She donated the fabrics to us (30 internet-connected quilters across the globe) to create blocks to go into a quilt that will be auctioned for charity.

And I got started on another stencilled screenprint-look T-shirt for a birthday gift:

For my non-United States visitors, I should explain the phrase, “I geek banjos”. There is currently a nationwide advertising campaign going on to promote using your library. You can check out the link here. There are billboards, bumper stickers for your car, t-shirts you can custom order, and a website to share what you research or read (i.e. “geek”) at the library. The T-shirt above is for a certain guitar player who recently bought a banjo, just for fun, and is now obsessed with all things banjo. You can custom order t-shirts with you own phrase, for example…”I geek quilting”, “I geek crafts”, “I geek fly fishing”, “I geek literature”…you name it, but the custom shirts are $30+ dollars, a little spendy for this gal.

I remember as a kid, being at a department store or the mall with my mom and wanting something, and she would say something like, “$17.00?!? That’s ridiculous! I could make it for half that!” and we would leave empty handed. Sometimes, she made a facsimile of the item desired, sometimes she wouldn’t get around to making it and I’d put it out of my mind. As a kid, I always just wished we could buy the one already made. Now I appreciate everything handmade I ever had…and I am now SO my mother’s daughter…!

G is For Giraffe

Thanks for visiting my entry in Amy’s 2nd Virtual Quilt Festival! If you’re visiting for the first time, I certainly hope you’ll come back again! This quilt is worth stopping by for…I promise!

My little sister is six years younger than me. She’s my only sister, the baby of the family, and, I like to say, the spoiled one of the bunch. :-> She’s always been an animal lover, she was forever in doggy mode or kitty mode as a little kid (on all fours acting like an animal and wouldn’t answer you in words if you tried to talk to her), and for years she used to answer the question, “what do you want to be when you grow up?”, with “A Giraffe!” She even went on an African Safari in her college years.
This is the ready-made “purchased” quilt, and valance…

Not surprisingly, when she had her first baby two years ago, she decided to decorate his nursery with jungle animals. She found a great set of *gasp* ready-made quilted bedding, so a nursery quilt wasn’t needed. But, the bedding was so cute, I decided it needed a matching quilted growth chart to decorate the wall… (click photos to enlarge)

The ruler is printed onto the fabric using my home printer, on 6″ squares which were then pieced together very carefully to make the measurements accurate. The numbers for the “feet” are appliqued, raw-edge applique. I drew the giraffe, his friends, and the plants freehand using the ready-made bedding designs as inspiration (although there is no giraffe on the original bedding!) and they are all satin-stitch applique. I made leaves for each of her boys that they use to “mark” their growth on the chart.

I entered this in the Des Moines Area Quilter’s Guild Show at the end of this month, so if you come to the Des Moines American Quilter’s Society show in a few weeks, you can see this in person!

If you’d like to see my entry in Amy’s First Festival of Quilts, click here… Want so see more festival entries? Go to Amy’s site… Want to see some more great DIY projects? Check out Kimba’s site…

Enjoy the rest of the Festival!

Another round of Fall Quilt Shows

Inside the Church of the Land, 10/04/09