Me at Sisters!

This is too fun not to share - turns out I made a small tiny contribution to the Sisters quilt show! Dionne, one of the people I swapped quilt blocks with for this swap finished her blocks into a quilt and the quilt hung in the show! You can check it out here - it looks so great!

My block is on the far left side, third down from the top. Looks like this:



Thanks Dionne!

Still More Hearts!

This is one of my favorite heart quilts. It is made by my mother, and since she had it sitting out I decided to snap a few pictures and share it with you all.



Obviously the few appliqued red hearts jump out at you the most, but the majority of the hearts are in the quilting. Every solid square has a heart quilted in it.





Hi Mom!

Quilt Spectrum

Here are a few pictures from the local guild quilt show that was last weekend. While I love the "big" quilt shows, I also enjoy guild shows that are focused on letting members show off, regardless of if they are doing flawless "show quality" work or not. Let's face it, most of us aren't, including me!

Lauren's Choice by Susan Carney. The maker had her five-year-old pick out the fabrics for this and I think she did a really great job.



Lincoln Museum Quilt by Connie Guhlstorf



Churn Dash by Barbara Miller and friends - the churn dash blocks were a 60th birthday present from many friends.



The Art of This Quilt by Kimberly Travers



No Polar Bears Allowed by Georgia Cluver Dawson. The upper section was part of the guild's progressive quilts program. The beluga whales are an original design.

Hearts

Look! It's my baby quilt! As in the one that was made for me when I was a baby. Mom started quilting the year before I was born. I think she didn't know if she was having a boy or a girl so she worked on two different quilts. I don't know what happened to the boy version.

I was looking at this the other day and thinking...maybe this explains my love for appliqued heart quilts. I adore them. I have files full of pictures of them and plans to make about a hundred of them.

My first needle turn hand applique project, naturally, was a heart quilt. The top has been done for I think a couple of years, and yesterday I basted it for hand quilting.



This was the handwork project that I took with me on my semester abroad in Mexico my senior year of college. My second needle turn applique project, still in progress, is...the exact same pattern in different colors and fabrics. True story.



Stay tuned for the finished version of my current hand quilting project that I hope will be finished tomorrow at the latest.

Odds 'N Ends

This is what I was wearing one day. Not surprisingly I love color in my wardrobe, and I think clothes are a great way to try out color combinations that you only have to live with for one day. If you like them, however, you never know what they could be the start of...

This quilt was made for me by my grandmother. She is really more of a seamstress than a quilter, and that I know of has only made a few quilts, so I'm lucky to have one. This quilt used to have a doll that went with it. There are pockets in each block that allow you to put the doll into her cradle, bath, pram, or high chair. I was WAY into dolls as a kid, so I really loved this. Sadly I'm afraid that the doll has been lost to the ages... Then again, I have enough boxes in the attic here to make it possible that she has not.



Stay tuned for more quilts from my childhood! Hi mom!

Donations

One last post from Texas. Probably the last one anyway. I had a couple more pictures of donation quilts that I wanted to shared. That is to say, quilts that have been donated to the shelter, not ones that I have made to donate.

I think this crib quilt is darling. The little bears have faces that were inked on by a marker that hasn't been very permanent so they've faded quite a bit.


This is a two sided quilt made of clothing scraps - wool, double knits, seersucker, etc. I love this kind of quilt - free style, recycled, unconstrained.

The front (or back):


That print that says "No! No! No!" also says "Yes! Yes! Yes!" in glow-in-the-dark letters. Cute, huh?

The back (or front):


I'm having the hardest time trying to sort through my enormous salvage fabric stash to decide what to take home with me. Since I am flying there are major space/weight limitations. I will probably send myself a package, too, but even still I'm not going to be able to keep it all. Maybe there's no reason to keep any of it. I didn't pay for it, and I could easily to return it to the donations pile from whence it came. The problem is that I have project ideas for most of it, therefore it's already taken on a new life for me and I'm already sort of emotionally committed to it. Not to mention the fact that I'm not sure if it will find another good home if not with me, and I'd hate to see any of it go to waste.

Well, somehow or other I have to part with some of it. I hate to jettison the flannel sheets since I see them as being so extremely useful. I don't want to let go of the linen since I've got a great selection of it. I want to keep the felted sweaters because I've been wanting to do a felted sweater quilt for a longgg time. I've made tons of plans for the pillowcases. Well, you get the idea. The wool blankets have already been re-donated. Those, at least, I was ready to let go of. I've let go of a few flannel sheets that were pretty worn out. However, I still have a ways to go, and the sorting will continue. What would you keep??

Weekend Away

My last day of work was this past Friday. Now I've got some down time. Things for the big "NEXT" are slowly working themselves out, I'm just going to opt not to share details until everything is finally final. But for those who are worried about my financial situation, my resume, or my mental health - fear not; all manner of thing shall be well.

I decided to escape town for the weekend. Seemed like a great way to "celebrate" the end of my job, as well as get some mental down time and physical/mental distance from the rest of my life. Fortunately I have two girlfriends who share a beautiful condo with a guest room in a town about an hour away. It was a blissful weekend with lots of staying up late, sleeping late, sewing, journaling, and a healthy dose of Jane Austen.

Saturday afternoon my best friend Bekki and I (one of the condo girls) went thrifting. I did very well in the clothes department, and also bought this for $8.50:



It's an unfinished top, small twin or large throw sized. I feel a bit off my rocker adding another my top to my already voluminous "tops to finish" pile, but I couldn't help myself. It is just too great. It's wool fabric, most likely made from recycled clothes. There were quite a lot of unfinished tops in this particular store and I got so caught up wondering where they came from - some quilter passed away with no quilty relatives to take on her/his work perhaps. I'm proud of myself for limiting to just ONE top.

Good friends who make their guest rooms available at the drop of a hat deserve quilts. Ergo I have started another project:



8 down, 56 to go - hope she likes it!