Inspiration Overload

The past few weeks have been filled with inspiration - frequently interrupted by reality, but inspiring nonetheless!  There were so many beautiful quilts shared during show & tell at the Academy.  The pictures are not all that great due to the lighting and the fact that the ladies holding the quilts seemed to be in a hurry - they were even more incredible in person.

This quilt was done by Rita and her "girls" for Elly's re-release of "Spoken Without a Word" (supposedly due out sometime this year).

Here's a gorgeous version of Esther Aliu's "Love Entwined" center:

Shifting from quilts to rugs, I traveled to Lenexa, KS this past weekend to attend the Rock Creek Hook-in. It wasn't a complete shift...I did stop by Quilter's Station and Prairie Point Quilts and managed to find several things I couldn't live without (including some Jo Morton fabric that I have already started a new project with)...but the purpose for the trip was to see Nola's president rugs on display.  It was definitely worth the drive - it was so great to see them all hanging! This panorama shot doesn't do them justice.

Nola completed all of these rugs in 8 months.  Here are a few close-ups that give a better idea of how amazing these rugs are...

There were many other beautiful rugs at the show, including this sunflower that I absolutely fell in love with. I am going to have to add this one to my list.  Isn't the border incredible?!?

I really liked the colors in this one:

With all of this inspiration I couldn't resist starting a new project, so I spent Sunday in my sewing room getting a start on a project from Jan Vaine's latest book, "Embroidery and Patchwork Revisited".  I am in love with the fan quilt in the book (you can see the picture here).  Here are my first two blocks ready for embroidery:

And a third block that needs to be appliqued.  I'm not sure I love the way the instructions call for putting these together - the background is appliqued onto the fan - but I figured I would see how the first few turn out before trying to create a template and piece by machine.  The first two look pretty close to the same, and the curves look fairly smooth.  I'm hoping once the embroidery is added the slight difference won't show.

I can't wait to start stitching!  How many more days until the weekend??