May OMG Selection

This month started out a little crazy - a couple days on the road, baseball game, house hunting... Needless to say, not a lot of sewing time!  And I nearly missed the window for linking up to the Elm Street Quilts May OMG challenge.  There are already 105 sign-ups for this month. So many beautiful projects to look at!

Before I get to my selection, I want to post a few photos from my latest quilting adventure. I decided to attend this year's annual TAS meeting since it was being held fairly close to home (up near Chicago) and because I have been wanting to share my thoughts with leadership.  I headed up to Rockford, IL on Thursday afternoon and arrived in time to sit in on the local guild meeting where Linda Halpin was speaking on Little House on the Prairie quilts. It was a really interesting and entertaining lecture - I somehow had previously missed the part of sewing machine history where 19th century physicians thought that treadling could be a little too exciting for women!

The TAS business meeting was great - there were so many fantastic ideas to move the organization forward and offer exciting things to members.  I am very hopeful that we can get something going again and that our local chapter will be able to both contribute to and benefit from the oganization succeeding.  The meeting was followed by a presentation by award-winning quilter and Rockford resident Barbara Clem, who shared her quilting and competitive history and showed us many of her quilts. Her quilts were beautiful!  I was a bit surprised to hear (although I know when I go to shows it feels like I have seen most of the quilts before) that people can enter the same quilt in each AQS show, and that they are eligible to win ribbons at each show. She was excited that there are so many opportunities to win now....whereas I saw this as supporting my dilution theory.  Anyway.... Below is a picture of one of her quilts that really caught my eye - interesting piecing and very intriguing color choices!

After the speaker there was an incredible show and tell session. What an amazing group of quilters!  Many of their quilts have been in Paducah and one was a first place ribbon winner at the most recent show!  TAS founder Anita shared her version of Love Entwined - it really made me want to start my own.

I'm only sharing just a few of the many gorgeous quilts they shared. This William Morris-inspired beauty was created from Dover royalty-free clip art:

And this one, while not applique, was amazing. I am a sucker for hexies anyway, but the binding on this one blew me away! Here's the front:

And then here's a shot of the back edge folded over.  She created a binding of hexie flowers that she attached to the front right sides together like you would a normal binding, and then folded it over and appliqued it to the back.  Unbelievably cool!

Now back to the less exciting world of my current project list.... I forgot to mention in my last post that I also started a log cabin quilt in April. I finished the first 12 blocks of what will become a queen-sized quilt.

I've decided that my OMG project for May will be my Magic of Christmas. I posted a picture of my design wall last week - it is ready to be stitched together - so my goal for May will be to get the top pieced and the applique designed and prepped.

I am dying to applique after all of the inspiration last week, so I will also continue plugging along at my Mosaics project. I need to get back to my rug, too - I have to get those hooking muscles in shape before we head off to Janice's in June!