One More Week!

I am SO ready for vacation!  I always get really pumped about Paducah.  Something about being able to totally immerse myself in quilts and quilters for a full four days makes my heart happy. I can't wait!

Last week was a very busy work week and I really didn't have any time to work on anything.  I'm really getting down to the wire on my rug.  I registered it for the show so I have to get it finished (or at least hooked and steamed) before I leave for Paducah. I have made progress:

The border is very tedious.  Doing "hit or miss" is much more difficult than it looks! The colors are so close to one another and require more planning than I would have hoped.  I'm also thinking that I will need to hook the outer-most border.  There's a half-inch or slightly larger border drawn outside the piano keys that I was hoping to be able to ignore, but I think it is needed in order to make the border proportional.

I managed to finish my second Grandmother's Garden block over the weekend.

I had so much fun with the embroidery!  I started prepping the next block. I have to figure out how I want to do it.  There are four of them in the quilt. The original Nancy Page pattern has a flat "blobby" rose. I like the Eleanor Burns dimensional version looks much better, but since I am going with the non-dimensional approach I don't want the roses to look like they don't belong.  I may try to find a middle ground between the two - separate petals instead of blobs, but still flat.

Hopefully I can wrap up work at a reasonable time this afternoon and get back to my rose. I will get back to the rug this evening - hopefully I can get around the next corner and make decent progress up the next side.  I've got a lot of hooking to do between now and next Tuesday!

Only Two More Days!

I am so excited about April!  Only two days until baseball season opens and only three weeks until Paducah!  I have a horribly tough work schedule the next couple of weeks so it really helps to have something to look forward to.

I haven't been able to work on much of anything since Kinderhook.  I did manage to get quite a bit of work done while I was there - not nearly as much as I hoped or planned for, of course.  I completed 25 of the 45 stars for Stars & Sprigs:

I also put together 8 or so baskets for my Grandmother's Garden quilt.  I prepped the applique for my second block yesterday.  I love the colors I am working with and am really excited about this project.  Hopefully I will have a finished block to show by the end of the week  My goal is to have this one finished in time for next year's quilt show.

We had a great TAS meeting this weekend, working on embroidery stitches.  We were having so much fun that we ran out of time and really didn't get to spend the time we wanted to on some of the techniques!  We may have to have a "part two" at the next meeting.  Getting back to emboridery meant that I had a chance to finish my sheep from Jan Vaine's class:

I absolutely love him although I have no idea what I am going to do with him!  I wish I would have kept track of the number of colonial knots - it took two complete skeins of wool embroidery thread to fill in his little body (he's less than 3" tall)!  His legs, face and ear are ultrasuede.  He was so much fun to make!

Bits 'n' Pieces Quilt Show

I had the opportunity to visit the Bits 'n' Pieces Fanfare of Quilts this past weekend.  It was a very nice show.  They said the show featured more than 500 quilts, although it didn't really look any bigger than ours. They did have a large number of very small quilts and hung them in large groupings - far more efficient than pinning them on curtains.  I think we need to consider doing something like this for our show (although I'm sure no one will be too happy about needing to make sleeves for their wall hangings!).

I fell in love with this version of Dinah Jeffries' pattern - it made me want to dig out my blocks and get back to work on them.

I love the oval setting!  The pattern has cutwork blocks in between all of the flower blocks (which are cut square).  It is a bit daunting.  I think the ovals highlight the applique beautifully.

I also really liked this setting for The Raspberry Patch  BOM from a few years ago:

It's really amazing what a slight change in setting fabric can do!  The kits included a yellow fabric with black polka dots where the orange-red is used in this one. This is another project on my list for "one of these days".  I have all the BOM kits stashed away somewhere in the sewing room.

There were two versions of Sue Garmin's "Ladies of the Sea" in the show, both made by the same quilter.  Can you believe it?  I can't imagine completing one, much less two!

Amazing!  I was also excited to see a couple of quilts done from Kim McClean's patterns as well as a gorgeous William Morris-inspired applique quilt. 

I will have to follow the guild's website to see who won the Viewer's Choice - there were a lot of great quilts to choose from!

Belated Look at Lenexa

I didn't get a chance to post about my trip to Lenexa when I returned home, so this update is a bit dated.  The hook-in was very nice and drew a large crowd.

It was nearly impossible to shop in Kris Miller's booth.

Nola's booth was busy, too, but much easier to access.

I totally fell in love with one of Sally Kallin's patterns - the floral one in the back corner below.

In a weak moment (luckily the only one of the day), I ended up buying the pattern.  Here's a closer look - it is gorgeous!

There were lots of great rugs in the show, too.

After the hook-in, I headed over to one of my favorite quilt shops, Prairie Point Quilts.  The shop was hosting a special red and white exhibit.  Red and white fabrics and quilts were everywhere! 

From there I headed to Columbia, MO and visited Appletree Quilting.  The store has expanded and had a great selection of fabrics.  I exercised incredible self-control and managed to leave both quilt shops without buying a single thing.

Fast forwarding to this past weekend (after a very busy week attending a conference in Atlanta and getting almost no sewing or hooking done), I had a chance to spend quite a bit of time in the sewing room.  I didn't do a lot of sewing, really.  I spent most of the time preparing for an upcoming retreat.  I did manage to sew a little bag from a pattern and kit I picked up at Cross Patches a few weeks ago.

 I spent all day Saturday cutting fabric for the pieced blocks in my Stars & Sprigs quilt. It doesn't look like much in this picture, but since all of the prints are only used once, it took a LOT of time.

I also prepared some of the pieces for my Grandmother's Garden quilt.  I don't think I posted the first block when I finished it a few weeks back.  I plan to piece all of the other baskets while at retreat, so that will be left is the applique.

 I am SO ready for the retreat!  I am considering bringing along a third project - my strips from our guild exchange.  I always have such high expectations!  I will definitely have to stay away from the snack table and focus on sewing like a maniac.  Or perhaps I should stay on a constant sugar high?  Hmmm....  

Weekend of Hooking

I spent the weekend in a hooking workshop with a wonderful teacher, Jackye Hansen.  It's a bit of an exaggeration to say that I spent the weekend hooking, however.  I asked for a custom pattern - an adaptation of a smaller pattern Jackye has in her catalog.  I wanted something larger with spring birds and flowers.  I was really excited about the pattern at first:

I hooked the bluebird first.  I was okay with how he turned out - this isn't fine shading, but somewhere in between fine and primitive.

However, the more I looked at him, the more I was bothered by how BIG he is!  It's hard to tell from the photo, but he's larger than the actual bird.  And larger than the robin sitting to the left of him. I think I need to rip him out and make him just a little smaller. 

And then there are the dogwood blossoms.  The darker pink I was outlining with is too close to the petal color.  All you can see is a big pink blob once you step away from the rug.  Those need to be redone, too.

Needless to say, my inspiration faded quickly (partly due to a severe headache I just couldn't shake), so I spent most of the workshop chatting and watching my classmates get lots of beautiful work done.  I should have taken pictures - there were some really wonderful rugs being worked on!

Before I even think about tackling the issues with the bird rug, I want to finish the Jumbo Star.  I dusted it off a month or so ago with the intention of finishing it before the workshop, but of course that didn't happen.  I am making progress, though, and would really like to finish it by the end of March. 

I have way too many new projects I am already committed to starting this year and I am being tempted by even more.  I need to be able to cross something off my list before I add more to it (not to mention that I am running out of bags to use to store my rug UFOs!).

Another Evening of Beautiful Quilts

Today's workshop was fantastic!  We learned to weave a basket with embroidery floss (yes, I am serious!), made a tiny little butterfly by gathering a circle of fabric, made a sheep with colonial knots, learned a couple of silk ribbon flower techniques, and made the tiniest little bee wings with organza and wire (that one wasn't my favorite - I will stick with the sheep!).  I am truly enjoying this class.  Never a dull moment!

Tonight's show & tell brought more gorgeous quilts.  Sharon Schamber displayed her newest piece which I assume we will see hanging with a big ribbon in Paducah - it is gorgeous! The Massachusetts quilts were also displayed tonight.  Here are a couple I particularly liked:

Mildred, a relatively new appliquer from Hawaii (she started in 2005), showed two absolutely gorgeous quilts.  This one was inspired by Captain Cook and has all sorts of symbolism designed into it - it was amazing!

I wish I could have gotten a picture of the whole quilt.  It was truly outstanding!  I did get a chance to get a picture of Rita Verocca with her award-winning quilt:

Time to get back to my sheep - I can't wait to get his little body filled with a thousand or so colonial knots!

Surrounded by Inspiration

Today was the first full day of my four day class with Janice Vaine at The Applique Academy.  I opted to shorten my visit this year to avoid having to be away from work (or rather, to avoid having to work through another vacation!), so I am only taking the main conference class.  Our block is not my "thing" - it involves a person and I absolutely hate putting people on quilts - but the stitches and techniques we are learning are wonderful!  I don't have much to show for my time so far as we are mainly working to build a stitch reference book, but it has been lots of fun!

After class ended today we were treated to a presentation by Faye Labinaris, one of my favorite teachers.  She presented a trunk show of "Cover Girls", the quilts featured on the covers of her many books.  She is a very entertaining speaker!

 












Sorry about the blurry pictures - we weren't able to get a seat in the front and I only brought my little point-and-shoot camera along.  After Faye's presentation, we were treated to a bunch of wonderful quilts during show-and-tell.  There was a particularly wonderful group of quilts from a teacher in Massachusetts and her students. We are hoping to get those displayed again tomorrow so we can get a better look. Here's a partial picture of one of them:

My friend Pat shared a quilt that she made from blocks exchanged with other friends with whom she has attended the Academy for many years. We had a chance to get a picture of all of them with Elly after the session:

I will be up late tonight practicing the things I learned today - doing my "homework".  I have to have something to show for my time in class!