Saturday, March 19, 2011

Happy NQD






At the last meeting of Prairie Quilt Guild, Debbie Maddy was the speaker.  She brought 6 or 7 suitcases jammed full of quilts (she drove here from Texas) and when I saw the piles and piles of quilts I was sure her program would be hours long.  But she zipped right through her program and it was great fun to see all her quilts.  Her specialty is making traditional patterns easier using half square triangles. 




We also had our Guild Challenge, the theme was 'What Goes Round, Comes Round.'  There were three fairly hideous fabrics that had to be used and there had to be one circle at least 4 inches made from one of them.  These are a few of my favorites up close:













This next one is sideways, I couldn't get it turned around the right way.



Mine is not one of my favorites, but here it is:



Today is National Quilting Day and appropriately enough, I spent the day working on a quilt.  I'm on the committee for our Guild's Opportunity Quilt and today was a work day to get the packets ready so we can hand them out to the people making blocks for us. It's a secret for now, so it will be a while before I can post any pictures.  I think it will be gorgeous!



Monday, March 14, 2011

Quilts and guitars




This is a quilt that I quilted months ago but I couldn't post it until now.  Lori made it for her friend Michele out of some beautiful indigo fabric that Michele had shared with her.  Michele loved the fabric so much that she didn't want to cut into it and use it but Lori found a pattern that showed off the fabrics and made the quilt which I then quilted.  At our last Guild meeting Lori showed the quilt during Show and Share and then gave it to Michele.  She said Michele is always doing nice things for people and wanted to do something nice for her.  It turned out really pretty although it is so dark that it is hard to get a picture of.





This quilt is made by June.  It's a civil war pattern designed by Judie Rothermel and I love June's fabric choices.  Instead of browned out civil war reproduction fabrics she used Japanese and ombre fabrics.  It was killer to quilt because it is huge and has about ten zillion pieces in it but I liked the way it turned out.










I delivered the quilt to June at her home and she and her husband Charles gave us a concert on their guitars.  June does the pickin' and Charles strums the chords.  Pretty cute.










Sunday, March 13, 2011

At the garden show


Last weekend was the Wichita Garden Show and Prairie Quilt Guild always has a display of garden-related quilts.  Peter and  I spent one morning sitting at the display trying to get people to vote for their favorite quilt.  People are so funny - they'll say "I don't know anything about quilts" so we try to convince them  to just vote for the one they like best. 

We had time to wander around and look at the exhibits.  They have a show for flower arrangements and I checked that out.  I'm afraid my tastes are old-fashioned: I like poems that rhyme, paintings that are representational rather than abstract and flower arrangements that show off the flowers.  You really see some wacky things at flower shows - how about this:




or this:







 I like these better.








Then I walked through the garden exhibits.  The theme was Gardens from the Movies so we had Avatar:







Up:







The Karate Kid:










Jurassic Park:







and my favorite, The Secret Garden:











The Extension Office did a cute one from The Hobbit:










Friday, March 4, 2011

An icebox full of quilts



I love this quilt that Ann made for her son - her piecing is wonderful and I love the Japanese taupe-y fabrics.  She likes me to use wool batting which I also love - it makes the quilting really shine through. 








Today I gave  Donna, a new Innova owner, some help with her machine. Actually, she didn't need a lot of help since she is an experienced machine quilter (with her sewing machine) and is smart and not intimidated by her new machine.  She had quilts all over her house and I asked her if I could take  a picture of some of her quilts in an old icebox - isn't this a wonderful way to display quilts?




Peter and I spent the morning at the Wichita Garden Show - more about that later...

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

It's Spring-ish




I finished Sheila's Christmas quilt - I don't know the designer but it is a cute pattern.  She gave me a roll of Dream Wool  to use as batting and I really liked it.  I dislike using Dream Cotton on the longarm but I really liked the way the Dream wool quilted up. Sheila used Texture Magic on the snow and on the bunnies.






This is Marsha the Thimbleberries Lady's quilt - I think it is actually Kansas Troubles  fabric.  She does stray  from Thimbleberries every now and then.







It's feeling Spring-ish.  The weather has warmed up, the robins are back and the grass is greening up a bit.  I'm hoping it stays like this next week so we can actually hold a Guild meeting: the first for the year since the first two were cancelled due to weather.