I just finished this quilt for Judy, I think it is probably the 12th one of this pattern that I have quilted. Luckily, I do like the design! Judy wanted heavy quilting which is time consuming but really my favorite way to quilt. She is new to quilting and did a nice job on this rather complicated design.
Some people are tired of stippling, but Judy requested it as a background pattern. I like it too, although I do think it was overused for a while. Anything gets tiresome if it is used everywhere, whether it is stippling, McTavishing, feathers or the current favorite: curved crosshatching.
It's been so hot here for so long that no one has been able to grow tomatoes in their backyard. I have three big healthy plants that I keep watering but it is so hot that what blossoms they manage to produce just drop off. Peter and I have been driving in to Wichita early every Saturday morning to go to the Farmer's Market. We have to get there early or the Tomato Man runs out of tomatoes. Here is the line at his stall.
As we left the Market the line had more than doubled but I had my bag full of tomatoes safely in my hand. We eat them at just about every meal - YUM.
Annette's quilt looks so cool - I mean in temperature. I'll take cool however I can get it in this heat wave! She wanted an edge to edge design in the center and something pretty in the borders.
The inner kitties get their outside fix by going out on the porch. Here is Lily on the porch looking in at Elsie in the house.
My committee and I finished the top for our guild's Opportunity Quilt and it is gorgeous! It goes to my friend Siriporn for quilting - I can't wait to post a picture here, but we keep it under wraps until we can show our guild the finished quilt.
I finished this big quilt for Carol. She started it years ago for her daughter and wanted to finally get it done for her 40th birthday this fall. She wanted me to do simple custom quilting so I tried to not use my rulers so much - but I have a hard time putting them down. I just like the way the quilt looks so much better with some stitch-in-the-ditch and straight line quilting.
Jeez, it's still really hot in Wichita! I hope our air conditioner doesn't conk out or we will have to move into the studio with all four cats. Mr. Rohrschach refuses to come inside during the daytime, even in triple digit temperatures. He hides behind the rain barrel in a spot that stays shady all day long.
Our speaker for Prairie Quilt Guild last week was David Taylor and he was wonderful! He had everyone laughing and admiring his amazing work. I recommend him highly as a speaker and a teacher! Here is one of his quilts, front:
and back:
That's a lot of quilting! At the end of his talk guild members swarmed around his quilts to admire them up close.
I also took his workshop and picked up some interesting tips and information. His style of hand applique is different from traditional applique. I'm determined to try and finish the class project using his method- it certainly works well for him!
It's STILL hot , but after all this is Kansas in the summertime. How did those pioneers survive in their long sleeved dresses, long skirts and petticoats?
I finished this quilt for Emma Creek Quilt Guild, it is their Opportunity Quilt. It is a Lori Smith design with added borders to make it bed-size. It will have a curved edge, so I designed the border to compliment the curves. I think the curved cross hatching looks nice here.
Peter and I are working off calories by scratching our mosquito bites. Fortunately for you I did not take a gallery of pictures of them as documentation. Kansas has several mosquito species and one of them is huge and hungry. Today I wore one of those mosquito repellent devices with a little fan in it - and it worked!! I love that thing, I'm going to wear one around my neck for the next two months!
Leslie brought me three little quilts and I only remembered to take pictures of two of them. She said they had been sitting around for years all finished and unquilted. The one up above is a small signature quilt. Leslie likes dark quilting thread so it is a little hard to see the quilting.
This flying geese quilt is miniature size - very cute.
The Wichita Art Museum contacted Prairie Quilt Guild about doing a demonstration at Final Friday; a monthly art walk through Wichita art galleries. They were honoring Kansas Arts as part of the 150th birthday of Kansas as a state. This is ironic since our current governor apparently puts little value on the arts. I'd better not get started on that subject - this is a quilting blog!
I asked the board of the Guild for someone to demonstrate hand quilting and the two Paula's volunteered. Here is Paula on the left doing hand piecing and hand applique and Paula on the right doing hand quilitng.
I thought we should also show machine quilting, so I brought my sewing machine with me and made a small quilt to demonstrate machine quilting. I got my machine all set up and started to quilt and I heard "thump thump CLUMP, thump thump CLUMP!" Something was clearly wrong but I couldn't figure it out. My machine is going to the repair place and I guess I just proved one of the advantages of hand quilting!
We are having a heat wave and I am ready for it to end. I don't like it when it doesn't cool down at night - I find it hard to sleep even with the air conditioner going. We have lost our bedtime cat companions too - they aren't in the mood for snuggling.
