Wow

On Monday night of last week, Gail received a call from Bonnie Browning at AQS saying we had won a big award at the show in Paducah: Best Longarm Machine Quilting  Gail and I went into a tizzy, trying to figure out how we could get to the show the next day.  For Gail it meant driving all day from Wisconsin to Paducah while I ended up catching a bus at 3:30 am.  Unfortunately, neither one of us made it there in time for the Awards Ceremony but we did make it in time for the opening of the show on Wednesday morning.

Here we are with our extremely cool chairs.  We had an amazing time meeting blog and FB friends and the many quilters from all over the world who took the time to stop and congratulate us.

It was also the first time Gail and I met!  We have spent the last 2 1/2 years collaborating over the internet. 

There are many quilts I would like to post pictures of but the only person I remembered to ask for permission was fellow Kansan, Susan Stewart.

Her beautiful quilt "Snow Flowers", won a blue ribbon.  All the lace is made on her embroidery machine and this was quilted on a sewing machine.  Very impressive!

So now it is back to real life; time to attack that pile of quilts waiting for me in the studio!

The Stitcher's Garden

I think this is the cutest quilt.  It's called the Stitcher's Garden by the Stitch Connection and Barbara did such a nice job on it. 

 It calls for all kinds of fancy sewing machine feet to do all the machine stitching and special techniques in the blocks.

 

 

 

I like Barbara's choice of a black background - it gives a Mexican Folk Art look to the quilt.
I futzed with the contrast on these photos to try and show some quilting and that messed up the color a bit.

 

 

 

Working on black is hard on my eyes but it sure makes the color pop.

I used variegated thread in the border and some gold metallic throughout.

 

 

 

She has entered it in my guild's Common Threads Quilt Show this June - I think it will do well.

Quilted by a crazy cat lady

I finished Cecelia's quilt before MQS and am just finally getting it posted.

With all the bold colors I decided to use brightly colored Glide thread, which was fun.  My photography makes the blocks look wobbly - they were not.  Cecelia's piecing is very good.

 

 

 

 

This is Vivian's quilt, hot off the machine.

Such a gorgeous pattern by Sue Garman.  When I asked Vivian if it had taken a long time to make she said that pretty much all she does is applique, so I guess she whipped it right out.

 

 

 

 

From my little Sedgwick sewing group, Virginia crocheted these adorable baby booties.  I asked her if they came in my size!

I'm a crazy cat lady and these are two of the feral cats I feed.  The black one is actually a stray, and very friendly.  They will lose their beds when I start planting in a week or two!

Long time, no blog

Long time, no blog.  First I had router problems, then computer problems, then MQS in Wichita happened, which all led to no blog posts. It's amazing how important an internet connection has become in my life,  I felt like I had lost all contact with the world without it.

Once again I spent much of the week volunteering at MQS and that sucked up a lot of time.  I helped open boxes and check in quilts which gave me a chance to see all the gorgeous quilts up close.  I spent two days helping out in the judging room; always an eye-opener and something I recommend any quilter interested in show quilting should do.  It was impressed on  me again how certain quilts rise to the top - the quilts where great attention has been paid to every detail. MQS is a machine quilting show and the judges are especially picky about the technical details machine quilting: stops and starts, tension, backtracking and stitch length.  They both had little magnifiers with lights that they would whip out and use to study the quilt up close.  Nasty little things -  they should be outlawed!



My guild, Prairie Quilt Guild provided many volunteers so we were given booth space to sell tickets for our Opportunity Quilt.  It's made by many guild members and quilted by Kim Hull. Margaret Mans is working in the booth.

 

 

Here are guild members Kendra and Debbie working on a quilt in the Community Outreach booth.  I haven't heard yet how many quilts they managed to finish during the show.

My local longarm group, Kansas Longarm Quilters had good luck in the judged show.
Kay Dette won second in Over the Top Custom:

Donna Harrison won third in Tools of the Trade:

Siriporn Hollar won HM in Tools of the Trade and second in Overall ( her overall design is freehand, not a pantograph!):

 

 

I won HM in Modern Custom, third in Wall Quilts, first in Pictorial, and to my amazement - Viewer's Choice!

pieced by Mayleen Vinson

pieced by Donna Mease

pieced by Russ Schmidt

 
Here are a few  quilts that caught my eye:
Claudia Pfeil won Best of Show for her quilt Fern Rising,and it appears at the top of this post.  This is the back of her quilt which was deep blue green silk and absolutely gorgeous.

 

 

 

The Theme category is always fun - big flashy quilts and lots of bling.  I love the color in this quilt, Imagine by Patricia Williams.

 

 

 

Also in the Theme category, Eloise Joins the Circus by Janet Fogg.  I don't quite see the connection to the theme: Up, Up and Away, but it is a cool quilt.

Also from Theme, the oddly named: Breaking Wind by Peggy Kragnes.  In her comments about the quilt she says "I hope this brings as many smiles to it's viewer as it did to me while I was making it."  Well, the name certainly did!  It's also a very cute quilt:

Kris Vierra  quilted Shimmering Stars, which won the Best Collaborative award. 

She also won first place in Wholecloth for A Quilter's Garden.

Hungarian Blues by Helen Baczynski won first  in Over the Top Custom;

 

 

 

 

Radar, quilted by Ann McNew won first in Tools of the Trade.

 

 

 

 

Now that MQS is over, I have a large pile of tops waiting to be quilted - I had better get to work!!