It's a deedle-deedle night

Thank you Desley for the book I won!  I know I will enjoy Karen McTavish's Quilting for Show.  It will be exciting to receive a package from Australia - I don't think I ever have before.  Desley shows her beautifully quilted work on her blog Addicted to Quilts, you can see it here. 

In answer to a question by Desley about my quilt Wild Child, yes the borders are done with trapunto and the color surrounding the trapunto is all thread.  I used Glide thread for the first time and really liked it.  It is a 40 wt. trilobal polyester and the colors really glow.

It has been unseasonably cool this spring but today is more like usual: it's warm, humid and we're under a tornado watch.  We keep a weather radio next to the bed and when it updates it makes an obnoxious sound:  DEEDLE DEEDLE DEEDLE.  Tonight we expect to have what we call a deedle-deedle night with updates coming every time we drop off to sleep. 

Back from MQS

In past years I have attended MQS to see the quilts, buy stuff and take classes, but this year Peter and I worked as  vendors in the Innova booth. It was a different side of MQS - fun but very tiring.  Definitely hard on the feet! 

I was asked to bring a couple of my quilts to help decorate the booth.  In this picture you can see Ann's quilt on the right.  Lots of people admired your quilt Ann! 

Mary's quilt was hanging aroung the corner - it was also much admired and photographed!  My thanks to Ann and Mary for letting me borrow their quilts.

Peter's birthday always falls during MQS - this year Amy and Joe, our Innova dealers, surprised Peter with a birthday cake.

My quilt Itty Bitty Boutis won a second place ribbon.  Renae Haddadin's quilt Golden Snowflake won first and I really can't complain - her quilt is stunning!

My new quilt Wild Child didn't win a ribbon but doesn't it look pretty hanging at the show?  The lighting was just perfect to show off the trapunto.

There were so many beautiful quilts.  Claudia Pfeil won Best of Show  for The Magical Mermaid's Castle - I loved her mermaids!  She uses thousands of crystals on her quilt; it must weigh a ton.

I had fun meeting Terri Doyle, another quilter that has recently switched to an Innova longarm. Here she is standing next to her blue ribbon winning wholecloth, Secret Garden.

Some of my favorite quilts at the show were made by Janet Stone, who is from Overland Park.  When I asked her if I could put pictures of her quilts on my blog she said I could, as long as I said nice things about them!  That's easy to do since I love her whimsical designs and amazing workmanship.

Her quilt Mutton But Letters won Best of Show in the Just for Me category.

Just look at her 1/4 inch crosshatching in the blocks - the stitches are perfectly even and the lines are straight and accurate.  It's hard to believe she does this on her domestic sewing machine!  That is incredible workmanship!

Here are her other two quilts which both won blue ribbons.  Nouveau Quattro Alfabetico:

and Red Letter Daze:

I had a great time but it is good to be back to my own cat-covered bed.

May-bees and wallhangings

Ann brought me two little wallhangings: the one above is a Schnibbles pattern.  It is very cute but it looks like way too much piecing for me!

The other is a folk art kind of a thing.

I finished my own quilt for MQS at the very last minute and didn't have time to even get a picture of it - I will have to do that later.  The weather is heating up just in time for the show in Overland Park.


Last week end Peter and I were eating lunch and noticed our neighbor and his kids out in our driveway staring up.  They kept staring up as they moved into our backyard.  When we went outside to see what was going on we could see a cloud of bees swarming out by our fence. They congregated near my garden cart and started landing on it.

We all stood around and watched them for a while and then I went in and looked up beekeepers in the phone book.  I called some guy and asked if he was interested in removing them - he told me one of two things could happen: they might stay there or they might leave.  Oh really!  That was so helpful.  They did end up leaving after about half an hour, off they went over another neighbor's roof.  I hope they found a nice place to live!

Good excuses

It's been a while but I have good excuses.  My computer had a virus and had to go to the computer hospital over the weekend.  One of those pesky windows popped up that looked like an official Windows thing and it told me the computer had 101 nasty viruses so I should click on the window to fix it.  I figured it was bogus and clicked to close the pesky window.  At the computer hospital they told me that if you click ANYWHERE on that window it activates the virus.  You should hit ALT F4 to close it instead.  There - I saved you $100.  I'm going to tattoo ALT F4 on my arm so I don't forget!

I'm also working like crazy on a quilt that I entered in MQS.  They are the only national show that I know of that lets people enter quilts while they are still unfinished - so that's what I did.  I figured it was the only way to get me to finish it!  I have been working night and day (really!) to get it done.  The end is now in sight, I think I will be able to finish the quilting in time to wash it, block it and bind it before it has to go to Overland Park for the show. 

All my customer quilting was finished up at the beginning of the month so I would have time for my own quilt.  This quilt by Marsha the Thimbleberries Lady was one of the last ones I did.  She really does seem to have an unending supply of these.

Her friend Debbie brought me this cute quilt from a pattern by our fellow Guild member, Debbie Wiesner.  She does a nice job of quilting on her sewing machine but wanted me to do this one because she couldn't figure out what to do with it.

This is one of those fusible applique quilts that drive me crazy to quilt.  It has umpteen-zillion teeny weeny pieces fused down and I have to quilt around every single one because they start to peel off.  This was "commissioned" by a lady that wanted to give it as a wedding gift.  She found someone to make it and then me to quilt it.  The woman that did the applique did an excellent job - all those little pieces would drive me crazy!  Although it is an attractive design and I know these kits are really popular - they leave me cold.  It's more like an artsy craftsy project to put it together than a quilt.  JMHO.

I got some really exciting news last night - my newly finished miniature quilt won an award at the AQS Show in Paducah - here is the link to the winners! http://www.americanquilter.com/shows_contests/paducah/2011/quilt_contest/quilt_winners.php
I would love to see it there but I think I would need a boat to get there today, with the Ohio River flooding. 

Julie's quilts

It's hard to stay inside and quilt when it is so beautiful outdoors!  But I did finish two quilts for Julie - this pumpkin quilt...

And this cute redwork Bunnies Love Chocolate quilt:

I went to the MCC Sale in Hutchison yesterday and today is our Longarm group meeting so I should have some more pictures  to post tomorrow. 

Spring quilts and Wichita weirdness

Sylvia made this quilt out of some tea towels that were a wedding gift years ago.  She said she had never used them, they just stayed in a drawer.  She did a wonderful job of choosing fabrics and designing this little quilt.

This cute paper pieced dog wall hanging was made by Susan.  The same designer also made a paper pieced cat wall hanging which I own the pattern for but have never gotten up the courage to make.  This turned out so cute that I may have to dig up that pattern and try it.

It's so pretty and springish out - the trees are leafing out and flowering, bulbs are blooming and the temperatures are warming up.   Our neighbor Mary is one of those people whose yard is always incredibly neat and tidy, I swear she vacuums it.  She was the first in the neighborhood to mow her lawn yesterday.  Meanwhile, Peter is cursing our lawn which is starting to grow, that means it's time for his least favorite of chores.  Gotta keep up with Mary!


On a visit to a Wichita shopping mall I saw this store:

How about a red car coffin? Is this a new trend or just a Wichita weirdness?

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!