Gail Stepanek and I were asked to make a contribution to the IQA Celebrity Auction which will be held during Quilt Festival this fall. Gail made a block using her own pattern from our quilt Stars on Mars and I tried to quilt it in the same style.
I quilted another wallhanging for Margo, it's from Eleanor Burns' book Quilts from El's Kitchen. I have quilted the large version of this as well but I think the small version is my favorite - it's really cute!
It will have a curved edge to the border. Margo says it will be used as a table cover.
The current Prairie Quilt Guild board finished their term this month and traditionally, the board members make a quilt for the outgoing president. This is the quilt that was presented to Mayleen Vinson at our last meeting. It's a signature quilt and it uses many different Kaffe Fassett fabrics.
In return, the outgoing president makes a small gift for each board member. Mayleen made us all this beautiful pincushion. The squares are tiny, made from one inch pieces and in typically perfectionist Mayleen fashion, are perfectly pieced.
I am serving as our guild quilt show co-chair along with fellow guild member Cheryl Nordstedt. We have had several planning meetings together and I always request that we meet at her house, for two reasons. Her house is always clean and I get to see her cat Toby. I have written about him before in my blog but just have to include this picture of Cheryl holding him. It's hard to describe how huge and wonderful he is and this picture shows it so well. He is so big he looks like this picture has been photoshopped!
Margo wanted custom quilting and for me to do whatever I wanted. That's fun when it's such a cute quilt!
It's hard to find a thread color for these Japanese taupe/browns. Brown thread looks too brown, grey thread looks too grey. I finally found the perfect mucky greyish brown from Superior Masterpiece - #181 called Nightscape. Masterpiece is 50w cotton, not a thread I would use on a bed quilt but for a wall hanging it works fine.
Cecelia waited a long time for me to get to her humongous quilt! This will be a shop sample for her quilt shop in western Kansas.
I thought this quilt needed some curves.
I finished quilting the Opportunity Quilt for my guild a while back but waited to post pictures until it had been presented to the guild members at a meeting.
This is a pattern by Edita Sitar and was made by a group of quilters from the guild.
The drawing for the quilt will be at our show next June.
Oops! I seem to have missed July. I've been working on a few projects that I can't post pictures of yet: my guild's Opportunity quilt and a quilt of my own but I do have a few things to post.
This is Judy's Christmas quilt. The center tree applique is from a pattern and the smaller appliques she found at copyright free sites online but the setting is hers. All that piecing! She was very ambitious and also had me quilt two matching pillow shams and two matching window treatments. She will have a very Christmassy bedroom this year!
She was very specific as to what kind of quilting she wanted me to do. She wanted heavy quilting; lots of background quilting and detail.
I will be the speaker for my guild, Prairie Quilt Guild this September and will be doing a workshop on machine trapunto. I had to come up with a project for the class and this is what I ended up with. It's really a technique class, not a class to produce a finished masterpiece but I had to make the sample look presentable.
A few weeks ago I drove down to Oklahoma City for the Central Oklahoma Quilters Guild Show. It was a good show with lots of quilts and vendors. They have a great location; a huge building at the OK State Fairgrounds.
I took pictures of some of the quilts that caught my eye.
This is Night Blooms by Linda Rinehard and it won Best of Show. It's made from a Pearl Pereira pattern and she quilted it herself on a longarm.
Here's another pretty applique quilt with a black background. I'm always attracted to them because the colors show up so well but I don't enjoy quilting on a black background! This is Springtime Roses by Frieda Grischkowsky, quilted by Marilyn Karper.
Charlotte Hickman had several quilts in the show. Thread Painted Tulips won a special NQA award from the two NQA certified judges.
The texture in Fly Away Butterflies is amazing. Just look at the close up of the tree bark.
This is Marilyn Karper's Amazon Star. It was so big that I couldn't get all of it in the picture!
I really like this small quilt, We Got Cow... by Alice Kellogg. Oklahomans do know a thing or two about tornados!
This is Bertie's Whole Year by Jeri-Alynn McGee with no information about the pattern. That is one criticism I have about the show, I do think it is important to identify the pattern designers on the hang tags.
I like her use of plaids in this quilt. Blogger would only let me load this sideways for some reason.
This is another quilt by Jeri-Alynn McGee called Wonderland by Night and it is wonderful! I think this is an original design.
So now I am all caught up.
Last Friday I went on a road trip with my friends Michele and Lori - we recently went to Paducah together and needed another quilt show fix so we went to the opening day of the very first Kansas City Regional Quilt Festival. What a great show! We were lucky to get there early enough to find a parking spot, by the time the show opened at 10 am the lot was full.
The convention hall was packed with vendors and quilts. I liked that the supporting guilds from the KC area all had booths and were selling their own opportunity quilt tickets and handmade items. This was my favorite opportunity quilt, designed by a member of the Blue Valley Quilters Guild and made by guild members. I bought tickets and hope I win!
Congratulations to Mayleen Vinson for winning Best of Show. I did quilt this but have to say that the quilting takes second place in this quilt - it's Mayleen's workmanship that won the award.
Mayleen won a new Bernina and here she is accepting her machine.
I didn't get pictures at the show - it was so crowded with happy quilters and I was too intent on my shopping.
On our way to the show we stopped for breakfast and they were serving monstrous cinnamon rolls. No, I
didn't eat one but did get a picture.
On the way home we stopped for ribs at a restaurant Michele and Lori love. The décor is... unique. Those are dollar bills hanging from the ceiling and posted on the wall.
They serve the best ribs I have ever eaten - on a stack of newspaper topped with foil. YUM! Guy and Mae's Tavern in Williamsburg.
Joanne made this from a Judy Niemeyer pattern - what a great way to use lots of batiks!
I put feathers along one side of the spikes and now from a distance they look like unicorn horns.
Marsha made this cute Rudolph Christmas quilt for her husband, whose name (or maybe it was his middle name) is Rudolph. I'm absolutely sure her husband does not have a glowing red nose.
I haven't watched TV in years but I remember watching this show when I was a kid - do they still show it at Christmastime?
I visited Material Girls Quilt Shop in Wichita yesterday. Shop owners Jan and Jo always have beautiful shop samples displayed and have several local longarm quilters do the quilting for them. Not just basic quilting - but really gorgeous custom quilting like this one quilted by my friend Siriporn Hollar. Isn't this amazing creative freehand quilting?
It is finally feeling like summer in Kansas after a cool and rainy June. This is Rorschach beating the heat. He is sound asleep here!
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