Putting on a quilt show!

The Show opens this morning and it has been a busy week getting ready for it! Tuesday and Wednesday were spent judging the over 200 quilts entered in the judged show with several dozen people assisting judge Anita Shackelford. On Wednesday as we stayed cool at the judging location the quilt racks and other show
"stuff" were transported from the Guild's storage area to the location of the Show at Century II in downtown Wichita. Moving enough racks to display over 900 quilts is a major undertaking and involved trucks, a forklift and a team of men from an excavating company that one of the Show Committee members works for.  On Wednesday the racks were laid out according to the Show floorplan in preparation for the quilts arriving on Thursday.

On Thursday the quilts were delivered from drop-off points all over town to Century II.

The Processing Committee was waiting to check them in.

Our local Dillon's store is nice enough to let us borrow shopping carts to move the quilts around Century II. Whoever thought of this deserves a medal!  Century II is a huge space and this saves time and energy.

And the quilts start to go up.  Vendors are also starting to set up so the loading dock doors are open and there is no air conditioning.  With temperatures in the 90's it it steamy hot inside Century II.  In the afternoon once the loading dock doors are shut the air conditioning comes on and that big space starts to cool down.

Here is the show floor a few hours later.  All the work is done by Prairie Quilt Guild members and any family members and friends they can finagle into helping.

Here are our Show Co-Chairs (they are sisters) Jackie Clark and Tamara Gonzales.  They have a HUGE job!
They also get to zoom around the show in cute little scooters.

Here is the Red and Green exhibit exhibit from the American Quilt Study Group going up.

Kendra and her mother Phyllis are decorating the stage area used for demos and the mini quilt auction.

Here it is a few hours later.

Guild members donate mini quilts for an auction, the proceeds of which fund Grants for school programs teaching quilting.

This is Olivia, chair of the Grant Committee in the booth displaying some quilts from schools receiving grants in the last 2 years.

At the top of this post is our Opportunity Quilt with me the quilter, Deb Johnson the quilt designer and Peter the quilt husband.  It won Best of Show in the judged show!

On with the Show!

Common Threads Quilt Show this week

I finished this quilt for Betty on Friday and it is entered in our quilt show this week!  The deadline for judged quilts is today, so I hope she got the binding finished this weekend.  I had sneaked her quilt on to my list and promised her I would really try to get it done in time.  We just made it!  She spent a lot of time doing all that embroidery and it turned out really nice.

My studio is a drop-off point for judged quilts and we have gotten a pile of them.  There are more coming today.  Judging starts early tomorrow morning with judge Anita Shackelford.  It's really interesting to help out with the judging, I have learned so much by watching and listening to the judge.  She has over 200 quilts to judge in two days - that's hard work!

We have hot weather for our show this week, it's humid and in the 90's which makes set-up more challenging.  Because the big doors at Century II are open for vendors to unload there is no air conditioning for the two days of set-up.  It gets pretty steamy in there!  I'm fortunate to be nice and cool in the church where we hold the judging.

Mrs. Meatloaf (the quilt) makes the front page

I quilted a version of this quilt for Emma Creek Quilt Guild for their Opportunity Quilt.  Mary wanted me to quilt her top exactly the same as that one. This made me groan, since I had done a lot of quilting on that quilt to make it special for them and I wasn't real excited about trying to duplicate it. She bribed me into doing it by saying she would piece a Feathered Star top for me if I would quilt it for her.  I love Feathered Stars, but being a person who is definitely challenged when it comes to piecing, I figured I would never have one. That Mary is devious!

Actually I enjoyed quilting her top, I did a few things differently and ended up liking this version better than the first one.  However, I did not enjoy making a mistake on her quilt that took me one and a half days to pick out - OUCH!

Mrs. Meatloaf made the front page!  Peter and I were interviewed as part of the publicity for our Quilt Show next week.  Check it out - there is even a video.  http://www.kansas.com/2010/06/19/1367676/quiltings-long-arm.html

Wildlife

This is another of my old quilts I have resurrected for my guild show exhibit.  It's called My Cat Sam and What He Dreams About at Night.  Sam was Mrs. Meatloaf's smarter brother and actually Mrs. Meatloaf appears in his quilt as a crazed looking cat head.  When I finished his quilt I realized I had to make one for Mrs. Meatloaf as well, so The Secret Life of... came from that.

Here is an update on our local wildlife - This is our neighbor's cat Socket Set (love that name) relaxing on our deck.

This is Rosie who has decided this pot is the most comfortable place to nap, who cares that I had something planted in it!

We saw these white pelicans as we drove into Wichita the other day.  They let me get pretty close for a picture before they started acting nervous.

And last but not least, on Saturday I noticed a few ants in the mailbox when I picked up the mail.  This morning (Monday) I found an entire ant colony in there!  Complete with little white maggoty baby things.  I sprayed them and then just couldn't bring myself to clean them out, there were so many and the white things were kind of squishy looking.  So I made Peter do it, that's what husbands are for - killing spiders and cleaning out ant colonies.

Thimbleberries and a quilt show

I finished another quilt for Marsha the Thimbleberries lady.  She really does seem to have an unending supply of finished Thimbleberries tops, I have another one from her waiting it's turn to be quilted.

Yesterday was a meeting day for Prairie Quilt Guild and it was a long business meeting since this is the last meeting before our show. When I first moved here and attended my first show, I was flabbergasted to see what a huge show they put on!  This is now the third show that Peter and I have helped with and I am still amazed at what this guild does every two years. 

This year we will hang over 900 quilts, about 200 of which will be judged.  Our judge this year is Anita Shackelford and she will also be teaching some classes.  The show is called Common Threads because it includes displays from other local sewing related groups.  You can check out the show website at: http://www.wichitaquiltshow.com/index.html.  The show is  well worth a visit to see all the quilts and visit the 70+ vendors.

On the day our guild meets many quilters have lunch before the meeting at La Galette, a nearby restaurant with incredible pastries.  I usually manage to not order one, but Peter is famous for eating one with coffee as his lunch.  I planned to get a picture of him yesterday but he ruined my plan by eating a normal lunch.  Here is a picture of the dessert case instead.

Alien things

My guild, Prairie Quilt Guild, is getting ready for our big biennial quilt show at the end of this month.  I am madly trying to finish up two more customer quilts that are entered in the show and get my own quilts ready as well.  This year there are three featured quilters, all of whom design their own quilts and I was honored to be chosen as one of them.  So I have a pile of my quilts to get ready, some need hanging sleeves and all need cleaning up.  (Cat hair, you know)  I'll be posting more about our show.

I like this quilt, although I can see that my binding and quilting skills have improved since I made it!  As an old musician, it sort of reminded me of a treble clef sign, so I named it Alien Clef Sign.

To continue with the alien theme, here are some bizarre allium blooming in my garden.  They seem to be happy there and have seeded themselves in the gravel driveway.

A new applique technique?

Since I finished up my wild Hawaiian blocks I needed a new hand applique project to work on.  I decided to do a traditional Whig Rose block.  Here is Elsie the cat helping me photograph the block.

I like to use the starch method for preparing small circles to applique,so I bought a new can of starch and left it on the kitchen counter.  Early the next morning I wanted to get my applique ready to take to my small group meeting so I grabbed the can off the counter and ran out to the studio.  I sprayed some into a cup and dipped my brush in and spread it on the seam allowance of the little circles of fabric.  Then I pressed them over the template for a smooth edge to applique.  It didn't seem to be working as well as usual...  so I painted more on and kept pressing.  Finally it seemed to work, so I took them off with me to my meeting and sewed them on the block.

That afternoon I noticed the new can of spray starch sitting on the kitchen counter.  I wondered how it had gotten back in the kitchen.  A little later Peter came in the kitchen and asked me where the bug spray was.  No, I thought, I didn't do that - did I?  I ran out to the studio and there on the ironing board was a can of Raid!  Do you think this might be a new technique- a bug free way to applique? 

I did finally get Lynn's quilt finished yesterday.  The nice part about collaborating on a quilt is that I don't have to wash, block and bind it! Once that is done I will try to post a picture.