all buttoned up......

I was busy last weekend at our annual quilt show.
When I wasn't busy shopping, visiting or gazing at quilts I did remember to snap a few pics to share with you. I am so bad at remembering to take pictures when i am out running around. I guess I must not have what it takes to be a photo journalist! Anyway here are a few highlights that I captured.... This gorgeous whole cloth quilt by Joyce Novak won best hand quilting with good reason! Her quilting is beautiful and so is the quilt. The feathered cables are stunning. congratulations Joyce!

This is a detail of a quilt by Betty New and her exquisite machine quilting. This was done free hand on her regular sewing machine! She is truly amazing. You keep wowing us Betty!

This quilt is an adorable mini quilt made with felted wool. it was from a commercial pattern (Primitive gatherings) and this one was made by Peggy Johnson. She did an excellent job with all the tiny pieces and details which is why it is wearing a blue ribbon.... speaking of blue ribbons here is another quilt that Peggy made that is also sporting a blue ribbon, but this one is bed size and beautifully appliqued and beautifully hand quilted.

It may look familiar to some... it's made from my pattern "A Florida Album" but Peggy adapted it by adding setting triangles to the blocks and also adding solid blocks and enlarging the borders to make it big enough for her bed. I saw her working on this at retreat some years ago and was excited to see it done and in our show.

This I thought was a cute quilt. The embroidery is really nice and the colors remind me of a French farmhouse kitchen - not that I've ever been in a French farmhouse :) This was made by Jacky Hargreaves and it is sporting an Honorable mention ribbon.

Here is a detail from a quilt made by Jo Anne Powell. It is the alphabet done in Fraktur with a brush and is beautifully done. The quilting is very nice too. Well done Jo Anne! Love it.

We have such boundless talent within our guild..... this stunning orchid quilt was made by our show chair person Veronica Von Zwehl. She is an accomplished art quilter and I am always waiting to see what she will create next. She had numerous quilts (with numerous ribbons) in the show.


This mark Twain portrait quilt was made by my friend Naoma. This is her first portrait quilt - awesome job Naoma, I didn't have to read the label to know it was Mark Twain! 
She also had 2 small Baltimore Album quilts in the show that were wearing blue ribbons but alas the pics didn't turn out, but trust me they were lovely.

Here's a birds eye view of the show... pardon the window grid in the foreground.

Here is the mini-quilt auction in progress. We make mini quilts, etc. and auction them to raise money for breast cancer awareness. Our auctioneer is a lot of fun and a good sport. Here he is auctioning off an art bra. A first for him.














This is the mini quilt I made for the auction. I adapted it from my "tealightful" quilt pattern.

So another quilt show is buttoned up.....(see how I snuck button-button Thursday in ~  LOL) and congrats to all who entered their quilts.....ribbons or not.... thank you for sharing your art and your passion to awe and inspire others to pick up a needle and thread and create more wonderful quilts to share.

community service quilting

Oh-oh -
I was actually trying to add some strips end to end when I wound up with this LOL -
that's what scissors and seam rippers are for. This is for the accent piping for this quilt in progress. It's a community service quilt.

I wish I could say that I make a donation quilt more frequently than I do, but then I would be lying.
I do try to make and donate quilts or other creations or donate my time to some form of community service. This quilt is going to a local youth ranch with about 25 other quilts made by fellow guild members. It is a bitter sweet project. The fabric that we are using in these quilts was donated by the husband of one of our sister quilters Joan Frantz, that succumbed to Ovarian cancer about 1-1/2 years ago. She was a remarkable woman. She was an Optometrist, and she wowed our guild constantly with her amazing quilts and talent. She won numerous local and national awards for her quilts even though she was a quilter for only about 5 years.



Well, I need to get busy because I have to have this quilted and bound by the 19th....
no problem, it's the least I can do. Thank you Joan.

the queen of pillowcases

Arghhh, ahoy matey's
I finally have the pics of some of the adorable pillowcases my friend Karen has been making.
It started out as a project for the children at the Shriner's Burn Hospital in Tampa. Our local quilt shop (Quilt Lover's Hangout) supplied instructions and also has kits to make fun colorful pillowcases for the children in the hospital. Well, Karen is hooked, and besides making them for the hospital she is making them for gifts now too. They are kind of addicting-ly easy and fun to
make. Plus, there are so many adorable fabrics to make them from. I have a stack started myself, but here are some of Karen's. I think she has made more since the pic. These are sure to bring a smile to someones face.

hairnets and hunger

The other day a small mob of quilters and I were invited to participate in a very worthy charitable endeavor.
The organization is called Kids Against Hunger and they package and distribute nutritious meal packages to those in need. Which unfortunately is many.
The church our friend Barbara belongs to was looking for about 100 volunteers to assist in packaging these meals. As quilters ever on the lookout for a new adventure and an opportunity to help, we naturally said yes.
We showed up en mass and formed a lovely hair-netted, giggling, but productive assembly line. (sorry no pictures - or none that I know of) With very few mishaps (oops, there go some beans) the hours flew by very quickly. The tally at the end of the event was 5,000 packages! Of course we worked up quite an appetite and so went out to lunch afterward feeling very thankful for our full bellies.

the art of bras and snacking

I finally put the finishing touches on my "Artful Bra" for the fundraiser and shipped it off to my friends gallery. I'm calling this one "Petal Push-up". It was so much fun to make I am going to suggest it as an idea for our quilt show next year. We always auction off mini quilts for Breast Cancer research and I think this would be a great addition to that. Anyway, I hope it brings in some money for the fundraiser. Needless to say it caused several fits of giggles during retreat, especially when it was modeled (no pictures available) ROTFLOL.

Of course the chocolate and sugar intake at retreat was pretty high as evidenced by the snack table. Actually, I think I saw the table legs start to buckle. It was a group effort after all and we did have a nice variety.
It looks worse than it really was, there were leftovers, (well, a few) and we did frequent the salad bar at mealtime!




Hmmm, maybe that's why we got so much done at retreat.
Cathi made this fabulous series of small pieces with her growing collection of Cherrywood hand dyed solids. So cool, can't wait to see them finished.





I also took along my collection of black & white fabrics and had fun with them. I'll show you when they're done. (don't hold your breath)




Karen made a fun assortment of pillowcases, more on that when she sends me the pics.
hint - hint.
Peggy was stitching so fast I couldn't keep up with her projects, but this is the first one out of the machine. Stay tuned.....

What do you mean, where have I been?

Ha Ha Ha Ha.... just kidding. I know it's been almost 2 weeks but I do have a pretty good excuse for m.i.a.
I had to get ready for.... and then go to a fabulous fun quilt retreat!
Before getting to retreat I had to make this quilt. Our fearless retreat leader challenged us to make something with charm packs she gave us last year. Not being one to rush into things, I got the top done 3 days before I left. I quilted it on retreat and it will be given to a charity of her choice. I'll get the binding on tonight.
I ended up packing about a months worth of projects to work on. This fun coffee themed fabric by Audrey Jeanne Roberts (studioefabrics) and the coffee bean fabric from Robert Kaufman are going to become place mats for gifts, shhhh... they haven't been mailed yet so I can't say who they're for.




Then we had to go out looking for a green bra....
and this is what we found. Why it only has half of a smiley face I don't know.


No ~ I didn't get a sudden urge to wear green. I decided to make an "artful bra" for a breast cancer fundraiser my friend is sponsoring at her art gallery in Wisconsin Lakes Fine Art. If you want to join in, check out the link for info. I will show you the finished bra in a few days. I still have a few finishing touches to add.
There were 19 of us at this retreat and we all accomplished a lot, a lot of giggling that is.
Check out this beautiful quilt top that my friend Cathi finished. Can't say that I would have had the patience to add all those tiny black strips. She's a fan of Southwestern design and so chose fabric that resembles turquoise. It's a stunning quilt.




More to come soon.........