All Star Quilts, Part II

What a great show in the previous post!
Again, I am trying to get all the designers & patterns credited, so please let me know when I can add any info to a post...or if you would like me to remove a photo, I will happily honor your wishes immediately.

The theme of this year's QuiltFest was "Birds of a Feather Quilt Together", so let's start off by looking at a few of the Challenge pieces!

 Melinda R. takes us to the battle for "Featherweight Champion". She used yellow netting and beading to create that wonderful spotlight effect.

Pat P. has put the challenge fabrics to good use with her "Birds of A Feather Challenge". A 3-D touch is always nice!

"Feathered Friends" have gone for a day at the beach in Karen W.'s shaped and embellished quilt.
It's always fun to see what inspirations come from a theme and a little bunch of fabric.
Next year is "The Sky's The Limit"!
Now on to rest of the entries from the All Star Quilters Guild...

"Aurora" came from a collection of fabrics Dot B. received for Christmas one year. It can be fun...and challenging!...to work with selections from another person.

Trish E. calls this one "Big Sister", because she also has... 

"Little Sister" made from the leftovers! What a great idea for using up scraps and extra units!

Speaking of projects that come as pairs, here is "His" by Margaret S. It's sort of the pieced, masculine version of ... 

 ..."Hers" found in the Applique category. These came from two Block of the Month programs (honest, I am getting the info!). These were designed as companion quilts, Classic Folk Art (2004) by Designing Friends (Vicki McGowen and Kathy Johnson).

 OK, Pat P....your quilt just insists on staying on this side no matter what I try! "Old Fashioned Holiday" is a lovely use of crochet doilies as half-square triangles. She must have been feeling "in the pink"....

with this "Spring Blossoms" quilt from the Other Applique Techniques category.

Karol B. cleverly titled this quilt "Transpositions" for it's musical themed fabrics. Or maybe it was because she got the pattern reversed? Debbie Bowles' "BQ2" looks great no matter how you make it!
The guild had fun learning this pattern in a class taught by Lynn Provencher of Country Crossroads Quilt Shop. Here's another example from the same class...

Andrea P. used some pieced blocks instead of the plain squares for "Tropical Triangles Encore".
Could these be left over from a previous project??? 

Cathy J. takes us on trip to the Southwest with "Kokopelli Seranade". Take a closer look at the beadwork: 

 Nicely done! The beads are the pefect size and colors and add just the right touch.

Sometimes you just can't get a photo without ardent admirers in the way! Sandy O.'s "Winners Bouquet" is well worth a good look! Sandy actually flew in to Jacksonville just for the show. Maybe next year she'll let her husband come along!

I am fairly sure this is Karla P.'s "Paisley Park", but honestly, keeping track of all the beautiful quilts just makes my head swirl! This quilt has a great balance of values and colors.

Pat D. used a packet of fabrics donated to the guild by Magrieta's Quilt Shop to create "Elegance". Black and taupe is a beautiful combination.

With a nod to her heritage, Val S. made "Hawaii's Star" with a terrific bold floral. I really like a smaller quilt that looks like a "blown up" block. You could try your favorite block this way!

"It's All About Lisa" in Mary Anne D.'s photo quilt. Two things make this one a real standout: the photo transfers have good, deep color, and Mary Anne went to a lot of trouble to put little black triangle corners on each picture for an old album effect. Those details really do make a difference!
Then she had a small amount of a special fabric, resulting in... 

"Space Sprouts in My Potato Chips", which refers to the style of blocks (see Gay M.'s quilt above). The print motif does look like a sprout...perhaps from another planet!

Last, but not least, is Mary Jo K.'s "Ruby Diamond"...and what a little hand-pieced gem it is! Don't you love that the tag is actually larger than the quilt?

This completes our All Star show for 2010. It is so exciting to see all these quilts hanging proudly in QuiltFest. Competion is fun for some people, but a show needs lots of entries and they can't all have a ribbon. You know, they really don't need a ribbon...showing and sharing with other quilters, and helping the public to learn to love quilts, that's the real reward!

All Star Quilts (Part I)

The  Really Big Show...QuiltFest...has come and gone again. It was bigger and better than ever, with 430 quilts this year.
The set up and take down are about the same every year, so I thought this time I'd like to make a couple posts to feature the entries by my guild sisters, The All Star Quilters Guild.
The name does not refer to any membership requirement...we have people from beginners to major award winners and even several teachers. There are members of all ages and both sexes. Everyone is welcome...even a few people who don't make quilts, they just enjoy being with quilters!
We like to say "All Stars...where everyone can shine!"
If anyone wants their name or photo removed, I will do that...and if anyone can tell me the correct designer's name, I will be glad to add that right away!

This is our raffle quilt, "Morning Star". It was made from a commercial pattern, and I am appalled to say I don't have that info! It's on the label, though, and I will add it here ASAP! (Quilt Moments by Marilyn Foreman...pattern name "Celebration"...but the colors were completely changed for this quilt).

All seven guilds who work togther putting on this show have raffle quilt drawings on last day. This one was won by long-time member Dorothy J. (sorry Quilt Mother Margaret S.!).

Here's a quilt that came all the way from Panama. It gets counted as an All Star quilt because it was made by a member's friend, Carol S.
This is a Mary Lou Weidman design.

 Carol G. had two quilts in the show. This one is "Grandmother of Invention"....

.....and this one is "Celestial Dreams". Don't you love the way two blocks work together? Carol got this pattern from Marcia Hahn's Quilters Cache website.

 Kathy R.made Judy Niemeyer's pattern and called it "Thistlepods on the Green". The photo does not show how pretty the purple and green colors are.
Kathy also made this one:

 It's a One Block Wonder style called "Little Red Corvette Goes for a Spin" and is a marvelous use of that kaleidoscope technique plus a super-cute fabric!

 Gay M. loves to make a bargello quilt, and this one,"John's Surf Song", was done for her son. The pattern came from "Twist & Turn Bargello" by Eileen Wright. She also made a quilt in another of her signature styles....

 "Flowers Everywhere" is a fantastic use of two reverse-value prints (same pictures, dark & lights switched) in a "Potato Chip Quilt". That's a quick technique, and of course, you can't "make just one".

 Shirley S. shows how to let the fabric work with"Shoji Screen". Some fabrics are too beautiful to chop up!
She also made this unique quilt...

"Wedding Ring" has bright red pieces where the rings join, and is quilted with red thread. The black & white prints almost blend into the background...it's a beautiful way to give a new look to an old pattern!
Shirley had this entry, too...

 "Color Falls" gives us a good lesson in using a variety of colors and values!

 "French Rose" has Miriam B. showing off the rag technique with a good selection of fabrics. This is one that begs to be cuddled up in!

 Pat B. was not afraid of all those curves in "Apple Core II"! She loves to make scrap quilts in bed sizes...and give them to her family members. Hey, Pat...can I be your sister???

 Look close on the left side...Vicki Z.'s blue ribbon blends right into the colorful "Night and Day". The inspiration for this quilt was Cathy Tomm's "Luminous Diamonds" in the July 2009 American Quilters Society magazine.Vicki is a faithful hand quilter...yes, even with all those seams!
So she had to make this one...

...some "Amish Inspiration" for us! Yes, she won two ribbons in this Intermediate Pieced category. We teased her...if only she'd made another, she could have swept the category!
You can't tease someone unless she really deserved those ribbons, and Vicky sure did!

 Lois W. won't see this on my blog because she doesn't use a computer. In fact, she's in assisted living, but managed to get "A Fireman's Friend" done specially to enter into this show. This log cabin settling is a great idea for featuring those "picture prints" of Dalmations.

This is a detail shot of Eleanor A.'s "Civil War Reproduction", which she made from a collection of fabrics she'd had for 15 years. The whole quilt is wonderful, but I wanted to point out the very well-chosen quilting pattern. The fan shapes work so nicely with the geometic squares, and it is the sort of all-over design that would have been used back in the mid-1800s.

I hope you enjoyed this first batch of All Star quilts. There are at least this many more to come, including entries in the Challenge category, "Birds of A Feather Quilt Together", the show's theme for 2010.

"The Quilting Answer Book" by Barbara Weiland Talbert

On a recent visit to the public library, I was rewarded with a surprize....a quilting book I had not seen!
It went home with me. I'm going to have a hard time giving this one back!

This is a small  volume, measuring 4.5" x 6.25" but 1" thick, and it packs a lot of information into the pages. The writing is friendly and the Q&A style makes it easy to find the topic you need.
It begins with Getting Started, which deals with the basic parts of a quilt,and proceeds to work through the many types and techniques of quilting. Making choices and problem solving along the way provides the info you need right where you want it. There are many good diagrams and illustrations, a necessity for quilters (we are all very visual learners!).
The book ends with some of those very handy charts like what size of square to cut to get a particular triangle, as well as lists of online resources for shows, quilt museums, supplies and education. It also has an index, which many books neglect to provide these days.
Author, Barbara Weiland Talbert, has been sewing,quilting and writing for many years. You've probably read her articles in magazines. Visit her website at http://www.joyofsewing.com
This is the sort of book I wish I had written!
If you are looking for a covers-all-bases reference, or a gift for a beginner, you can chose this book with confidence that it won't gather dust on the shelf.

River City Piecemakers...no quilting "Trouble" here!

There is no "Trouble in River City" now, despite the fine musical number from Meredith Wilson's musical The Music Man. This class was postponed from last month due to the A/C breakdown. It's impossible to have a class in Summmer without some cooled air!

Everyone got set up and right down to business for "Gifts By The Yard". This class is more on the crafty side, designed for when you need to churn out a load of little items as fast as possible. We're headed into the time of year when lots of gifts are needed, whether you're giving them yourself or filling baskets for the local craft sale or boutique.
You pre-quilt (or purchase, or drag from the depths of your stash) a yard of fabric and end up with about 7 tissue holders, 10 glasses cases, and 8 "privacy purses" (some may call that a coin purse, but I don't care what you put in it!). That's just the basic options. Once the tricks are learned, students start to change the cutting dimensions and create all sorts of great new accessories. This time we figured out some cell phone holders and a larger style glasses case to hold the over-size wrap-around black sunglasses that so many people like...or use during their post-op from cataract surgery.

The best part of class is seeing what fabrics everyone has.
Bright is always good for purse accessories, and by selecting a coordinating lining fabric (back of the quited yard) it's easy to make sets of items that go together (how Vera Bradley can you get???). Just make half the items with one side out, and half with the other!
One very clever lady (with a big sense of humor) made items with a cheerful red holiday print for the outside, and the lining was the logo of a state university . She gave some of those to her friends who are fans of the other state university!

It's a good thing that non-quilters didn't come in. They might have thought a sweat shop had been set up. Those sewing machines were going like crazy!
The most amazing part of the class was that I taught how to make continuous bias binding, starting with a square. That is pretty much like a Home Ec. nightmare! But the Piecemakers were ready to learn and stuck with it until they were successful.
Fortunately, there are several experienced seamstresses in that group who will be able to reveiw the process later, and I thank them in advance!
Cherry-Cherry came along with me. It's great to have someone to pick up on all the little details while I'm working my way around and around the room. And it's nice to have a travel companion, even if the class is only across town!

A quilt class is so much more than just learning how to do something. It's a social event, where friends get together for a good laugh or to share stories of joy or sorrow. You always come away with more than the class project, as so many tips are shared. This guild likes to have a covered dish lunch, and you just can't do better than quilters who cook!
All in all, you just can't do better than spending a day with quilters....period!

Quilting fun in Palm Beach County

The entire East Coast is in a heat wave, making Florida hotter than ever...but the quilting fun never ends!
Just crank up the A/C, get out the fabric, and roll on with that rotary cutter!

I just had a marvelous time with the Palm Beach County Quilters Guild. What a great guild! They are doing loads of good charity work while supporting their county fair, the big Mancuso show in November, and their own biennial show. In between, they have lots of well known teachers and a monthly meeting that is jam-packed with activities. I lost count of all the drawings! And every person who has a birthday that month gets to select a fat-quarter from a giant basket.

The quilts are mine, ready for the lecture...and that's my purse on the chair. Seems dangerously close to the basket of fat quarters!

But I did manage to control myself.

The time allotment for the program was shorter than my regular lectures, so we decided I'd show a number of my quilts, including family/vintage ones...quilters always seem to enjoy a trunk show.

Of course, I couldn't just leave it at that. There had to be some reason for the quilts I selected.

So I did a program I have been thinking about for quite awhile: The 7 Habits of Highly Collective Scrap Lovers (with thanks to Stephen R. Covey).

There was a quilt to illustrate each of the 7 Habits, which I changed from business jargon to quilt-speak, such as" #1: Be Proactive" became "It's a Scrap If I Say It Is!".

I had that great Double Wedding Ring with the red binding and the Big Baskets quilts to represent each side of my family. The others were mainly quilts and tops I have made, especially some Mystery Quilts.

Over on the right you see the three Quirky Bits samples, as that's the class we had following the lecture.

You may remember it's relationship to Perky Old Men, being made with the same endless batch of 3-inch nine patches. Cherry-Cherry's mono-chromatic blue one is on the far right, and in the center is the new top I just finished.

I got a Hoffman Bali-Pops selection of batik strips for my birthday ("Strawberry Fields"...did you know those things are collectibles now??? Put out in yearly collections, for our obsessive pleasure!).

Every time I teach this class there are a couple people who want to use a jelly roll or other pre-cut strips that are 2-1/2" instead of the 1-1/2" strips.
I have no problem with that! Why do any extra work (a great motto!).
Quirky Bits is cuter with the smaller strips, but looks great with the wider ones, too. So here's my version, which has some very quirky parts indeed. I enjoyed making it it to have as a sample for the class, and in the process firmed up how I want to write the pattern.
The class was wonderful, with lots of ladies trading strips and sewn units, plus making plans to shop for more additions to their strip collections.

Well, with such hot weather, there is nothing better for Summer than a Watermelon..... quilt, that is:

This was made a long time ago from an Eleanor Burns pattern called "Boston Commons". The large white area has watermelon leaves quilted all through it  in pink thread.

I searched online for a picture of a watermelon vine, copied it, traced two leaves, then blew them up to life size. By flipping each template from side to side, I had 4 leaf shapes to combine in many ways all around the white part.

This quilt was purchased at a fund-rasing auction and now resides in Washington state.

Until next time...stay cool!

Americana Quilt for the Fourth of July

You may recall a selection of blocks, united only in that they were red, white & blue:

When you have blocks of all different sizes, the first step is to lay them out to see how they'll balance. That means you're just looking for where each one will look best in relation to the others.

These blocks are in their suggested places for the quilt. You'll notice there are some spaces...those will need to be filled with plain fabric, pieced units, or a slight shuffling of the existing blocks. That where the fun is in making this sort of quilt!

Taking a picture comes in handy when there are not really any traditional rows. It was picked up and carefully given labels. 

It went home to my design wall:

    

This thing is huge...but doing a scrappy sampler is a puzzle made of parts, so it's fine to just worry about one section at a time. I tried to lay it out according to the photo of the blocks on the table. The center-to-bottom seemed to go well, though I thought it needed a lot of added peices.

  

Working on the top went a bit smoother, though the trick here is to get things centered, to match the "balance" of the original layout. The bottom section had established the width, so now the top had to be the same.
You might notice that the large Log Cabin Star is no longer surrounded by nine-patch blocks.

 Asymetrical is fine for some things, but the Flag Block needed to be right in the center of the Log Cabin star. Also, a directional block like that has now made this whole quilt have a definite top and bottom.

Well into the process, I actually stated to take blocks apart for several reasons:

1. I needed the units for filling in spaces.

2. The Rail Fence blocks looked like swastikas (they are now broken up, placed about half way down on the right side).

3.Some of the blocks just couldn't work. due to their construction. I was determined to have all the donated blocks in the quilt, and I even managed to get the double-knit one in (!!!).  

But the one that had no seam allownces to speak of...that one self-destructed during some reverse sewing and there was no saving even parts of it! At that point, I did not feel bad about sending it to the trash. It did, howvever, leave a 12" hole I needed to fill, which resulted in a complete re-design of the bottom section. This is why I am glad I did not write down or recall who had made any of the blocks.

After a simple border to "frame & contain", I patched a backing together from more donated yardage.

I am so pleased to tell you that there is a True Saint in my quilt guild!

DB took this mess and did a large meandering pattern with a nice red thread that pulls the whole thing together beautifully. I will be eternally grateful to her for relieving me of the quilting!

    

I did put the binding on and here it is finished....and handed over to the lady who wanted it for a fund-raiser for the church where my guild meets.
Happy Independence Day indeed!