Jeff & Dustin's Weekend

This past weekend was spent in Dallas celebrating the union of Jeff & Dustin.  I picked up Don, Jeff's father, on Friday afternoon and we had an uneventful flight to Dallas.  There, Kristi and Jeanie picked us up at the airport.  We swung by Kristi's apartment so I could meet the cats and then by Jeff's condo so I could see see, in person, what a wonderful job they've done decorating their first home.  Their decorations were contemporary - all very tasteful.  Their bedroom was in browns with gold accents.  But a black and white quilt goes with every color scheme and decorating style, doesn't it?  Let's hope so since this is what I gave them!

Texas Two Step - so named because the top was purchased at the Milroy Amish School Auction.  I thought it was appropriate since Jeff & Dustin now live in Texas.  It actually makes a nice bedspread for my bed, don't you think? 



On to the hotel where friends and family were gathering.  We ran into family that had been seeing the sights, eating the Tex-Mex food and generally having a great time.  Of course, Dallas was in high gear as the Rangers were playing in the AL playoffs and had a resounding win.  The city went wild!  The gathering at a local bar was fun but the noise level and general celebrations were in high gear.



Saturday morning, we had time for a quick walking tour of some fun sights.  Kristi wanted to see the "cows."  They were only a few blocks away so off we went.  These "cows" were actually lifesize sculptures of longhorn steers with three cowboys keeping them in line.



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Here's Kristi with the "cows."  There were close to 60 statues in a very lifelike arrangement of being herded down the hill and across the stream.  They were even branded!



After that, we had time to walk towards the Grassy Knoll where JFK was shot.  An emotional moment or two despite the hustle and bustle of city traffic.  The memorial to JFK was a block away from the Texas Book Repository and gave time for contemplation before seeing the actual site of the shooting.

The cenotaph of JFK on Founder's Square.  There was a beautiful plaque explaining the thought behind the structure of this cenotaph - essentially the freedom for his spirit to envelop our lives. 



Back to the hotel for lunch before I headed to the room to rest and read.  I was in the middle of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and was hooked.  If only I could have stayed awake to read! 

Finally, the time arrived for family pictures - just a few select photos here.  The rain had stopped (those of us from Indiana hardly know what rain is like, any more) but it was windy.  Good looking group, don't you think? 

Ken and Louise, Dustin, Jeff, Jeanie & Don

The action surrounding the picture taking was almost the most entertaining part.  Just seeing family members lining up behind the official photographer to take their own pictures was fun.  She was a great photographer to work with.

And then, of course, there are the guys distancing themselves from the action - Donnie, Ken and Don.

On to the reception where margaritas flowed freely (yum) and several partied until the wee hours of the morning.  We had fun sharing stories, laughing and celebrating.  It was a joyful family event and the mothers both made it through their respective toasts without breaking down.

Not much to tell after that - except I drove through rain (drizzle, anyway) on the way home from the airport.   So now it's back to quilting quilts.

Cheers!
Margaret 

Shop Hopping

I have now participated in a Shop Hop - my first as a shopper!  The Magical Mystery Tour Fall Shop Hop involved four quilt shops and a lovely drive through the Indiana country side.  My quilting and longarm friend Lori had asked me to go with her on this shop hop, giving us a chance to catch up.  So, off we went.

The weather was gorgeous - cool in the morning but bright and sunny.  Our first stop was Shiisa Quilts in Bloomington.  They had a software patch to download to my sewing machine so that gave us time to look around.  I've also been talking to Janet, owner of Shiisa Quilts, about doing a class on making a fracture quilt so I had a sample quilt to drop off.  We talked about what might make a good fabric for a fracture as well as how we might structure the class.  Stay tuned for the class date - probably some time next March.

Here I am at Shiisa with my fracture.  Easy to assemble and striking to look at.  It's best if you stand back a few feet so you don't feel like your eyes are going bonkers.

I picked this fabric up at Shiisa and am going to try a flower fracture next.  I'm going to try this one on the diagonal to give an additional punch to the flowers.  We'll see how it goes.

Next on our trip was Ady's Fabric and Notions in Morgantown.  After a lovely drive past the Oliver Winery on the west side of Bloomington (too early for wine tasting - drat!), we got to Ady's.  We had a demonstration of  a new ruler on the market - ways to make cutting flying geese and eliminating the waste fabric this typically entails.

Ady's had this version of the Magical Mystery quilt.  The blocks were designed by Janet Mease of Shiisa Quilts and each shop put the blocks together in a different way.  An interesting view into the different personality of each shop.

From Ady's, it was a short jaunt up to The Back Door.  They've expanded their batik section so it's a good thing I was busy picking up the bolt of batting I had ordered or I would have spent the rest of the afternoon looking and pawing through the batiks.  I did swing through the shop and drooled over the children's fabrics - they had a version of the Bazillion panels that I've used.  But I've already got two baby quilts done with a third top completed.  Not sure how many I need to have in reserve so didn't buy any (sob!).  Want to see a picture of my batting???


Our final stop was The Fussy Cut Quilt Shop, a relatively new shop in Beech Grove that neither Lori nor I had visited before.   They had treats for shop hoppers - welcome since we were running on empty.  Check out my find - not fleece but cotton!  Finally!

Ran into this fabric at The Fussy Cut Quilt Shop.  Pillowcases for the Colts fans in my family!

We barely had time to squeeze in lunch before heading back to Columbus so that Lori was in time to meet the school bus.  Made it with minutes to spare.  And Lori and I are now caught up - at least partially.  There is lots more we COULD have talked about but ran out of time.  Oh, well - perhaps we'll have to schedule a sew-in day or longarm meeting in the near future.

As I headed home after dropping Lori off, I stopped at Home Depot and picked up a piece of plexiglas.  Harriet has promoted the use of this for auditioning quilting designs and there have been times recently when it would have been extremely helpful.  It's one thing to draw the pattern on a piece of paper.  It's something entirely different to see the pattern on the quilt itself.  When auditioning designs on Lois' quilt I took a picture of the quilt, printed out a picture of the quilt, and then drew possible designs on the blocks.  It made selecting a design much easier.  But sometimes I know about what design I want to quilt - just need to tweak it a little bit.  That's where the plexiglas will come in very handy.

What a great day!

Cheers!

Margaret 

  



Forget Me Knot

Saturday was a great day for an outing. I picked up Carol at the Louisville airport. Among other travels, she'd been visiting a friend in Nebraska and they went to the AQS Des Moines Quilt Show. Carol had pictures on her cell phone of some of the quilts at the show - I'll have to look at the AQS website to see some in more detail. Sounds like they had fun.

Our plan was to visit Forget Me Knot Quilt Shoppe in Louisville. One of the owners of the Shoppe had attended the Beaver Island Quilt Retreat with us in September and we had a good time getting to know her. We found the Quilt Shoppe without problem and, sure enough, Darlene was there. The shop was full of customers and friendly chatter. Some visitors from Australia who were making their way cross country had found the shop and were buying fabric.



Carol, fat quarters already selected, with Darlene

The shop had loads of fabric, one of the largest selections of books I've seen in a quilt shop recently and wonderful samples on the walls. Several of the quilts on display had been completed by Carrie, another Beaver Island Retreat friend.



Carrie loves applique.  Aren't these two quilts beautiful?

Another of Carrie's quilts.  I like the sashing and border treatment, too.

We let Darlene get back to her customers while we foraged through the fabric. Lots of lucious fabrics to drool over, including a selection of Australian fabrics! I need to come up with a quilt that would take advantage of the wonderful colors and Aboriginal designs in those fabrics.

Another of the quilts on the wall was a four panel quilt. If you've been following Quiltgranny's blog, you've seen the wonderful winding river quilt she and a group of Missouri and Kansas quilters have completed. This was a similar type of group quilt on a smaller scale. Still very interesting. Mindful of Harriet's challenge at the Kentuckiana Longarm Group meeting last week to challenge ourselves to do something new, I'm thinking this type of challenge would be a good start.

You can see the photo which was the inspiration for this quilt.  A challenge like this would be great fun to work on with a group of friends.

After spending quite a bit of time there, we made our way to the cutting table and checkout register. In what was a funny twist, we both had to check out twice. After her initial purchase, Carol saw a fabric being put away that was perfect for her current project. And on the way out of the store, I saw a wonderful geometric fabric that will be a wonderful border on a quilt some day.



After that shopping, it was time for an early dinner. We found this great restaurant, Le Que, on Bardstown Road. If you like Thai and Vietnamese cuisine, it would be hard to beat the food at this restaurant. I can highly recommend the Tilapia in a clay pot. Delicious!


Finally, full of fabric and food, we made our way back home. What a beautiful weekend for a scenic drive.



Cheers!

Margaret

Kentuckiana Longarmers Gathering

This past Sunday was a gathering of longarm quilters in the Kentuckiana area.  The meeting was at Harriet's home in Madison and the weather was perfect for a Sunday afternoon drive.  This group has close to 30 members spread on both sides of the Kentucky/Indiana border.  They always have a program that includes demonstrations or discussion of new techniques or tools.

Harriet had prepared a demo of a trapunto technique by loading batting as her backing and then using washaway thread to stitch around her design.  While she trimmed the batting away, we watched a HandiQuilter video about two different trapunto techniques.  She then showed us how to use a bright fabric underneath the trapunto to get a wonderful shading effect - something I've added to my list of techniques to try in the near future.

Harriet working on the trapunto piece...

You can see the center has been trimmed but there's still some trimming to be done around the edge.  But the bright orange flannel yields a lovely, soft color underneath.

We also talked about different tools that were recently purchased, including some with some with scalloped edges and some arcs from DeLoa's Quilt Shop.  The nice thing about the arcs are that, unlike several curved rulers I already own, both the top arc and the bottom arc are the same radius.  And then we got to the high tech tools - available from your local Dollar General Store!

These "templates" were among Harriet's selection of fun shapes.  There were lots of different leaf shapes and sizes - great for a freehand leafy border or panto on the fly.

The drive was lovely.  Although this summer has been exceedingly dry, the trees were starting to turn and there was quite a bit of color coming out.  I was afraid that the lack of water over the summer would result in very muted fall colors.  There was one tree in North Vernon that was spectacular - a tall maple tree that was full of color.

This picture doesn't do these trees justice - they were a beautiful orange.

And then there's the maple tree in my back yard - just starting to turn and about as pretty as the rest of the scenery on the drive to Madison.

So now it's back to quilting.

Cheers!
Margaret

Best of Show and Viewer's Choice

What a great Quilt Show!  I have to admit I was excited to be a part of this quilt show - my first real behind the scenes participation in the preparations.  The comments received from those attending the quilt show were quite complimentary and, in my humble opinion, well deserved.  The quality of the quilts was outstanding.  Of course, the quality of our guild members is outstanding so great quilts shouldn't be any surprise.

It was fun to be present when the checks were given to the Best of Show and Viewer's Choice winners.  Their quilts were truly exquisite.

Cathy Bahnsen (left) accepting the award from Susan Rothrock, Guild president, for the Best of Show Quilt.  Cathy and Susan have their arms around Dorothy McKay (now deceased), one of the founders of the Guild.  It's Dorothy's appliqued top that is the front of this wonderful quilt.  Cathy said she feels Dorothy sitting on her shoulder from time to time encouraging her as she works on a quilt.

Cathy pieced these irises for the back of her quilt.  What a bold and lovely statement these make.  I love the gradations in the purple fabric used for the iris on the left.  You can also see the quilting - fun to study up close.

I've gotten to know Cathy a little bit through the guild and hope to get to know her much better in the coming year.  I do know that she is a guiding light to many in the guild.  You don't have to talk to guild members very long before Cathy's name comes up - usually as in, "Cathy taught me..." or "Cathy showed me how to..." or "Cathy's quilt was gorgeous."  That last statement certainly applies to her Best of Show quilt.  The quilt top was appliqued by Dorothy McKay and somehow found its way to Cathy.  Cathy pieced the irises for the back.  It was quilted by Marilyn Harding, who does quilting at The Back Door.  I studied her quilting and have some new things to try on future quilts.

Viewer's Choice is the quilt selected by quilt show attendees.  I helped with the preliminary ballot count late Saturday afternoon.  The interesting thing was that there were lots of votes for lots of different quilts - a tribute to not only the variety of quilts but also the variety of tastes of those viewing the quilts.

A truly stunning quilt was selected as viewer's choice.

Rosemary Rudolf (left) accepting her award from Susan Rothrock.  As wonderful as this quilt is to see in the picture, it was really exciting to see it up close.  Rosemary's applique was tremendous.  Her quilting wasn't bad either...in fact it was WONDERFUL.  Of course, I'm biased.  Rosemary has taught me so much about longarm quilting and has been a great supporter as I learn more about the art of quilting.  Looking at this quilt I know I still have lots to learn. 

Rosemary and her friends celebrating her Viewer's Choice award.  One of Rosemary's quilts won Viewer's Choice at the 2008 quilt show.  They are both great quilts and both have a tremendous amount of applique on them.  Is there a trend developing??? 

Congratulations to Cathy, Rosemary and the entire Guild for a wonderful show.

Cheers!
Margaret

Quilt Show - Ready, Set, Open!

This has been a busy week - gathering items for the Boutique, finishing bindings, attaching sleeves to bed quilts, and all of the other things that go into preparation for a quilt show.

Friday's weather was gorgeous and by 8 a.m. there was a line at the door waiting to drop off quilts for the Show .  We had a good time talking to each other with our arms full of quilted treasures.

While the intake crew was working on accepting the quilts, the set up folks were already hard at work getting the quilt racks set up in the right configuration.  It didn't take long before the display area was completely mapped out with poles just waiting for quilts.

Susannah and Kay looking over the quilt placement diagram.

Quite

We purchased metal poles and stands - so much easier to work with than the heavy wooden stands used in previous years.

Teamwork and tall ladders are still needed to get the quilts successfully hung. 

The triangle holders for the quilt racks seemed to work well this year.  They are certainly more stable and easier to use than the hooks requiring the electrical ties to keep the poles in place.

Quite a few of the quilts in the show this year were for display only.  Some were antique quilts, others were past winners revisiting the quilt show venue, and still others were recently completed quilts the owners decided not to have judged for a variety of reasons.



Of course, there's the lunch break.  Sara, Susannah and Kathi enjoy a laugh. 



With that work underway, Carol and I turned our attention to the Quilters Boutique.  A new venture for our Guild this year, we started off discussing the best way to arrange the furniture to best display our wares and encourage a welcoming atmosphere for Boutique shoppers.  Carol must have been a merchandiser in a previous life - she has a real flair for displaying items to their best advantage.



Items all priced, boxed up and ready to go to the Quilter's Boutique.  Doesn't look like much, does it?



With her creativity and my grunt work, we finally got the Boutique set up.  To everyone's surprise, we had quite a stash of items for sale.  Since many of the items came in a few pieces at at time, it was hard to gauge how many items we really had.  All I knew is they took up the floor in my guest bedroom and it wasn't a large stack of boxes when we had it all assembled.

Can you see the Santa sitting in the chair by the window?  He has a sack of toys for all the good girls and boys, too!  I was sure he'd sell but he's still available - $30 for some lucky girl or boy!

We commandeered a display rack and have photo albums and a bright collection of pillowcases for sale.  There are also some pot holders on the lowest rack.  Look at the wonderful poinsettia wall hanging behind Carol.  It is truly a work of art and I'm sorry I didn't snatch it up when the Boutique opened up this morning.  Oh, well... 

But look at the great display.   We had a wonderful area so there was plenty of room for shoppers.  

By mid-afternoon, the Boutique was pretty well set up.  With the quilt judging in progress, there would be busy periods when a particular category of quilt was completed followed by a lull in the action.

Susie, Sarah and Colleen rest between quilt hangings.

Kay, Ann, Sue and Cathy waiting for another group of quilts to hand.

Finally, the quilts were judged, ribbons hung, and workers were exhausted.  With the night shift on duty to guard our quilts, we left to rest up so we could return Saturday morning to enjoy the quilt show.  If you're near Columbus, do stop by and see us.  Open from Noon - 5 p.m. on Sunday.

Cheers!

Margaret