Vacation is OVER!!

My vacation is over!!! My DH is home. For how long we don’t know. It may be for a month or longer. So now I will have to devote a significant amount of time each day to more regular cooking and cleaning. Not that I live like a pig, but with just one person, it’s amazing how long it takes to fill up a dishwasher. And to add to the vacation end… He will be having surgery for a torn Rotator Cuff. We don’t yet know when… he sees the surgeon on Friday and we leave next Wednesday for Arizona…. Son’s wedding is a week from Friday. It will be an interesting 3 weeks or so, here.


I added a button to the blog, see it there just to the left. The Blogger’s Quilt Festival, for those of us unable or unwilling to go to Houston. It is a virtual quilt show, without judges or judgment, and open to all participants. If you would like to see the spring version Park City Girl Spring 2009, and if you are interested in information about the Fall 2009 Show go here Park City Girl Blog

I don’t know if I will have a quilt and story to post, because I haven’t done too much of the actual combining 3 layers part of quilting!!! I have made several quilts worth of blocks, but I haven’t combined them into a quilt as yet.



I finished my Halloween/Fall swap blocks and got them into the mail on Saturday. The Halloween blocks were either the spider (Black Widow) or the Bats. The spider has a silver web line and a red sparkly hour glass. The bats have red bead eyes, orange beaded feet and black shiny thread wings. I made the hat for the instigator of the swap, but she had to drop out and she likes witches!

























All the Fall blocks were the same, but different and I used hand dyed fabrics and 'sparkly' threads to add the sparkle to them...



I also finished and mailed the Twinchies, but I can’t share the Twinchies yet, because several of the swappers haven’t finished/sent them yet. I am running out of patience… I REALLY want to see them, and share pictures of the ones I made.








I was also recently invited to join another small (online) group; the goal is make a Journal Quilt in under 2 hours. So far there have only been 2 themes. The first was a “Moment in Time”, on either the Monday before or after…. On both Mondays I was cleaning house… and that is bad enough… to immortalize that in a Journal Quilt… well. I just couldn’t do it!!! I did do the second theme and it was posted on Oct. 1 – “The Wind”.







I have another project on the design wall. I used

the fall blocks as the jumping off point for this. I need to get a larger piece of hand dyed fabric or several pieces of varying colors to piece for the back ground, (currently on paper). It will be machine appliquéd, and then embellished. In the meantime, I have started on the ‘replicated’ Chicken top. I have a design planned, something I rarely do… but I wanted to combine some traditional piecing with the batik chickens. I have the most of the traditional blocks made… Now to figure out the setting… there will be lots of math and seam ripping!


More Later!

Quilt Shows

I am just going to have to do better at spreading my life out…. Sometimes it all comes at one time and then there are weeks of nothing….

I belong to a Quilt Guild, Riverwalk Quilter’s of Naperville, IL. Last March we held our ‘Gathering’, a one day Quilt Event, held every 2 years. Our featured speaker was Ami Simms, and one of the exhibits was Priority Quilts made by guild members for Ami’s Alzheimer’s Quilt Project. The whole exhibit was hand delivered to Ami, following her Lecture at the Gathering.
Well over achiever that I sometimes tend to be, I had 3 completed. So yesterday, the exhibit curator for our Gathering Event and a member of my Bee/Small Group mentioned that we should check on our “Priority Quilts” because hers was going to be in Houston this year. So, I checked. All 3 of the ones I submitted will be in Houston!!! As it turns out all the quilts Riverwalk gave to Ami will be there. What a nifty surprise. Now, if they would only garner lots of high bids… so that the Alzheimer Project can make more money for the research. If, by chance, you are interested in following, my little quilts… and of course bidding really HIGH on mine or any others that might interest you! These are the numbers. #3622 Simply Content, #3631 Summer, and #3632 Winter or if you are interested in the Alzheimer Quilt Project go here http://www.alzquilts.org/

So this weekend I went to another quilt show, the Faithful Circle Guild Show of Downers Grove IL, assisting in a booth. I have two friends that make Hand Dyed fabrics, Creative Fiber Expressions; one of them was away for the weekend so I volunteered to help. Between helping and chatting with quilters, I got a chance to look at all the quilts, and there were some stunners, but I have to say I think the Faithful Circle Guild Challenge stole the show!!! Each participant was given a picture of a Van Gogh painting and was instructed to recreate it in fabric. There were several examples of innovation and creativity among the 20 or so entries! I took a couple of pictures…

Cafe at Night garnered the Red Ribbon, and deservedly so. The details are so amazing. The piece was about 20" x 24", and I am guessing about that. It was a treat to see the picture and the quilt together!

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Another was Boats on the Beach. It was sotrue to the pictures. I think it was foundation pieced, but very accurate to the picture. Very nicely done.

Another favorite of mine was the Poppies. Not as literal of a reproduction in

fabric, but all of the important details were

there.

And last but not least. A totally different view of Farmhouse Near Provence. The one that was a

total different view of the painting, and I liked

it very much for it's 'difference'.

So that is my week in review... More Later!