Let's Visit the Quilt Show!

Everyone was so happy to get back to a real in-person quilt show. I'll share some of the quilts from our Country Road Qulters show (Ocala, Florida) in this post. Here is Kay Smith with her Best of Show quilt. Kay is a master at piecing as you can see in her Seminole-style quilt. She was also the mastermind behind our new professional hanging system and the layout for all the quilts. Some of those pieces in Kay's quilt are very, very tiny.

Jill Allen is another guild member who is an accomplished and prize-winning applique artist. Her work is all done by hand, right down to the quilting.

The fall colors and contrasts of light and dark in this pieced quilt are so beautiful. It's the work of Judy Nowak.

Group members took part in a quilt-along project for 2020. We received part of the pattern for Piece and Plenty quilt each month. It was fun to see how different members completed the project with different colors, fabrics, and layouts. This is JoEllen Oppliger's entry titled "A Tisket, A Tasket". 

The variety of basket blocks in different techniques is such a nice combination. Leanna Burgin made this first-place entry, "Posies for Sale".

 

Carol Allen was thinking small but meticulous when she pieced this "Star Pineapple," prizewinner in the Miniature category.

During the stay-home times of 2020, guild member Richard Mitchell collected blocks made by members and assembled this "Together Apart" quilt. Didn't he do a great job with the setting? My block is the house block with embroidery, 4th row from the bottom, second block from the left.

Debra Johnston combined some nostalgic bits in "A Few of My Favorite Things."

One of my entries was the "Early Bird" quilt. It was a fun quilt to piece and so vibrant.

A special display showcased some of the projects our guild makes as part of our community outreach.

I found this quilt just mesmerizing! It's "Fire Island Hosta", Rose Frierman's version of a Judy Niemeyer pattern.

And just look at the wonderful machine quilting in Brenda Crisci's whole cloth "Opal Essence" completed on a Dream Big panel.

While it was a lot of work, the two-day show was a breath of fresh air if you love quilts and have been missing seeing them hang in a public display. If you'd like to see a video with all of the entries, one of our members provided a YouTube video of the show. See it here. I hope you enjoyed all of the eye candy! 

The Bottom of the Bins...

 

Somehow I allowed an entire month to go by without a blog post. Time sure seems to fly past at an alarming rate! Part of that time was spent on a computer melt down that required the time and money investment of a new computer. Rebuilding and signing into accounts again was not fun. Then some road debris cracked the windshield on our car which also required a replacement. But I did finish this quilt-as-you-go quilt project I'm calling "Bottom of the Bins". I was determined to use only supplies and fabrics I had on hand. Blocks are quilted at the same time they are pieced by using a flip-and-sew method. Fabric strips cut in various widths are sewn on a batting square with backing fabric as a base. Once stitched, pressed, and trimmed, the blocks are joined in rows with narrow sashing between them. It's a colorful way to use up scraps, and a fairly easy project. Believe it or not, I still had a lot of strips left to give away at our guild's free table. Scrappy quilts are my favorites I think. And it really is square- the photo angle makes it look less than.

The quilt is reversible and I decided to use an assortment of reds and pinks for the backing squares. I just cut and pieced to my heart's content until there was a big pile of blocks. That's when I thought about what that backing was going to look like and got concerned it could look like quite a jumble since I'd done no planning. So I counted up the number of blocks sewn on each of the red/pin fabrics, got out a piece of graph paper, and recorded positions for the blocks that would have a little balance to it. It's not bad, though a bit eye-popping with all that pink.

After the computer and the windshield problems, I was waiting for a third. You know that saying about things happening in threes? This was a small one and it happened to my iron. I was adding an iron-on jeweled element to a tote bag project. The instructions told me to cover the element with a heat resistant sheet to protect it. There was a square of something in the package I thought was the cover sheet. I have a Teflon sheet, but this one was just the right size and at hand so I decided to use it. Oh my! Apparently it was just a packing piece and was not heat resistant at all. It melted right onto the bottom of the iron. I thought it was the end of the iron, but once it cooled down, the piece peeled right off. I'll just need to clean the bottom of the iron to make sure it's all gone. And the jeweled element was not harmed. But the piece left behind sure tells the story!

I'm off to the quilt show this weekend. Our guild is holding a two-day show that at last got rescheduled from the pandemic. I'll share some photos from that in my next post.