Shameless Plugs

It's so exciting to finish a quilt you've been working on for almost a year.  Alright....so it became a temporary UFO for a few months.   I confess!    Here's my America quilt which I named "We the People".

The pattern is by Debra Gabel.  And, speaking of her design expertise.   Check this out! Amazon has listed Debra's new book due out early next year. 

One more shameless plug....One of the quilt guilds I belong to is having a quilt show next month.

Hope to see you there!

Who knew?

At my mother's 80th birthday party in April, a woman in her nineties was admiring the quilts hanging around my house.  When she indicated she used to quilt in the old days, I asked her if she had any stray blocks around she'd like to get rid of.  Then I didn't think anything of it.  A month later my mother hands me a Woodward and Lothrop box with quilt blocks in them.  All the the blocks were hand-pieced.  A note included said that she'd made a mistake by combining cotton and polyester fabrics in the same blocks.  If I could make a charity quilt out of any of the blocks, I was welcome to them.

I added some sashing, quilted them so that the hand stitches would never come out and ...voila!  Two Linus quilts have been donated to my guilds charities.  The guild is sending her a thank you note along with the picture above.  It makes my heart feel good!

Is anyone out there?

I've been waffling this summer on whether I should continue to blog or not.  Ok, so my old computer's hard drive died a slow death....enough so that I could get most of my data off.   Unfortunately, some of my old programs no longer work on Windows 7.  So, I've been spending my time trying to learn Photoshop instead of relying on my old standby, Picture It!   Aaargh!

Some good things have happened along the way.  Of course, my cache of pictures of the charity quilts I've created is now too many to post, yeah.   But, at least I have a visual record. 

I entered a block in the Alliance for American Quilts New From Old Contest and didn't win a thing.  It was satisfying, however, to know that my quilt was shown with all the other entries at the American Quilter's Society Knoxville show.  All of the contest quilts will also be shown at the Original Sewing and Quilt Expos in Chantilly VA, Atlanta GA, Kansas City MO, Minneapolis, MN.  So if you're going to any of these shows, please take a look at my block and let me know what you think.

I entered a block in the EAA Airventure Quilt Block Contest and received 4th place.  While my hubby and I were unable to fly up there during the Oshkosh, WI airplane show due to a conflict with my son's attendance at the Otakon Conference in Baltimore the same weekend, we might make it up there later this fall weather permitting.  The block will hang in the Airventure Museum for one year.

I entered a quilt I titled "Natasha Robbinski" into the Pennsylvania National Quilt Extravaganza and just received a letter that the quilt has been accepted into the show.   

Finally, I'm not sure whether this is good news or bad yet.   My 17-year old son just passed his driver's license yesterday.  Advice and sympathy welcome.  

Emmmmmbarrassing Secret Sister Encounter

This past week the Friendship Star Quilt Guild had it's year end party.  All the secret sisters were revealed.  So, what's so embarrassing about that?   The day before the party, I took a Capitol Post Card class from Eileen Doughty.  I don't know what came into me, but I declared before all the class members that I knew who my secret sister was and proceeded to talk my way into an embarrassing situation because one of the persons I was talking to was my secret sister and it wasn't who I thought it was!  Ha ha on me!  I have to admit, however, that I was pleasantly surprised to finally meet my real secret sister.  I've been in awe of Betty's work and admired her courage in establishing a long-arm business. 

By the way, the post card class was a blast and I highly recommend Eileen as a teacher and lecturer.  She helped each student make their project their own.  Here's my 5x7" post card quilt:

 I'll be dropping by the Annapolis Quilt Show this Saturday afternoon before I take my Dad out to dinner for a belated birthday celebration.  For my visual record, here's the Linus quilts I completed for our June 3rd workshop:

Paint Chip Challenge

What is that?  One of my quilt guilds handed out those paint cards you can pick up at any hardware store.  I was assigned:

Purple, green, and yellow.  At first, I thought I'd hit the lottery.  I imagined making a New Orleans mask with these colors.   Alas, after much research and several drawings, the colors were so muted, I would have been ashamed to associate them with the bright New Orlean's Mardi Gras.   Back to square one!
I started playing around with shapes in my photo enhancing software, bought the materials, and made the following quilt:

How did I make this?  First I printed out my pattern to the size I wanted it and taped together the pages to make a between 30 and 40" around quilt.  I used wonder under to cut out the pieces and iron them onto the background.  Next, put a piece of stablizer behind the background and satin stitched all around the edges of the pieces.  After tearing off the stabilizer, I made a quilt sandwich and quilted it.  Voila! Quilt Done!  Today, I brought the quilt to guild and showed it with all the other entries.   Surprise, surprise....for my effort I was given a certificate:

I've never been a great namer of quilts.  And, when I get stumped, I rely on my backup method....pick one of my favorite cartoon characters and go for it.  I already have a quilt named "Boris Badenov" after the short soviet spy in Rocky and Bullwinkle.  This quilt didn't look Rocky and it certainly didn't remind me of Bullwinkle.  So, I named it "Natasha" after Boris' spy partner.  Since I couldn't remember ever hearing a last name for Natasha, I took my maiden name and added a "ski" to the end so it sounded Russian.  This quilt's name is now "Natasha Robbinski."  People who know me from my past life will know that I have used this name before...but retired Natasha when the cold war was over.  Now, she lives on.

Some Quilting for Me!

The Beatles handbag I've been carrying around for probably a year now was getting rather ratty looking.  While I had fun making it and even sang "All You Need Is Love" while I was sewing, it's so dirty even the washing machine isn't going to save it.

So with no looming quilting deadlines, I decided to make my next purse.  I fell in love with Debbie Mum's Tuscany fabric last year and went in and out of Joann's to get enough of the four coordinated fabrics to make my next purse.  Some quilting friends of mine have had great success with the Bow Tucks pattern (ps008), so I purchased the pattern at a show. 

I'm really pleased with the outcome.  Of course, I had to make a matching book cover, too.  Why do I like it?   My favorite colors are peach and green. The fabric line celebrates olive groves in Tuscany.  My Italian grandmother used to tell us at every spaghetti dinner to have an olive...because it makes you passionate.  So, I guess this little project will help me to become even more passionate about quilting!

Dresden Diskette

The Alliance for American Quilts  has "New From Old: A contest for quilters of all ages that celebrates the past in the frame of the present".   I figured, what the heck, and sent in an entry yesterday.   When I found out about this contest, I was perusing my email while I was getting some old 3.5" diskettes ready to be thrown out.  I must have hundreds of these in my study, the result of a Sony Diskette camera that's now obsolete.  Since everything on them has been converted to cd-rom, there's no use in keeping them.  But, I just didn't want to throw them in the trash as is because while most contain pictures, some contain personal information.  The best way to dispose of these is to pull them apart, throw away the plastic, and remove the disk inside to shred.  Hmmmm, what if that disk inside could be used as an embellishment on a quilt?  Could it be sewn?  I took one to my quilt cave and sure enough I could sew all over it.  So, for the contest, I decided to take an old Dresden pattern and modernize it.   Here's my attempt.

It was a quick 16" x 16" quilt using 30s reproduction fabric and yes, those black rays are cut from a diskette.  It kind of reminds me of patent leather the way it reflects the light... and since my patent leather shoes from when I was a child were my "happy shoes," I guess this makes this quilt a "happy quilt," right?

According to the rules of the contest, members vote for the winners.   If you're a member, please vote for "Dresden Diskette."