Quilt Show Pictures

This is the other quilt that I won a blue ribbon on. It's a pattern from Bonnies Quiltville website. I call it Waves of Blue because I started it on the Quilting cruise that I went on Jan 2007. I quilted it using the pattern called 'Splash' with blue thread. The red print in the border has little anchors in it.

The other picture is of my buddy Sharon and I with her ribbon winning quilt on the right.

There were some awesome quilts in this show, the Best of Show was a hand quilted applique quilt. IT was beautifully done, and I'm waiting on pictures and will post pictures as soon as I get them back.

This red and green quilt was done by my friend Nita. This was a mystery quilt that she presented at her 70th Birthday party last summer. Several of us made a quilt like this, but I think hers was one of the nicest.

This other quilt was done by Connie B. It is called Nifty Nines, and just about everyone in our Thursday Bee is working on one of these. I think Connie and Nita are the only ones that have actually finished their quilt. Connie, who is relatively new quilter, won a Third place ribbon on this one. It is done in batiks.

Quilts Show is OVER!

The Quilt Show wrapped up Saturday afternoon. All in all, I think it was a huge success. Board meeting is Wednesday night and we're supposed to get some numbers for attendance, donation quilt and tin can raffle. I think we outdid previous shows. At least, the vendors were HAPPY, so apparently the economy didn't slow these quilters down!

Our Thursday Night Bee won a combined total of 22 ribbons! That is awesome! Out of those ribbons, I won 2 first place blue ribbons on my quilts, and several of the quilts that I quilted for others also won ribbons. Pictured is the one I won in the Hand Applique - One Person - Professional Category. The other one was for my 4-Patch & Furrows quilt - in the Machine Pieced - One Person - Professional Category. This was a simple pattern that I got from Quiltville.com, but the judge seemed to like the piecing and the way I fussy cut the border. OK, for some reason I don't have a picture of that one. Linda said she would email one to me that she took during the show. Here is a link to when I was asking suggestions from YOU guys on the borders. (I still have blonde hair!)

I'm especially proud of Nita B. who won her FIRST EVER ribbon and it was a BLUE RIBBON as well. Hers was a perfectly pieced Flying Geese Quilt with civil war type fabrics. Her fabric choices were great.

Oh, the ribbons are cool - if I say so myself. I was also on the Ribbons committee with my good buddy Sharon. The FMLC club did most of the work, and then were finished up by the Comfort Bee. Sharon had seen a ribbon attached on a winning quilt online. A little research showed it was from the East Cobb Quilters Guild and they very graciously not only gave us permission to use the ribbon, but sent us detailed instructions on how to make them! What an great bunch. I am definilty going to visit them next time I am visiting my daughter in Atlanta.

My First Zentangle !

My first Zentangle!. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, and looks way better than I expected!

This is a photo rather than a scan, so it is a little blurry, but you get the general idea. You break it down into smaller areas, and it makes it a lot easier to manage. This one took about 5 minutes to do.

Just realized that I have not mentioned our upcoming Quilt Show later this month. I'm on the quilt show committee, putting the program together, worked on the ribbons & awards committee, as well as doing the website. We have over 200 quilt entries this year, nearly 30 vendors in our Merchant Mall, special exhibits and so on. Looks to be a great show. West Houston Quilters Guild puts on a show every other year. And our donation quilt this time is another awesome quilt. The Tin Can Raffle is going to have around 10 BED SIZED quilts this time (I quilted 5 of them). The program is ready to go to the printer and only 3 more quilts to finsih up for the show. Will be glad when this month is over!

For The Birds !!!

We had a great Christmas, we are so blessed to have so much and such caring family members. We had agreed ahead of time to make gifts this year, and a few of the great gifts we received from the kids are pictured. Lindsey made the sign in the first picture. She had requested stuff to do 'welding' for her birthday last year. This is what she made. I love it!

The next picture has a cool bird house- see the white one? Robert made that one. It's really cool, a little upscale from our other ones. Some of the black circles are 'blanks' . I'm waiting to see a unsuspecting bird fly into a paint spot. No, they seem to have it figured out that there are fake holes. At least I haven't seen any lying on the ground.

Today was another great day in Houston. Think I heard it made it up into the 70's. The sun was shining, and it was pleasant outside.

Spent a good portion of the day in my studio today. Got a couple more bookshelves to put fabric inventory in. Hubby forbid me to get any more shelves. Had a bit of a problem with the second one last night, and had to ask for his help putting it together. Everytime I would 'almost' have it together, the stupid thing would collapse. But, since he had his nail gun out, I drug the other shelf and let him strengthen it as well. Spent the rest of today cleaning and organizing my studio. Just have one corner that is still 'not organized' (meaning stuff in piles), but since I have Bee meeting there in March, I have a good deadline to get it done. We'll be having an all day sew-in, so I have to clear things anyway to make room for everyone.

Finished up a custom quilt and a t-shirt quilt for another customer this weekend. Don't get to count those as personal finishes. Hopefully, after the quilt show next month, I'll get a chance to work on something of mine.

Favorite Quilts

How many of you have a favorite quilt? This old lap quilt was the first quilt that I quilted on a longarm. Back in 2000 during an ice storm, I pieced this flannel quilt, did a medium size meander after taking a longarm class at Quilters Nook in Tulsa, OK (shop now closed). Anyway, even though my dog teethed on the corners of this quilt, and chewed a hole through the middle of it, it is still my favorite quilt, and the one that is in my chair (or over my legs) year round.


In 2000, after working on the quilt above, I started another quilt; a calendar type quilt from "Joined at the Hip". Can't find the pattern on their website any longer so am guessing that it is out of print. I really like working on this quilt. I did it all with flannels and each block has a basket, flowers and a star tucked in somewhere. I did a freehand McTavishing/flame kind of filler around the baskets. I'm entering it in the quilt show next month and titled it "Flowers, Baskets and Stars, Oh My" for lack of a better name! I wonder if this will replace my 'old faithful' quilt that I have brought with me to quilting retreats, car trips and snuggled under for the past 7 or 8 years! Finally moving the Baskets quilts from UFO's to FINSHED! Yippee.

I picked up my knitting needles in December while family was visiting. Since I couldn't spend time out in my studio, I had to do something to keep my hands busy. So, I finished two scarves, one pictured that goes with my new leather coat, and the other one I gave to Lindsey. I started a third one, but haven't finished that one. Not as happy with the third one as the color changes look rather funky. I'm thinking about pulling that out and starting over with a different stitch.

The pattern was pretty simple. Use size 17 needles, get your hubby to cast on 10 stitches, then do a knit stitch on every row until it is the length you want. Cast off. Bury the ends. My daughter said to NOT put fringe on it, so that made it even simpler! Oh - you're wondering about hubby casting on for me? That's because I've got a lot more experience with a crochet hook than knitting needles, and he remembers how to do from when he watched him mom do it as a kid. How cool is that?