Past Heritage, New Traditions

That was our theme for Illini Country Stitcher's 2013 Quilt Show!  This was my second time chairing our biennial quilt show.  It is a lot of work, but it is enjoyable to see ideas come to fruition, and to have a chance to display all our guild members' immense talent!  At times it is like herding cats, but you just gotta love it!  I'll blog later about the show itself, but now I am just gonna brag a bit on myself!
I entered 7 quilts into the show, in 6 different categories.  I came home with 7 ribbons, but one quilt didn't win anything.  So I will start with that one!

Resting Amongst the Cone Flowers was a quilt inspired by a class with Ellen Anne Eddy through our guild last summer.  I thread painted the bunny and the dragonfly in class.  The background fabric is some of her hand dyed fabric.  It was entered in the art/innovative class.  The competition was stiff, and I was not surprised that I did not win a ribbon there.

This Double Wedding ring quilt was entered in the Antique class.  It was gifted to me by my Uncle Howie when I got married.  He said it was made by my Greatgrandmother Matilda Bell.  However....she passed away in the late 1920s, and this quilt contains many printed feedsack fabrics which were not manufactured until the 1930s.  So we have a family mystery quilter!  This quilt won third place!

This quilt was from a pattern in Quilter's World magazine last fall.  I fell in love with it.  I donated this quilt to a local charity for their silent auction, then purchased it back.  It placed third in large wall hangings.

This quilt belongs to my hubby, and he insisted that I enter it in the show, as he likes it better than the above quilt.  It was also made and donated to the same charity, and hubby purchased it through the silent auction.  Both quilts were in the same category, Large Wall Hanging, and hung across from each other in the show.  It placed second!  Hubby says, I told you so!  I am proud to say that this quilt (well the top, anyway) has been to Houston!  I took it there when I took a class with Teri Lucas to get her opinion on how to quilt it!  Thanks, Teri!

My small group, Material Girls, had a row swap last year.  I requested a Christmas themed quilt.  I was just overjoyed when I was gifted with my rows!  I had a lot of fun deciding how to place my rows and then quilt it!  It placed second in group wall quilts.

This little gem has won before, at the Midwest Heritage Quilt Show.  This was started in a class with Sally Collins at the Indiana Heritage Quilt Show in 2012. It now has won two first place ribbons!

 

 

This beauty won first place in Mixed/Other (meaning more than one technique was used, ie. a combination of paper piecing, and applique) and Best of Show!  This started life as a Block of the Month through The Quilt Show with Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims. The design was by Sarah Vedeler, although I modified the design starting in month 6!  I call this Sedona Joy, because it was a joy to work with such beautiful colors!

I am still flabbergasted that I won so many ribbons.  The competition was truly marvelous, and people were constantly sighing and saying how hard it was to make a choice!  Counting the ballots took the committee 5 hours because there were many ties!  I am so proud of our guild and the great talent that our members posses!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Modern Mystery Quilt and good news!

Last fall, the  American Quilter's Society in their weekly OnPoint emagazine had a weekly Modern Mystery Quilt designed by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr.  I have always wanted to try my hand in the modern quilt movement (which I really think of as more of a minimalist look) so I downloaded the pattern dutifully every week. I did not start cutting and sewing until after I had all 6 weeks in hand.  Yeah, it is kinda like reading the last page of a novel to see how it ends before you start the book (I don't do that!).  But I will say that I had decided from the get go that I wanted to use a light grey as my background or field fabric (as they say in the modern movement) and I wanted to use soft blues and greens, something that looks like sea glass (or what this prairie girl thinks sea glass should look like!)

I had a lot of fun playing with the colors in this quilt!  I also amassed a large number of aquas! Having recently taken a class with Susan Cleveland and learned her Piping Hot
Curves technique, I decided to add red piping to my circles to make them pop!  I think of the circles as portholes!

 

My first thought was to use the open areas to do some intricate quilting.  But the quilt was telling me it wanted something different.  As you can see, I decided to do a sun-type pattern in the circles, with small circles in the central axis.  The rest of the quilt was quilted with long meandering sinewy lines to give the impression of rain trickling down a window!

On to the good news!  I entered two quilt in the Midwest Heritage Quilt Show at the Vermilion County Museum.  This is a judged show that runs the month of July at the museum in Danville, IL.  My miniature "Pieced Baskets" won a first place ribbon!  This quilt was started in a class that I took with Sally Collins. 

Sedona Joy, which was a 2012 Block of the Month through The Quilt Show with Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims, won a second place ribbon! The original quilt was designed by Sarah Vedeler.  After month 6, I started changing up her design.  I had some issues with the set in seams, which then translated into trouble with getting it to lay flat for the quilting.  I am eager to see the judge's comments!

 

 

2012 TQS BOM Sedona Star

Am I a glutton for punishment, or do I just enjoy looking forward to the small monthly challenges of completing a block of the month (BOM)?  I think it is the latter, as I do like doing things in small manageable pieces.  Although sometimes I do get excited for the next installment!

I have not done a block of the month for a couple of years, and now I find myself in two!  One is with a local group of quilters, and we are calling ourselves the Chocolate Chicks.  The quilt blocks we are working on comes from A Quilter's Box of Chocolates.  I will give more information on that one in a later blog.

The one that has me really excited is the current BOM through The Quilt Show with Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims www.thequiltshow.com.  I have been a member since Jan 2007, and find that I have gotten more than my money's worth out of this website.  Besides the loads of information, I have made so many international friends in the quilting community!  And the icing on the cake is the free BOM patterns!  The detail of the various patterns, and the support of the online forums, just cannot be replicated!  The current design is  by Sarah Vederler sarahvedelerdesigns.com.  The name of the quilt is Sedona Star.  But as I am doing it in my colour way, taking a cue from Jacqueline de Jonge, who was the designer of Circle of Life, I am thinking I should give my quilt its own special name. 

I was thinking of name if Colours of Sedona, but I am really thinking I should call it Sedona Joy.  Because working on this quilt, and with these colours is truly been a joy!