More Quilts from the Council Quilt Show as Promised

This is the west after all, and there are always some cowboy quilts. I think this is a cute way to use a panel print. Of course I would since it is red, white, and blue and has stars. And here is one that uses the giant rick rack that I have been seeing everywhere. With a cute checkerboard border too. Cute, cute, cute.

I have done a lot of cross stitch but have not ventured into stitchery. I have a technical question. Maybe someone out there can help me. When you do the stitches in a row, do you go back into the same hole or next to it? It seems to me that to get a nice smooth line you would use the same holes. Do you?

Anyway, this one is really cute I think. I love the mix of stitchery and patchwork. The nice crayon colours are nice too.

And while we are on the kitchen theme, isn't this little apron one adorable? Perfect for thirties prints. Cute, cute, cute.

This one was done by the driver of our little group. She told us on the way up that she had everything ready to go for years. Then she got married and they bought a camper and she just had to make this quilt for the camper. Remember that wine commercial where they said something about no wine before its time? Well sometimes you just can't make a quilt before its time, know what I mean?

It's funny, too, Mr THQ brings me quilt books from the library from time to time and it just so happens he brought me "Patchwork Quilts Made Easy" by Jean Wells. And this quilt is on the cover. In my picture you cannot see the pine tree border, but it's there just like in the picture. Cue the old "Twilight Zone" music!

Hope you enjoy these quilts. Can't remember if I have more from Council or if it's time to move on to the Emmet quilt show but there are lots more to come.

Why is it that

when your time is even more limited than usual things decide to take way longer than usual to do? For some reason my photo uploading software decided to go bananas so it has been a struggle to even get a few photos onto the blog. I need to interrupt the Council quilt show to share my June finishes. Yes, finishes with an "s". And completed before the last day of June. Woo hoo.
As you know, I love all things patriotic, and constantly am adding to the flag room collection. This is a little Country Threads pattern. I love, love, love the way it turned out!
Here is another finish. Hmmm. It has a flag, too, and as an added bonus it has a house. I hadn't noticed until I took struggled trying to import the file a bazillion times that two of the nine patches on the bottom are way to similar to be next to each other. How come you never see this stuff before the top is together and quilted?

And yet another. This is a Sandy Gervais pattern. I made the full size one a year or two ago and after seeing how Kim made a small one realized that this would be the perfect size to hang in my kitchen where I alternate long skinny seasonal quilts. And it's finished long before the Christmas rush even.

And last but not least, here is a little table topper. Out of character for me as it is made of mostly pastels, but it is nice and springy. So if I remember where I put it next spring it will be a welcome addition to the season.

Okay, back to working on importing quilt show photos. I know I promised lots more.

Council quilt show, part one

At last I have had a chance to upload some of the pictures I took at the Council quilt show last Saturday. I took quite a few but as you already know, I am not the best photographer. Also I tend to take pictures of single blocks or other bits and pieces that I want to remember. So with that disclaimer, let's go to Council. I thought this one was really cute. I liked the crayon colours and the rick rack.

This one was really cute. You probably can't tell, but their tails were 3D. I don't usually like batiks but this is a great use of them.

More bright colours. I likeall the borders, too.

There were lots of row by row quilts.

The show is held in a school all purpose room so the lighting is not always the best. This is a nice wool pillow. They always add lots of props and accessories at this show. It's a nice touch.

I love sampler and scrap quilts and I thought this one had great colours.

This one is not really something I would make. For some reason butterflies just do not appeal to me, but I liked the flowers.

I especially like the way one petal of each flower is a different fabric. I thought the black blanket stitch was interesting too contrasting to the light bright colours.

I couldn't get back far enough to get this entire quilt. I like stars and I think the fabric choices are really interesting.

Well, that's all for tonight. I still have more to share, and then some from the Emmett quilt show yesterday. And next week is the Boise guild's show. June is quite a month for quilt lovers in Idaho!

The Brain is a funny thing

So I am sitting here with both my work laptop and my home laptop running side by side. Two 'puters as my grandson says since whenever he comes to visit that is the requirement -- one for him and one for his sister. Anyway, there is only one mouse and it is attached to the work one since the touch pad is slower for the task at hand but is just fine for reading blogs. (I told you work had been exceptionally worky lately. And there is significant waiting around time for all the work connectivity layers to get me what I need -- time that can be spent seeing what everyone is doing.)


Anyway, even though I KNOW the mouse is attached to the work laptop I keep trying to use it for the blogging laptop. OVER AND OVER AGAIN!!! What is up with that? Oh, well.

Yesterday I headed up to Council, ID for the first day of their quilt show and the luncheon with a few quilty friends. I took TONS of pictures that I will be sharing as soon as I can get them uploaded. Lisa Bongean from Primitive Gatherings was the speaker at the luncheon and she was terrific. Rather than just doing an hour or so lecture (not that there is anything wrong with that), she basically did a class on dyeing and felting wool. She spoke for about 2 hours including a phenomenal show and tell.


We didn't get to the luncheon early enough to get a seat from which I could take pictures, but just imagine seeing tons of the wool things on her website in person. And getting to touch them and samples of her wool. It is so soft to the touch it is amazing. I have made a couple of things from her patterns since you know I LOVE primitive but not anything with wool. That is about to change!

But I don't think I will be dying anything any time soon -- DH would be horrified at the mess that I would surely make, but it was great to learn the ins and outs. Plus she had some great hints. My favourite was to use a drafting circle template (see what I am talking about here) to make circles rather than tracing around things. That is such a good idea for me since when I trace I seem to move the object so my beginning and end do not meet. Duh, why didn't I think of that?!

I think I mentioned I had been doing some tidying and sorting in the sewing room. My fabric stacks were tumbling over onto each other so it was definitely time. I decided to pull my fat quarters out and store them separately since there are some Buggy Barn patterns high on my list to do. I don't buy alot of fat quarters. Or so I thought. Just look at this overflowing basket of them!!! And yesterday I bought 11 more because they were 1.65 each and if you bought 10 you got the 11th for free! That's another funny thing about the brain -- selective memory!

I found some metal planter boxes (I think) at the thrift store that I can stand on end and if I fold the fat quarters correctly they should just fit in. That will make them easy to see so that I can pick the ones I want without having to pull all of them out. Here are a couple of pictures of my nice pretty stacks. I didn't think to take the befores, just the afters.

They make me smile just to look at them! On the way back from Council we were discussing how much stash we each have. It's good to know we are not alone with this urge.

Show pictures will be coming in a few days. I want to thank Kim for mentioning me in her blog. I had followed her long before I started blogging myself and it was certainly a thrill for me! Although the watermelons are now dispersed and I am working on a patriotic display. I will show you that as soon as I finish it too. Boy, lots of promises in this post! And links, too. I sure hope they work.

A Finish for May, Barely

Work has been awfully worky lately so I have been putting in some very long hours.That has certainly put me behind in blogland. I haven't even had time to post a picture of the flag lid for my favourite thrfted box. Since we are at the beginning of the patriotic holiday season, it was definitely time to get the flag flying as it were. I love the lids for this box so much it is really hard to pick my favourite. This one is really in the running!

I had been struggling to get a May finish. There were still 2 large quilts pinned and ready to go. But that was the problem. These last 2 were BIG. And the big ones are hard to quilt in my machine. Add to that some of my issues from the recent holiday weekend and I was a little wary that I could even get a good finish. But lo and behold, here it is. This is from a pattern called Hip to Be Square that I bought in Portland (well, Lake Oswego) about this time last year when a friend and I went to the Portland quilt show. But this is a modern pattern meant to be made with large prints. I chose my standard small primitive prints. I think that the fabric choices and the pattern are really mismatched and the pattern really is better suited to large prints. Oh, well, I like it okay and it will be a good addition to the flag room. Now you know the reason for its name.

Before I decided I could get a big quilt done I finished a couple of small table mats that I had started a while back with some small scrappy strips. April had pretty meager finishes and these were not much better, but I originally thought this was all I could manage. I had seen a quilt somewhere in blogland that I cannot remember that was quilted with an uneven grid so I thought I would try it. I like it alot but boy, does it take a ton of thread even on this little mat!

Here is a better look. And they work perfectly on a couple of small tables that I have. So it was a good month after all!