To All Who Feel Like Giving Up

My middle son shared this inspiring video with me last night. We all can use a reminder every now and then.

Show Your Stash

Judy L has suggested we share pics of our stash and sewing rooms as an incentive to both downsize the stash and get better organized. I've been working hard to reduce the stash for over a year now and have actually made some progress though one wouldn't think that from looking at these pics. And this doesn't include the fabric in dresser drawers in another room. Still I know I've made a dent and that's what counts!

Mainly I decided to participate in showing pics because I need to be shamed into straightening the room up. It's out of control again and I need to spend a few days straightening things up. Every time I start I get sidetracked by stopping to work on something or other. Those blocks on the pieced of flannel are one of my latest detours. I've decided I want to make a "Remembering Grandma" quilt with a dark background.

I also realize I haven't completed a project at all this month! Wow....I don't think that has happened since I started quilting 7 years ago. Wonder what the chances are that I get something done in the next 4 days. Probably not. I've also started trying to hand quilt my Dutch Treat in the evenings. That's going to be a long process even if I don't give up.

We were sad to say goodbye to our grandson, Greg and his wife, Eve, this morning. They are headed to his new assignment at Ft. Carson, CO. Visits are never long enough with family.

Visitors, Football & Birthdays

This has been such a busy month that I think I forgot to mention here that our #2 great-grandson turned 4 on September 8. Maison has those gorgeous eyes that are going to cause the young ladies to be standing in line some day! This was last night at his brother's football game.

We're also enjoying a visit from our grandson Greg and his wife Eve. Greg returned from Afghanistan in June and is on his way to a new assignment in Colorado. This is a pic of them with cousins Ashley and Caitlin last night at the game.
And the Mini-Mustangs are still undefeated! Last night's game was 26-25.

Today is daughter-in-law Stephanie's birthday. We were all able to gather for supper and an early celebration last night. We love you and wish you many, many more!

Meadowlyon Trunk Show

What a fabulous time we had last night at our guild meeting, despite the 4" deluge of rain that descended on Pittsburg all afternoon and evening. Judy Lyon of Meadowlyon Designs in Lansing, KS and her daughter, Mary, braved the weather to drive the 130 miles or so and brought so many amazing quilts that I won't begin to be able to describe them all. Luckily I took quite a few pictures and share them here with Judy's permission. I knew from viewing the quilts on their website that it would be a great show when I booked them. But let's just say Judy far surpassed my expectations!


Judy is one-half of the partnership called Meadowlyon. She designs the continuous quilt patterns that can be used not only by longarm quilters, but can also be adapted for use by domestic machines on or off a frame and even for hand quilting. Angela Meadows is the other half and she does the quilting, although Judy has recently begun doing some of that as well. I'm sorry we didn't get to meet Angela and complement her fantastic quilting skills in person.


As the story goes (and I hope I'm remembering it correctly)... Judy designed and pieced this awesome quilt called "Rain Forest" for her son, James.

She gave it to Angela to quilt on her longarm and told her she wanted lots of different rain forest images quilted in it. Angela suggested Judy draw them since she didn't have anything like that in her repertoire. So Judy set about drawing lots of continuous images that would dance across the quilt. And the light bulb went off...no one else was offering these type of designs. And the rest, as they say, is history..a new business was born.



Here's the back of the Rain Forest quilt showing the designs.

While the quilts Judy shared with us show such creativity in their piecing designs, layout and special techniques used, the quilting designs are the stars of course. I wish you all could have been there to examine these quilts up close and truly appreciate them. I'd love to be able to tap into Judy's mind and discover how she dreams these designs. It's one thing to have the artistic talent to draw, it's something else to be able to make the designs continuous for machine quilting.

Two truly spectacular quilts were hanging in the front of the room.

This Mayan "Tree of Life" .............


And this "Safari Nights" were exquisite!

Judy not only designs marvelous continuous quilting patterns, she comes up with the most novel techniques to use on her quilts. One of these is "Top-lique" where she appliques fabric to fill an already quilted shape. You can see it used in the Pumpkin Kaleidoscope quilt. The cats are added using "top-lique".

In the penguin quilt she used fabric paints to color the already quilted penquin shapes. The same was done in "Dogpatch". What appears to be dog fabric is actually fabric paint within the quilted dog faces.

In the Safari Nights quilt she used a broken comb dipped in bleach to create the effect of a starry sky in the border fabric.

See what I mean?????? What a creative mind! I think I want to be her in my next life!

Please visit the Meadowlyon website and see more pictures and information on the quilts and the patterns available. You can learn more about the Tree of Life quilt by watching the video on the home page. Judy and Angela even offer some free pattern downloads as well.

If you want to book an interesting trunk show for your guild, I highly recommend them.

Enjoy the show!

(It occurs to me that I use the word "awesome" a LOT! But in the case of these quilts, it's necessary!)

New Siggies and Another Quilt Show

It's been such a busy week that I haven't had much time to post anything. Wednesday I had the honor of sharing my quilts with the Parson's, KS Quilt Guild. Thank you ladies (and one gentleman) for inviting us and for staying awake while I showed nearly 50 quilts!


I received a couple of siggies this week too.

This one from Beate in Norway

And this from Erich in Austria. It's nice to see another man on the list.

Tom has been intending to start trading as well, so receiving Erich's siggie was a nudge to get his done. Here it is:

If any of you have already traded siggies with me and would now like one of Tom's, just send another this way as he'd be glad to trade with you. If any of you haven't traded yet, but want to start trading siggies.. let me know. We'd love to swap with you.

Yesterday was the annual quilt show at the Jasper, MO United Methodist Church. It's a small show, but I believe there were between 85 and 90 quilts. They always have a lot of really nice antique quilts and this year was no exception.

This treasure was made in the 1850's and is in exceptionally good condition with only a couple of fabrics that have deteriorated. The appraiser claims at least two of the fabrics were loomed in England. That would make sense as the maker of the quilt was an English immigrant..great-great aunt to the current lucky owner. What a wonderful quilt!


Close up of the fabrics in the 1850's antique.

Here's a slideshow of the quilts. Unfortunately there isn't enough room to open all of the big quilts out, but hopefully you can get an idea of the great entries. I was pleased that my Amish Dahlia won another blue ribbon and was #2 People's Choice.

By the way..no, Tom isn't attempting to run off with the antique log cabin quilt (though who wouldn't like to?). He was helping take down quilts.

Enjoy!

Kindergarten Football

Yesterday was a full day. Went to a guild meeting in Joplin and then some fabric shopping for backing material for my Dutch Treat quilt, etc. Then we drove down to Anderson, MO to watch our great-grandson Jeramiah in his first football game.

Watching three fields of kindergarten kids playing football is a hoot!

Unfortunately shortly after the start of the game a steady rain began. Since the temperature was right around 70, some of us considered that a cold rain.....Jeramiah especially. He really didn't like the rain at all!

The good news is his team won....26-24!

But dang.............it was still cold!

His younger brother Maison didn't mind the rain at all and was happily bouncing around on the sidelines when not holding the umbrella for Great-grandma. Sorry we didn't get a picture of him.

This evening I'm doing another trunk show..wish me luck. Not much quilting happening around here..maybe tomorrow.

Dutch Treat Top

After spending the morning making a couple of friendship blocks, I put the last two rows of the Dutch Treat quilt together. Now I have four sections...2 rows, 5 rows, 5 rows, and 2 rows. This is how I'll quilt them and then join the sections and lastly add the borders. Those may be appliqued or they may be pieced..I have yet to decide. I figure it's going to take me a long time to quilt this so plenty of time to let ideas percolate.

Done!

Whew........196 Dutch Treat blocks are done!!!!!

Last night I finished............

Lace

Picture Frame

I started these April 23, 2008..a day before starting my Dear Jane (still 11 blocks to go on the center of that one). I took some longish breaks here and there..but for the most part I steadily stitched my way through them. I think I'm actually going to miss working on them, but now there is the challenge of a border and quilting.

I've pretty much decided to try to hand quilt this piece in sections, adding the border after that is done in a "quilt as you go" fashion. We'll see.............

I also have the Dear Jane to finish...............and a couple of other applique UFO's..........and ..............

Don't think I'll be without something to work on.

I'll finish sewing these last blocks into rows and post some pics of the sections later.

Two to Go

I finished two more Dutch Treat blocks yesterday and last night.

First "Twizzler" which I have avoided about as long as possible..Whew.............I'm glad it's done! May not be perfect, but it's done! Those little squares are about 1/8".

And Crown Molding wasn't as hard, but still not that much fun!

Back to the recliner...watching golf and stitchin' the last two!

Closing in

I've completed four more Dutch Treat blocks............

Plantaganet

Spacemen
Dauphin

French Urn

Only four more to go and one of those is over half done! The end is in sight!

Lazy Thursday

It feels good to have a day with nothing much I need to do (except cook some tomatoes we were given last weekend and then make some spaghetti sauce). I had such an enjoyable day yesterday with the Calico Clippers in Stockton, MO. What a great group! Not only did we see some beautiful quilts during their Show and Tell, but we were treated to a yummy covered dish luncheon. Guilds that do this monthly amaze me!

Catching up posting some of the Dutch Treat blocks I've finished during spare moments in the last week.........

Doily

Marks the Spot
King Arthur