Toby Lischko

One of the advantages of belonging to a quilt guild is the opportunity to see quilts made by famous quilters up close and personal. Toby Lischko visited our guild Monday night and brought along many of her wonderful miniature quilts, as well as several large quilts.

I first learned about Toby in Miniature Quilts Magazine which remains one of my favorite publications. Unfortunately it is no longer being published and I really, really miss it.   She's been quilting since 1985 and has a fantastic sense of color and design.

I took lots of pictures during her lecture and trunk show,  but the photos you can find in her gallery  are far superior to the ones I took. Be sure and check them out. She brought most of these quilts Monday night. The quilting community contains so much talent and inspiration and Toby is a prime example.  You can't go wrong in booking her for your guild.

Here's just one of her gorgeous quilts:

Monday night was also the time for turning in our guild challenge projects for the current year.  This year's challenge was to "repurpose" something.  We were to take a picture of an old object, then use it to make something else.  What was acceptable was really wide open..the items didn't need to be quilted, just a reuse of something. 

This resulted in some interesting entries.  One person used old nylon hose to make a rug.  Another felted the wool from old sweaters and made flowers.  This was the first year I didn't get an entry made.  Just too much going on in the last couple of months (no excuse for why I didn't get it done as soon as it was announced at the beginning of the year). 

The guild members voted on their favorite entry and prizes were given to the top five or six entries.  This is the project that got the most votes:

Arlinda made a quilt from several old kimonos. 

And this is the back of the quilt

Debbie made this great jacket from an old "cutter" quilt

There were so many creative repurposed projects and it was a great idea!  Thanks  Debbie for leading us along the path of going green!

Lastly..is anyone besides me having major problems uploading pictures using Blogger In Draft?  I finally gave up today and have gone back to regular Blogger.  And I will no longer have to fight the alignment issues either!