Trying to Work in One More Finish This Month

Monday, Monday.... Boy, was it ever. But lets talk about positive things. All the petals for this specific layer of the Melon Patch quilt are done. Yay! The next layer is already cut out and ready to go for the very next time I decide to resume working on this particular quilt again. That's a good thing.

80 petals later!! It's on to the next layer...

Though I would absolutely love to dive right into another good applique quilt, I have been reserving {most} of my recent energies for finishing up. Still going strong on the hand quilting for the Big Tipsy Basket quilt. It's moving along so well that I went ahead and decided to include it as one of the entries for the quilt show. This means that I have until August 11th to finish up the hand quilting, bind the quilt, label it and get it properly washed up. I know, I know. Many of you would never, ever wash a quilt prior to entering it into a quilt show. I do. That's so much a part of the look and voice of my quilts. How could I do anything different?

Stitching the outside of the basket in my
fave, free-form echo quilting style

People often make comments about how 'soft' my quilts look, or how comfy or heartwarming or cozy the vibe is. Things like that. Well, they are hand quilted and then immediately washed, which means that the 'natural crinkle thing' happens right off. If it makes them look slightly less professional or not quite as serious as other entries, then that's perfectly okay. I'm really not in it for the ribbons. Wowers. Not at all. Don't need that kind of stress!

Considering how to stitch the inside area between
the basket handles

I honestly just love the chance to come around a corner and unexpectedly see one of my quilts hanging. Oh the delight! Be able to see some of the details from a greater distance. Or take in the entire impact, in a single glance. I don't have that opportunity here at home! Plus the bonus of perhaps inspiring another quilter in some small way, really feels like giving back. {Not that I'd probably ever know either way!} Quilt shows have often been responsible for inspiring and sparking great ideas during my long quilting journey. This same quilt show in 2017 sparked an idea for a quilt that I'm actually entering into the show just this year! These are only a few of the reasons that make it worthwhile to attempt to squash down enough nerves and second guessing to go ahead and fill out the entry forms.

Quilt show entry forms

Seeing quilts online is awesome, {we are a lucky generation in that!}, but nothing beats seeing them in person, being able to take in all the lovely texture and nuances.*sigh  The risk of course, is the obvious. Once in a blue moon there will be a bad experience and honestly, every year I'm a little punchy and wondering if this is the year of the Very bad, No good, quilt show Mojo. Not that I ever took any more quilts back to where I previously entered them every year. NCW is the much larger regional show, approximately 60 miles away and where I have taken quilts in 2015, 2017 and also 2018. Still a non-member to the guild though I probably would join if the meetings were more convenient. In the meantime, I'm just happy they are friendly to accept non-member quilts and have enough volume of works to support an annual quilt show, year after year.

I found out that I do get to stay in town quilt show weekend and pick up my quilts after the event. Though I had a couple of wonderful offers of help in picking quilts up, I'm a bit relieved to be able to bring them home myself. While it seems crazy, I hate to bother any of my friends for what is basically a selfish endeavor.

On another note, did I mention that just three days ago this month, my blog turned 9 years old! The posts are definitely stretched a little further apart these days, but hopefully the overall quality of the blog has improved since the beginning. My youngest son says that I am a dinosaur for still blogging, but I don't think he quite understands the on-line quilting world.

Many thanks to all who follow along for the quilty ramblings! Thank you, Thank you to whomever, where-ever you may be! So crazy, but I've had over 1,200,000 page views just on this blog and now, over 400 followers thru Blogger. Over 900 followers on the Bloglovin' app, which doesn't always show up on the Blogger stats but who cares? There are regular followers from all over the United States, countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the U.K., Ireland, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Austria, Spain, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, South Africa, and even someone from Iran on occasion. These can't all be bots! Many of these people have never even commented a single time, but come back to read yet another post on yet another day. Or maybe they just skim through the pics and move on! Life seems just a little bit sweeter for being able to share my passion with like-minded friends....

A Few 2018 NCW Quilt Show Pics

It's always interesting to see which quilts catch our fancy at these shows isn't it? Two people rarely end up with the same favorites that's for sure. I love things like scrappiness, playing with value, hand quilting or threadwork, an antique or vintage vibe, applique work, and words on quilts.

I was really intrigued by the simple yet compelling look to the mini quilt above. Lovely play with color.

This quilt was one of my favorites. Such a happy looking quilt! Really like how the flying geese break up the strings and add energy to the quilt.

Honestly I'm not a huge fan of butterfly quilts, but once in awhile they really do seem pretty amazing. This one had a lovely mix of colors/fabrics. Very gentle looking without disappearing into the woodwork. And lets just put this out there--I love cream as a background color....

Being a country girl, cow quilts tend to amuse me. Love the scrappy look to this one even though its a mass produced pattern and no doubt easier to do than it might first appear.

Antique lone star quilt. Need I say more???

I have a lot of admiration for anyone attempting to do a Hawaiian shaped applique pc. Did that one time {small block} and wowsers, lots of tricky stuff. Love the echo quilting too.

This was gorgeous, all that texture from the perle cotton stitching. Makes me think that I need to step up my game, but seriously? Would I really want to spend that much time on a much larger quilt?

Love bow tie quilts, love plaid, love value play. This was just something that pulled me in almost against my will.

Who doesn't love a good selvage quilt? Did you know that I cut mine as close as possible to the words in order to save precious bits of fabric? Then I throw them away. Ooh, call the selvage strip police....

This was flat out gorgeous. The colors, value play, threadwork--all of it. Probably my fave in the whole show. Really great quilt. I tried years ago to make something similar so I know how hard it is to end up with this kind of glow and warmth. Mine was pitiful compared to this one!

Love this quilt for its antique charm. Really heart melting quilt in my eyes.

Another one of my faves in the entire show. Lots of admiration for the lady who did all that hand quilting on silky fabric! Probably the best tie quilt I've ever seen in person. That blue and aqua combo.was a wonderful base for showing off those ties.

Hope you enjoyed seeing a few of the entries! Sorry about the woman in the lone star quilt pic. That was a vendor booth and never seemed to be lacking customers. If you were hoping to see all the intricate longarmed masterpieces, you came to the wrong blog. I saw plenty of those, but much as I salute the time and effort involved,  they don't tend to 'move' me. There was a few wonderful looking Blackbird Design quilts too that at one time would have had me drooling. Now I'm less satisfied with the kitted up look and don't find as much inspiration there. Of course, if they were done in completely different, maybe surprising color/fabric selections, that would be a different story!

One intriguing element that I meant to take a picture of was a couple quilts that had {scrappy?} bias pieced sashing. I try to walk through the quilt shows one time without taking pictures and just sort of soak in the details. Then I go back and take pictures of things that seem most interesting. Guess it slipped my mind when I walked past the second time. In case you missed it, the quilts that I entered into the show are in a previous post with all the usual blathering on about the experience....

Just Thinking Out Loud

I can't believe I'm staying up late to write this post, but here they are. All five of the quilts that I ended up putting in the NCW Quilt Show. I'll post later next week with pics of other quilts that caught my eye.

Scrappy Tulips

First of all, I went with a quiet but clearer mind this year. No 'comparison is the thief of joy' type of thoughts, 'not gonna nitpick the details', just a solid determination to enjoy. I'm a confident but filled with insecurities sort of gal and quilt shows can be difficult. The reason to do this is because nothing beats going to a quilt show and being inspired. By little ideas or big ones. Wonderful color and out of the box thinking. A saturation of the senses that is almost impossible to get strictly from pictures on the Net {especially when you're dealing with a camera-handicapped person like me!}.

Vintage Red

No ribbons this year which inexplicably made it all so much better. Wacko that I am, it was refreshing to know that none of my quilts stood out over any of the other ones I brought.*sigh  It's hard when people play favorites with our quilts! Scrappy Tulips {the first pic} almost didn't make the cut. The colors don't play nice in some lighting and it worried me. Turns out it was the one that absolutely shown under the lights at the quilt show. Totally melted my heart and I went back and stared at it several times. It looked sort of old timey, but sweet. Really, really sweet and dreamy. Why weren't more people staring at this quilt? lol

Vintage Red was one that I emphatically was not going to enter. Turns out I just couldn't resist seeing how it would look hanging up where I could see it full on. Oh my, did I love turning the corner and seeing that one. Totally vintage vibe going on which just made me smile so big. I totally nailed this idea! And well, I went ahead and looked at some of the other sewing details in others quilts. Uh huh. Maybe my mistakes aren't quite as horrible and blatantly obvious as I thought. Might have to rethink that one.

Quilty 365

I got a little jolt seeing Quilty 365 hanging up for the first time. That quiet looking stitching around every other block is a secret weapon. Can't see it in this pic at all, but all my concern over there not being enough stitching in this quilt were totally put to rest. I really, really loved seeing this one hanging out for others to peruse. I wished so hard it would have been where I could have stood back a long ways and looked at it from different distances. The colors/values do the dance thing. They really do. It wasn't just my imagination or wishful thinking.

Sunburst

I think Sunburst was in the poorest lighting overall. Yes, it's the brand new finish and looks so much better in proper lighting. I'll give it a post all its own next week so you can see how good the Baptist Fan stitching looks and sigh with me over the sweet look to it. Am I on a sweet kick? It seems to be so. There are lurking questions about this quilt, things I might have done different, but overall, it was a good one to umm, not compare to others. Not quite as complex as it appeared all the while I was hand sewing it. Funny how time and 'distance' change our perspectives.

Hills and Valleys

And Hills and Valleys was the other one that I wiffle, waffled about entering into the show. Turns out the lighting was fine for it, just not for me, the picture taker. Mostly I just wanted to look at the texture of this quilt in a hanging up presentation. Great idea as I just stood in front and sort of soaked it all in. Honestly, I'm super happy with this quilt, and yes, it looks tremendously better in person. It's kind of crazy that this quilt was made by me. 5 years ago, this wasn't in my wheelhouse at all--something to feel very good about today as I considered my growth as a quilter.

Don't worry if you're scratching your head over my enthusiasm, I can't see you and won't get my feelings hurt a bit. The thing I learned today is that I am completely, unabashedly making the sort of quilts that make my heart go pitter patter. Sometimes I worry at some of the squirrels that crop up, but a lot of these tangents lead to wonderful surprises and fabulous interpretations--things we might never have explored if we stick to the plan.  Every single time I turned the corner and saw one of my quilts, it was like 'Well, hello old friend'. Makes the effort and anxiety totally worthwhile. It's so good to get validation once in awhile that we do have a style, a look, or even a muse that is personal and custom fitted to us. And you know what?

This year being in the minority with that sort of thing didn't even bother me one little bit. So my quilts are softer, more simplistic, scrappy and naive looking. So what! I enjoyed the entire quilt show! All those sharp looking, fancy machine quilted quilts just got a different part of my attention. Maybe I'm finally reaching adulthood in my quilting journey? Please don't answer that. Thanks to NCW Quilty Guild for being so welcoming! I'll probably be back next year with another stack....

More Quilt Show Pics

A few more pics to show and then I'll get back to regular posting. Loved this solid fabrics version of an old quilt block! It's one that's been on my bucket list for a long time. 

So bright and happy!

And here it is, my favorite part of the whole show--the Jim Tharpe guest collection. Ahhh.. I am such a sucker for vintage and antique quilts. Some dated back to the 1800's!

From the Jim Tharpe collection

I love the whimsical fabric usage so very much. Probably up-cycled old clothes?

From the Jim Tharpe Collection

The way they used a couple colors in almost every block until obviously they ran out of a fabric. Then they made-do.

From the Jim Tharpe Collection

Have to smile at the new addition of background fabric. Why the green? And you know me, this was probably my favorite in the whole show just 'cuz I found it charming, especially that little tiny sliver of green added onto that next to last block in the bottom row.

From the Jim Tharpe Collection

It all makes me even more determined to be less self conscious about fabric pairings. I mean, look at the sashing in the top and bottom rows in the quilt below? And the gingham strip added onto a smallish block there in the far right row? I don't know if I could ever deliberately do that, but it's so charming. Love it!

From the Jim Tharpe Collection

I entered four quilts in all, all pictured below. The first one is Geese Tracks & Vases. One of my favorite quilts I've ever made. And yes, I have lots and lots of favorites....

Geese Tracks & Vases

The second quilt is the marsala challenge quilt. I just wanted to see it hanging up in a show 'cuz I thought it was an interesting quilt.

Unexpected Crossroads

The third quilt is Learning Curves which they hung sideways for some funny reason. I checked and the label was in the bottom corner of the quilt like always. I'm curious if they thought it didn't matter which way it hung? Oh well. I entered this one primarily because it was fall colors. Always good to see in a fall show.

Learning Curves

And the fourth quilt is the Pickle Dish Insanity quilt. I left this picture unfiltered as it was an interesting view, kind of a faded look from the bright lighting I think. The value changes were still very evident so that made me happy. And the piecing and hand quilting looked good. I always have to wonder about that....

Pickle Dish Insanity

I don't want to add any other observations about my quilts as I'm obviously in a funky mood. We've had a very long, tough summer in a lot of ways that I don't feel free to discuss completely. To give you just a quick peek into our lives--in just the previous last two-three weeks my husband has been sick once again with a recurring illness, a cousin and her family stayed with us for several days immediately after breaking her ribs in a car accident, my mother-in-law needed some help because of her bad health and we've had other company. More company to come this weekend that we're actually kind of excited about {except for having to clean the house!} and oh yeah, we also went to a funeral. I am not complaining as this is just a season in life and what we do. It's part and parcel of large family dynamics and involvement in our church. We have much to be thankful for, especially when all we have to do is read the news to hear of so much destruction and devastation in other parts of the country. My heart goes out to all those who are just trying to survive!

So yes, absolutely, I am head down in my stitching every chance there is. No I am not going to quit making quilts in my weird and wonderful style, thank you for all the reassurance offered. It would have probably would have been better to just attend the quilt show this year and not have to deal with the emotion of having my quilts involved. My emotions are, well, possibly a bit frayed these days? Don't mind me. Really, I'll be fine. I'm just gonna go find some fabric and start three new project first chance I get....

A Few Pics From the Quilt Show

Here's a few pics from the NCW Quilt and Fiber Arts Festival. As always, I tend to go up and down aisles, taking in every single quilt. From there I kind of wander around to get that second long look at all my favorites. There were many, very nice looking quilts, even some in the Blackbird Design style that so thrilled me 5-8 years ago, and of course lots and lots of machine quilting efforts.

Made by the guest quilter, probably her darkest quilt there

Honestly I have very mixed feelings about this show. Very fun to walk in knowing a few quilts were my own. I was a bit incredulous actually, as this was one of those shows I attended way back when and sort of cowered from awe and intimidation. 'I'll never be able to quilt like this!' and yet, here I was, funnily enough, with a pickle dish quilt {of all complicated patterns to choose from} hanging in the very same show year later! Who would have ever thunk it?

A fun looking quilt

There is {still} so very, very much to learn about fabric, color and design. I know and relish that thought and want to continue to push to learn and grow! The quilt above had a very enjoyable color and fabric usage. It was so nicely done! Very eye-catching and yes, playful, viewed from across the room. While not especially a lover of foxes, I do much appreciate whimsy in quilting.

So yeah, it's a great feeling, being part of this particular show that scared the socks off of me and made me positively yearn to learn how to be a better quilter. And yet, I don't feel like my quilts really 'belong' here. Maybe at the Buggy Barn quilt show if it was still a happening thing! Not that I was treated badly. Don't think that. In fact, the few guild members I talked to were very friendly and welcoming. But my quilts? They looked a little out of place to me--the odd ones out. I felt sorry for how drab they looked in comparison. Sort of soft, naive and hillbilly instead of bright, shiny and modern like the strawberry quilt pictured below. Honestly, my quilts would have probably looked better at a flea mart, a thought that just makes me laugh!

So ironic since that soft, cozy, almost vintage look is the self same style I've been working toward for like, years? What am I whining about? But no, the whole point of putting them in this show was so I could clearly see my efforts hanging up there on the wall, mixed in with all different styles. Be able to look at them from a distance and maybe understand a little more about my own quilting voice and style. Am I able to convey the things that I want my quilts to represent? Maybe yes, maybe no. It's still an ongoing work in progress.

My quilts fit in just fine with this style of quilt!

One of my favorite quotes is 'Comparison is the thief of joy'. It's one I think about a lot because we are somewhat conditioned to be herd-like, from grade school clear through to adults, learning to garner the easy approval as children and then following along with marketing and trends in later years. I've never been especially afraid of being different {growing up in very large family well prepared me for always being different}, but I do understand the caution of picking and choosing the environment in which we deliberately choose to 'stand out'. If there wasn't the occasional prim., cottage style applique or vintage quilt in this particular show, I'd probably never enter another quilt here. No reason to deliberately poke myself in the eye!

The colors in this quilt make me happy!

I really appreciated this particular interpretation of an antique quilt. So inspiring! It was positively cheerful and happy looking in these colors, and the Liberty prints{used in the blocks} have a vintage-look connection that I adore. Trying for an interpretation of a vintage or antique quilt is something I need to remember to do on occasion as it seems to ground me a little and wake me up to the value of personal choice.

And as always, I'm intrigued by piecing play with stripes. Wouldn't this look fabulous in recycled shirtings? I would have been drooling instead of merely admiring it and yes, it was very well done in beautiful fabrics. It's so interesting how our tastes change throughout the years and where our new interests are leading us to! I know a lot of us can thank Kaja for continually showcasing the interesting effects of using upcycled fabrics!

The butterfly sample quilt was a very fun, interesting example of playing with sampler blocks, something I've always enjoyed.  Any young woman would probably love having this quilt! I considered what it would look like pieced in a more improv. style. How hard would it be to end up with a definite butterfly shape and would that ruin the feel of the quilt or would it make it even more interesting looking. Sort of a wild butterfly?

That's probably the main thing that caught me off guard this year. I spent more time wondering what a quilt would look like if it was done a little differently, in color, piecing or fabric choice. Isn't it great to be a quilter in today's world of abundance and access to inspiration? I'll try and post my quilt pics in the next post, though you've already seen them here on the blog before!