Home!

Arrived home last night after long, but basically pleasant flight. Just starting to unpack and organize. Bob left to go run an experiment at Argonne National Laboratory, so it is quiet here. It's good to be home, but I loved Paris. I woke up in the night last night and as I tried to go back to sleep, French phrases kept running through my head. Where were they when I needed them?

Here are some photos: my husband and I on the rooftop terrace of Institut of le Monde Arab, which has a beautiful (and free!) view of the Seine and Notre Dame; the church where we lived (see the little door to the left--that leads to flats belonging to the University of Paris Medical School); and my husband, son and daughter-in-law in the Tuilleries. As you can see from pictures, it was grey much of the time while we were there.





I took the other two pictures at a quilt exhibit I visited. It seemed to be the equivalent of a local guild show. There were only about 20 quilts of varying quality. I thought these two were quite striking, both in the colors and the unusual design. Both makers were creating an abstraction based on photographs, one of sand dunes and one of a flower bed.




I have a few other pictures which I will post later. My dirty laundry is calling.

More Paris notes

Yesterday I went to Brentano's American Bookstore and treated myself to two Japanese quilting/needlework books. They have a huge selection of books in English, French, and Japanese. I bought 156 Original Designs by Yoko Saito and another books with title only in Japanese by Kazue Saburai. This book is mostly embroidery stitches and ideas for using various threads and fabrics in embellishment. I bought it for the beautiful small scenic and abstract works, very much like what we do here for fabric postcards. These don't seem to be postcards, but just small pieces, all by hand. They are exquisite, somewhat stylized and abstract. I think they will be a real inspiration. Both books have instructions only in Japanese, but with diagrams and metric measurements a moderately experienced American quilter should be able to figure them out. The first book also contains wonderful quilted purses, everything in the Japanese taupe fabrics. These books are my main Paris purchase--no designer clothes, jewelry, etc. LOL (I've had good wine though!)

Bon Jour from Paris

After the third week here I have finally made it to an internet cafe to post. Can't do any pictures though because I don't have facilities for that. We are having a pleasant and rather uneventful stay (knock on wood). We're in the same place as last year and so everything seems much more familiar. My French is very little better, but it helps to know the ropes, so to speak. As far as quilty stuff, I have been to the Bon Marche fabric and sewing section, a true paradise, but of course everything is literally twice the price of the US, so I bought only the spool of silk thread I needed. Also have been to Le Vouvray, a quilt shop, but only looked. Went to an actual quilt show, apparently the equivalent of a local guild show. The fabrics used were interesting, not all cotton, some silkies, and the patterns were not like American ones. (I will post when I get home.) Workmanship is not up to our standards though.

Will be home on June 10--will be glad to be home, although it is wonderful here, never a dull moment.

Paris

I'm packing to go to Paris! It's exciting, although right now I'm tired. We will be there four weeks. My husband does some research with a professor at the University of Paris and we stay in a flat belonging to the university and available to their visitors at a very low (Paris standards) cost. It's basic, to say the least, but in the middle of the St. Germaine de Pres area on the left bank and walking distance from most big attractions. Besides the wonderful museums, the neighborhood is full of boutiques and art galleries and other beautiful shops. Window shopping is a real treat--and with prices what they are, window shopping is it!

Deb asked if I was going to buy fabric. "Le patchwork" seems to be of interest to a fair number of people there. I did find two quilt shops, one very near where we stay. You would think that clerks in these stores might speak English, but they don't, so shopping was interesting. I'm sure I'll find something, but I still have last year's purchases unused, and since fabric is about double the price here, I will try to use control! The fabric I bought last year was a very French looking blue provencal floral with a package of 25 cm. squares in coordinating fabrics. The shop sample showed the coordinates made into flying geese in a strippy set with strips of the blue between them and in the border. It was pretty, but not very inspiring, and waiting for inspiratation is ONE reason I haven't done anything with them yet. Interestingly, the Brentano's English bookstore had a larger selection of American quilt books than many bookstores do here. They also stock the French magazine Quilt Mania (which is beginning an American edition), and Japanese quilt magazines. So that may be a possible purchase. I have my circles to applique so that provides the quilting fix.

In case anyone is wondering, my French is very minimal, although I can read it! But we managed before and will again, I guess. This will be our last time for this trip, so I hope to make the most of it. If I can get a crack at my husband's computer for long enough I will try to post. Otherwise, a bientot, mes amies!

I made fabric postcard/Mother's Day cards for my mother and sister. As I was cutting out the little flowers to fuse into the basket for my mom, it occurred to me how like grade school the idea of a cut-and-paste flowered card was. I probably wouldn't have used that funky striped border in grade school however. The "Big Feeling" card for my sister has nothing to do with Mother's Day actually. It's just a private joke with us. We both hate that old-fashioned phrase used to describe confident people. We heard it frequently from our elders as we were growing up. We also agree that it was often used as a putdown of any woman who dared to express herself with any certainty. So--"Big Feeling" is a good thing to be! When I saw the women on this fabric, I had to make the card.

Here's my tentative final arrangement of blocks. I do have one that I have to resew to get this arrangement (center on left hand side) but then I can pack them to work on while I'm gone. This went much faster than I anticipated. I'm really happy with the results, although I know it's not going to be everybody's cup of tea!

Progress!

I can see why this is called Circle Play. It's great fun, and I'm beginning to get excited about the finished product. I intend to make it three rows of five blocks plus borders and use it as a wall piece above our bed.

I have finally begun to work with the fabrics I bought in Australia almost three years ago. By a great coincidence there was a big quilt show in Melbourne the day we were there and I not only saw quilts, I was able to buy fabric!

I wanted to use some sort of circle pattern to echo all the circles and dots on Aboriginal designs, and at first thought I would do some version of Drunkard's Path. But when I saw Reynola Pakusich' book Circle Play I thought that would be a good use for the fabric. She uses circles of the focus fabric(s) appliqued to backgrounds made out of half-square or quarter-square triangles. The idea is to echo the lines and colors of the focus fabric in the background blocks, and create an attractive "value flow" of lights and darks across the quilt. Her examples are stunning. It remains to be seen how mine will turn out. These are very difficult fabrics to work with because the colors are unusual, even garish, and the whole effect is very busy. Putting them together with backgrounds that won't make the busy-ness overwhelming is going to be challenging.

Here are my circles and the few blocks I've made so far. It's too early to see how this will work. I have actually done a few more blocks since taking the pictures, and the effect does improve with more blocks. I would like to get the whole layout finalized before we leave for France in two weeks so that I could do the handwork while we're gone. But that may not be possible because it would be a mistake to rush this step, and a little time to cool is probably a good idea.

Paducah

I came back from Paducah on Friday, but I haven't really felt like posting about it. I'm not sure why. It wasn't a bad experience; I loved many of the quilts, some of the vendors, and the town itself is wonderful. But maybe it was just that seeing two large overcrowded quilt shows in three weeks had caused me to OD on the whole experience. I hate crowds, and the AQS show is certainly crowded (and this was on what should have been the slow days)!

A few things that stand out for me are the wall quilts in general, (and the winners in particular), the beautiful quilting on the antique quilts in the Rotary club show at the civic center, the bargain room at Hancocks of Paducah, and the beautiful old houses and art galleries. The wall quilts are more innovative than the full size quilts and so I found them more interesting. On the other hand, the quality of those old hand made quilts is so outstanding that I almost find myself agreeing with my mother that things have gone downhill since the old days! And, in spite of my lack of interest in most of the vendors, it was great fun to paw through tables stacked high with one-yard cuts of fabric at half price. I was impressed with Hancocks in general, in fact. For an extremely busy store, they are very efficient, which I can't say about some of the other places. The town itself is beautiful with old houses, many of which have been restored, and many more with work in progress. Thursday was a perfect day, and the areas away from the show were peaceful and beautiful, making doing the art quilt gallery walk a pleasant change of pace. Unfortunately I don't have pictures of any of these things. The quilts are off limits for photographing or posting, and I didn't think about taking pictures of the Hancocks scene.

Amy posted a link to the American Quilter site to see the winners, and here it is again. Thanks, Amy.

April Journal Quilt

Several months ago when I was cleaning the junk in Bob's home office I found an envelope of pictures he took eight years ago while visiting our French friends in Grenoble. One was of an old apple tree (I think) in full bloom growing on the side of the hill silhouetted against an incredible blue spring sky. He composed the photograph perfectly. I saved this photo from the purge, and when I read about the journal quilts, thought it would be perfect for April. It's nothing special, just fused applique and my first attempt at rather heavy freemotion embroidery. The thread for the small branches is too dark, I think, and the twiggy effect doesn't fit with the abstracted "cloud" shape that I gave the blossoms. But it's not too bad for my first attempt at this sort of thing.

When That Aprille...

It's a top ten day here in Northern Indiana--temperatures in the upper 60's, not a breath of wind, and a sky so bright blue and cloudless that it practically sparkles. Tiny little buds are just becoming visible on our oaks and maples, and daffodils, flowering crabs, and Bradford pears are in full bloom. We finally had rain Sunday night, and the grass became brilliant green overnight. Even a yard-and-garden-work hater like me enjoyed pulling some weeds and spreading a little plant food. It's not a day for the basement!

I finished this charity quilt yesterday and am very pleased with the way it turned out. I always feel so virtuous when I use up some of my endless scraps, and the green border was also "found fabric", left over from a backing on another quilt. The binding went smoothly this time too, thanks to the kind person on Quilt Studio who gave the tip about putting pins parallel to the binding instead of across it. I also used my old generic walking foot and not the Viking one, which worked so much better for this. I have enough of the pastel strips left to make another smaller quilt and will get to that soon.

Here's a view of the little kingdom that gave my blog its name. My "studio" (when I was making things to sell, my family called it "the sweatshop", but "studio" is so much better spin) is, of course, in the basement. My son always says, "You need to get out of the basement, Mom", my other son just rolls his eyes, and my husband, Herr Doktor Professor, is basically oblivious to what I'm doing. But I'm happy here. The heart of the area is a former ping-pong table, raised on cement blocks. It's a great work table, because it's huge! I can cut, layer, and store all the materials for a work in progress on it. There's room for more storage underneath. Of course that means it's a mess. My machine, stash, and ironing board are near by, and the computer and a tv are at the other end of the room. I have room for two design walls, both now empty, because I'm not at that stage. There's also a window letting in a lot of natural light, even sunlight at some times of day. It's a great set-up for function, not much for looks. No matched storage units here!

Two more--

Two more quilts from Chicago that I particularly liked. After thinking about them, I've decided that what they have in common that appeals to me is simple elements used creatively. The first is Hopscotch in Zero Gravity, which was on cover of American Quilter I believe, so it's not new. It's so cheerful! I particularly like the simplicity of the scrappy strips put together in this effective, and really quite fascinating way. It probably doesn't show in the picture, but there is a shadow effect around the right hand edge of each of the squares, which adds depth, and the rick rack also is a special detail. The second is called Our Lady of the Lake, and again I don't know the maker. This quilt grows on me the more I think about it. First, I like the idea of using a familiar block as a background for the outline image, and then the color placement of the background tirangles creates a kind of glow. At first I thought there was a pattern on the black fabric forming the outline of the face, but it's really quilting done in variegated thread. The whole effect is beautiful, and somehow serene, so appropriate for the subject.

International Quilt Festival

Here are a few of my favorite quilts from the International Quilt Festival in Chicago yesterday. I don't know the names of the quilters, having been very disorganized in taking the photos.

This one was best of show in the special exhibition, Welcome Spring.

This was my favorite. I love the New York Beauty block, and the thing that makes this special is that it is all dotted fabrics and around the border is embroidered the words of Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem, "Pied Beauty", one of my favorites.
Glory be to God for dappled things--
For skies as couple-colour as a brinded cow
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

There are appliques of butterflies, trout, and other "spotted" creatures mentioned in the poem, as well as the "couple-colour" sky.


This is just plain beautiful. I like slightly abstract images from nature, and the colors are glorious. The log cabin block making the sky is very effective.

One of the parts of the show that I liked best was the quilts from the Husqvarna Viking challenge, and no photographs were allowed of those. These were very innovative and interesting contemporary quilts, some by well known quilters. No photographs were allowed of Men of Biblical Proportions either.

This show has the drawback of being extremely crowded. Some parts of the vendors section are almost impassible, and I lost patience with that quickly. I bought what I came to find: Misty Fuse, Paint Stiks, and Bo Nash, none of which I can get here, and then left the vendors. (Well, I did buy just a LITTLE bit of fabric--) That meant I went back and looked at the quilts again. It was interesting to discover that some of the people on our bus barely saw the quilts. No one saw the Viking challenge quilts. "I didn't have time to look at them all." We were there over 7 hours! So if you only buy patterns and kits, and don't even see the work of outstanding quiltmakers, what will your work be like? The answer to that is pretty obvious, I think.

Facing

I decided to put a facing instead of a binding on my Hoffman challenge quilt because I didn't think it needed that extra line made by the binding. I made the facing the way it is explained in Circle Play by Reynola Pakusich. Basically you cut strips of fabric the length of the sides minus the 4 inch squares for the corners, sew them together, curving the square to match the strips, sew the facing to the quilt with right sides together, turn, press, and sew down by hand. Here's the facing pinned on the right side, then stitched, turned, and pinned, and finally the finished product. (In reverse order --thanks Blogger) This wouldn't look right on every project of course, but I found it easier than fussing with mitered corners.

Just looked at my Equilter newsletter which arrives on Sunday morning. They're featuring a new collection of Asian inspired fabrics by Lonni Rossi. They're beautiful--huge abstract chryanthemums that look almost like paint splotches, in luscious reds and golds and earth tones with coordinating kanji print fabrics and other Asian designs. They also have her older fabrics. I love the vegetable line--like block prints or linoleum stamps of corn kernals, broccoli stems, mushrooms. My description is lame--go see them. I have trouble knowing what to do with them, but they're beautiful.

I found this on Lolly's blog.

Meme instructions: Look at the list of books below. Bold the ones you've read, Italicize the titles you might read, cross out the ones you won't, underline the ones on your book shelf, and place parentheses around the ones you've never even heard of.

I'll repeat her instructions and say you're tagged if this interests you.


The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams
The Great Gatsby - F.Scott Fitzgerald
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J. K. Rowling
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Animal Farm: A Fairy Story - George Orwell
Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
1984 - George Orwell
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - J. K. Rowling
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C. S. Lewis
Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
(Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell)
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Atonement - Ian McEwan
The Shadow Of The Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Dune - Frank Herbert

I've actually read part of the others too, but if someone were to ask what I've read recently, the list would be very short. I quilt instead. Amazing change for a life-long bookworm and former English teacher.

Tree Hugger

I decided to send this little piece to the Quilt University on-line show. I made it very quickly and didn't really think too much of it, but it has grown on me. I like the forest creature look of it. The assignment was to make a line scribble and then translate it into fabric somehow. This scribble started out as a picasso-type profile silhouetted against a triangle, which looked like a tree. When I did it in fabric, I kept that idea in mind when choosing a color scheme, although the "tree" shape is now beige. But I still see the face, and I strengthened it by adding the bead for an eye. I've called it Tree Hugger.

It's truly spring today, the first day! Sixty five and sunny! I survived my French class with no real problems, finished the bobbin work that I have been obsessing over for the last three days, and so I'm very happy.

Here they are, after all my agony. Those little shapes are barely visible, but that's what I wanted, and they look smooth, straight and even, and I think will set off the quilting. As I finished them, I realized that to achieve these very inconspicuous little embellishments I took a class from Libby Lehmann, bought a machine embroidery hoop (expensive), bought several different spools of Razzle Dazzle thread, and agonized for two days, trying colors, designs etc. Was it worth it? I guess, because for the moment I am satisfied.

As a technique note, using the embroidery hoop makes free motion work much easier, because having something to steer the fabric by makes the movement smoother. It's a pain to put fabric in and out however, and to maneuver the hoop under the needle. I also liked the Razzle Dazzle thread. On my machine it worked in the bobbin very easily with no tension problems. It looks better in straight stitching than free motion because you can make longer stitches that show up the texture more, but free motion is ok.

Francais

I have been studying French today. (Some quilting too.) We're spending a month in Paris in May and part of June and hoping to be a bit better at French than I was last year, I signed up for a conversational French class at a place called Forever Learning Institute. As the name suggests, it's for people over 50. I am about the youngest student, and also the weakest. And to make it worse, because of family issues I have missed the last two classes and don't even know what we're doing tomorrow. (No way to contact teacher.) So I expect to be a bit humiliated as those septugenarians run rings around me (linguistically of course). The whole thing is taking on a nightmarish quality, like those anxiety dreams where you haven't been to class all semester and don't know where the final is. Zut alors!

A Year Ago...

It was just a year ago that we left for our trip to South Africa, and I have been looking through my pictures, and decided to post a few. First is one for fabric people: this is a booth in the Greenmarket Square in Capetown selling mud cloth. This isn't a South Africa cloth, but comes from other countries, including Uganda and the Congo. It's all natural dyes and the designs are appliqued on to the base. I bought only a small pillow cover from this because of the bulk. Then--since everyone posts pictures of their cats--here's a cat of another kind. We visited a cheetah breeding facility (cheetahs are endangered, which I didn't know), and for a fee you could pet a cheetah. Pretty hokey, and actually I was rather afraid to do this, but my husband talked me into it, so here I am, gingerly petting that cat! He was actually quite bored by the whole thing, a typical cat. I could even hear him purring.







This is Table Mountain, in the heart of Capetown, taken from Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens on the inland side. The next picture is a view of Capetown taken from the boat returning from Robben Island, a former prison during the Apartheid period. It is now a museum, and tours are conducted by former prisoners, who describe their experiences. An incredible experience to take this tour and consider the almost miraculous changes that have happened so rapidly there. And to give a taste of the less scenic side of Capetown, here is one of the "informal settlements" put up by the people who are flooding into the city from the countryside, a growing problem for South Africa.

I tried to give some hint of the varied things we saw. We did see wild animals too, but my camera just wasn't able to do them justice.

I have been tearing my hair about the binding of the wall hanging I' m making, so I stopped and did the quilting on this charity quilt.

I have such a love-hate relationship with my Viking 545. It does beautiful stitching, but the controls and some of the feet are so badly designed. For instance, the quarter inch foot has no "play" so although it works great for stitching two layers of fabric together, it stalls when I piece a block. Does this make sense? What is this foot for, anyway? Isn't it for quilting? So why isn't it designed to piece blocks? Another gripe is the shape of the walking foot. It is hard to see the edge of the fabric, so when I am stitching on a binding the seam allowance is a little wide, and so the binding ends up narrow and needs to be forced over the edge. I know I could cut the binding wider, but I am just beginning to understand what is going on and why I have this trouble. I also cannot do a machine stitched binding because the open toes of the walking foot don't flatten the binding. I had no trouble making bindings with the old machine. In fact, I am going to use the old generic walking foot for bindings in the future. I did that on this charity quilt, and it worked so much better. And then the controls--little tiny buttons that have to be hit just exactly right or they don't work. So when you think you are backstitching, you aren't!

Anyone else have this machine? Do you have problems with it? Is it just me?

Reds and Pinks

The other day I discovered the color spectrum project. This project is mostly for knitters, but there are quilters trying it too. The colors for March are reds and pinks, my favorites. I'm not going to be doing a new red/pink project, so here is my red snail's trail quilt from several years ago. It was fun to collect fabrics for this, and I learned some things. I first used pinks for the light red, but couldn't stand so much pink,so I added red and white prints to cut the "sweetness". I also added some purples and lavenders to make the whole thing a little less warm, but it's still a red quilt.

And, since Lolly encouraged colors from nature or art, here's one more. There's no red in nature in northern Indiana in March, but here's a Chagall painting I saw last summer at the museum in Nice. I took the picture to remember the color combination. In reality, it's glorious. I just read that Chagall said his paintings had no meaning except light and color, and that is so true of the red ones in this series. Here there's a blur and bad color reproduction because I had to use such a slow shutter speed, but I hope the picture gives some idea. Doesn't that acid yellow just bring the whole thing to life?

Not a total dummy--

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 8/10 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Math?

Frustrations

Started quilting the parrot wall hanging I made a few weeks ago. I did a pattern of concentric circles with a walking foot, and although I was worried about how hard that might be, the stitching went very smoothly because the piece is so small. But I don't like the way it looks. I don't seem to be able to master all the quilting decisions: thread, batting, design. This isn't the first time I have had a top I like and then felt I spoiled it with quilting. What's really frustrating was that I used a batting I've used before and liked (Quilter's Dream Blend) and a pattern I used before on a quilt with the same design. But this time I don't like the result. Maybe when the marks are gone and it has been dried and fluffed I'll be happier. No picture of this thing, at least not yet!

Also spent a frustrating time preparing for my French class tomorrow. I am taking Intermediate Conversational French at a place called the Forever Learning Insitute. (If the name makes you picture a classroom full of "mature" students, you're right!) I am not the youngest in the class, but am definitely the slow one--these seventy- and even eighty-year-old ladies put me to shame. I have forgotten so much! Last week was particularly bad because I had been away the week before and didn't know what had been assigned. I'm ready for tomorrow, but may have to miss again because of my husband's doctor's appointment. (I'm designated driver.) Argh!! I hope to be able to get the assignment this time, at least, so next week I won't be totally humiliated.

The Wearing' of the Green

Here's the Chicago River dyed green for Saint Patrick's Day. I took these pictures from the Michigan Avenue bridge last year actually, but just about now the men from the plumber's union are in their boat, dispensing their secret-formula green dye to color the river. I had heard of the green river, but pictured something sort of sick and brownish, not this incredible emerald. I remembered the river this morning because we are going into Chicago later today to go to the opera and spend the weekend with my son and daughter-in-law in Evanston. We'll miss the St. Pat's festivities this year, but it's a great memory.

These are two postcards I made as work in my Quilt University class. Not bad, not great. I made the one on right first, decided the trees/lines were too stumpy, so I made the second version. On the second I used Angelina fibers to make snow. Or I should say I tried to, but when I fused the card to the innerfacing, the irridescence disappeared, and the Angelina fibers are basically invisible. Obviously a new technique is needed for that. Live and learn. I do like the shadow effect with thread painting though. I'm still working on improving binding on these little devils also. The second one is better because I cut the binding wider to cover the thickness of the innerfacing. I know some people overcast, but my machine won't do that well, so I'm stuck with binding.

Done!

The rows are finished, and this can go to be quilted. I like it--it's a very traditional looking kind of quilt, although the pattern is unusual. I don't know what it's called; it's a log cabin variation that I saw a partial picture of in a magazine, and figured out how to do it. I don't know how it got so big (I could say that about my sons, too!). I meant to make it double or queen size, but this is a real king. I guess I added border blocks to make the design look right without realizing what was happening to the size.

Rows and Rows

Nothing interesting to post today. I am sewing rows together in the scrap quilt I have been working on for two years. It is supposed to go to the quilter by end of week, so I am trying to stick to it (yes, writing this IS procrastination). Do other people hate this step of the process? There is so much pinning, so many little points, UGH. I have nothing but admiration for people who make beautiful, accurate bed size quilts. I have to fight the urge to say "enough, already" and rush this stage. And then there's the pressing--ugh again. But of course, the quilt does finally take real shape, which is a pleasure to see, or at least I hope so.

More Quilt Show Pictures

Here are three traditional quilts that I loved. The first one was made by Marie Karickhoff--I always like Storm at Sea, and to see it in red is unusual. (Red is always good!) The second was made by Gail Stepanek, and the photo doesn't do justice to those warm rich taupes. The combination of New York Beauty (another favorite block) and that curving applique is new to me and very successful. The third one is another terrible photo. The quilt is actually white (!) with feed sack prints and a traditional embroidery. This is a beautiful quilt that drew much more attention than that third place in category ribbon. I wouldn't be surprised if it won Viewer's Choice.

More

The woman in red was made by Jane Kennedy. I was interested in this because of the Erte fabric she used--I had seen that and loved it but didn't know what I would do with it, so resisted buying it. I also like the circle background quilting and the overall effect of the piece, which is simple, but makes you keep looking. The man leaning against the tree is by Marilyn Belford, and I thought the realism of the clothing was exceptional and the face is also memorable. The portrait of Pauline Salzman playing cards is by Julie Higgins. Usually portrait quilts don't convey much of the subject's personality, but this one does. I'll post some of the more traditional quilts that I liked next time, but I somehow didn't take as many pictures of those.

IHQS, continued

I don't understand how to make Blogger put photos where I want them, so I have given up and am doing a new post! From the sublime to the ridiculous, here's my quilt, which won an Honorable Mention in Amateur Wall Quilt. I was amazed, truly, but of course very pleased. My biggest reaction at first was to be upset that the sign and ribbon had been placed to hide the sun, which is important for the idea and the design. So Elaine and I searched for a white glove lady, and when we couldn't find one, we chose a time when no one was looking and moved the sign ourselves. A fun exercise in rule breaking, hard for us well brought up ladies.

Since I despair of getting photos where I want them, here is just a collection of other quilts I liked. The circus quilt was made by Denise Havian, and won excellence in machine quilting and best professional wall quilt. It is wonderful, using bright novelty fabrics as well as traditional ones, and so rich in detail that it takes careful studying to appreciate. That's one of the marks of an outstanding quilt, I'm beginning to believe. The other one is the winner in Amateur Wall Quilts. It's based on Northwest Indian designs, which I haven't seen in a quilt before. The red background is heavily quilted.

IHQS News

I came back from Bloomington last night after a very enjoyable time with my sister and brother-in-law and a day and a half at the show, one day in class, and another to look at quilts, and of course do a bit of shopping.

Here's the best of show quilt, made by Sandra Leichner, Albany Oregon. The picture doesn't do it justice, of course, particularly not for this quilt because it's such a beautiful, soft and rich palette. It's not the style I usually like, but I love the richness of the colors and the non-traditional touches, like the pieced background in the center medallion and the fabric paint accenting the trapunto. The workmanship is phenominal, naturally.