Quilt show! Quilt show!

I don't know if I have any readers in the Houston area who wouldn't already know about the show (I know that some of the quilt guild members are readers, but if there's anybody else who's local they haven't spoken up!) - but just in case, I want to let you know that the show is today and tomorrow (i.e., Friday and Saturday) at the convention center in League City. Information here.

Added: I'm starting to get more pictures up. I will of course be posting more of them over here, but until then they are in a Flickr set - here.

Baby Jane, Best of Show

Baby Jane, Best of Show
Originally uploaded by Mellicious.

Made by Marian Woods. Voted Best of Show at Lakeview Quilters Guild's Mayfest quilt show.

I'm so happy that Marian won Best of Show; she's had a number of near-misses in other shows recently, and she is a fabulous quilter. (I hear she does a great trunk show, too - if anybody out there is hunting for speakers!) This isn't even my favorite one of her quilts, but it was certainly worthy - so much work! And while our guild show is not exactly the IQF, we have a lot of good quilters, and the competition is still pretty fierce!

more Flea Market Fancy

more Flea Market Fancy
Originally uploaded by Mellicious.

I hadn't seen this fabric when I looked at Denyse Schmidt's line before - or at least, I didn't pay any attention to it at the time. But I sure wish I'd had some of it last weekend. I got it into my head that dark-brown-verging-on-black was exactly what I needed for binding of the autumn leaf quilt. (Or maybe it's better than I didn't have it, come to think of it, because the turkey red turned out pretty well.) Anyway, this would have been absolutely the perfect thing for what I had in mind. I might have to buy some to make sure I have it on hand for the next time I decide that's something I need!!

backing fabric

Judie Rothermel Civil War backing fabric
Originally uploaded by Mellicious.

I was looking at Judie Rothermel's store yesterday, and I found this backing fabric, which I really love. As it happens, we have had a family discussion going about backing fabric, anyway. Most backing fabrics are sooooo bland (I'm thinking of things like this) - and the thing is, you can't really blame the manufacturers for hedging their bets and making the backing fabrics really basic, because it's sort of a specialty item, isn't it? But I love to see somebody do something different. I did use a brown tonal floral on the back of the autumn leaf quilt, but that's very unusual for me. To get me to buy wide backing, you're going to have to make it interesting, like the one above.

(My mother loves florals, as I have mentioned before, and we found her this one at The Virginia Quilter, which she is so crazy about, she has her latest quilt on the couch with the backing face-up!)

Odds & ends

There's an interview with Cia Blum (of Cia's Palette) posted on whip up which touches on the issues I was trying to write about the other day:

When I first started working in this business, Kaffe Fassett had just introduced his first fabric line. Most everyone I worked with thought it was an amazing collection, but it really didn’t sell very quickly for the first year or so — at least in our shop. Thank goodness Rowan knew enough to stick with it and make it available for several years (very unusual in this business) or a lot of people would have completely missed out. The quilting craze has really caught on with a younger group since that time and the fabric industry is changing to reflect that influence, but slowly. Amy Butler was truly a breath of fresh air and now I think Denyse Schmidt is also having a profound effect by providing what a lot of quilters and crafters have been looking for.

I wasn't thinking that the dichotomy I was talking about was between older and younger quilters, but it may be, because in quilting terms, I am youngish. I feel much younger at quilt guild than I do most other places I go!

(In case you're wondering now that the subject of age has come up - I'm 45. For exactly one more day, because tomorrow is my birthday.)


Also, I think I may have to plan one of my future trips to Ohio (where my in-laws are, so we go pretty regularly) so that I can take a class at Nancy Crow's quilt barn. Because that is just too cool.


Added, because I keep finding cool things today (this one is meant for knitting, but I can think of some quilting-related uses for it): The Random Stripe Generator. (Found via in a minute ago.)

Quilted autumn leaves

quilted autumn leaves
Originally uploaded by Mellicious.

I forgot, I did get a picture - not this week, and not a great picture, either, but a so-so week-old picture is better than nothing, right? (Right?) So, this is with the quilting finished but (obviously) no binding. The turkey red binding came out very nice, I thought. Anyway, you can't see the binding here, but you can see quilting if you look close - blow it up to the big version if you really want to critique my quilting!!

Weekend report

Crown of Thorns
Originally uploaded by Mellicious.

(I just found this picture lurking around - I think it's from fall retreat a couple of years ago. I love these blocks!)

I am ready for the quilt show! - with, uh, four whole days to spare. I finished whipping down the binding at 1:00 this morning, and put the label on after I woke up. I didn't remember to bring my camera to my mom's again, unfortunately, but I will definitely get pictures at the show.

Categories

Oy! Aliens!
Originally uploaded by Mellicious.

Quilt above made by Linda Colsh; from the exhibit "QuiltArt at 10" at the 2005 International Quilt Festival.

I was reading Weeks' post about the Chicago Quilt Festival and thinking that I apparently walk some sort of line on these issues that is a tiny bit unusual. I wouldn't call myself a modernist, exactly. I wouldn't call myself a traditionalist, either. I definitely wouldn't call myself an art quilter. I like modern quilts a lot, and art quilts too (and I am crazy about the one above) - but I like traditional ones too. I've talked somewhere online before (although I don't think it was here, I think it was in somebody else's comments, actually) about how the quilt guild I belong to seems completely oblivious to the whole "modern quilt" thing - when I turned up with Weeks' book at retreat last fall, and started cutting out pieces for my Zipper Quilt, nobody acted like they had seen the book before or had ever heard of such a thing. And it's not like my guild is terribly tradition-bound, they're not at all. The people who picked up my book - and a whole lot of people did - really oohed and ahhed over the quilts. So it's not like they're resistant to it. This is just something that hasn't quite reached there yet. And I'm sympathetic to the way that the "modernist" quilters feel left out by the more traditional crowd. I don't blame them at all. And it really sucks not being able to be able to find the things you want for your craft.

Parenthetically, I hope nobody thinks I'm trying to disparage them by putting "modern quilts" and "modernist" in quotes - that's my little tic, I'm doing that because I'm not sure how crazy I am about them as a catch-all term for this movement. I think this may be an age-related thing, in part - I tend not to like the term too much because it was overused when I was young. I associate it with icky mass-produced "Danish modern" furniture, and ugly concrete buildings, and other things best left in the 60s. (Some of the stuff that was called "modern" then is now wonderfully, deliciously retro, of course. Some of it is, well, not.)

It's very typical of me to be on the fence about things like this. I tend not to fit into categories very well. I'm a modernist some of the time. I'm a traditionalist - sort of - some of the time. I'm just me.

(Just the same, Weeks, if you happen to be reading this, I would love to see you have a booth at quilt festival. I'd buy something!)

Sparkling Vases

Sparkling Vases
Originally uploaded by Mellicious.

Made by Tom Russell and Kathy Drew, Knoxville, Tennessee. From IQF 2004.

The internet is a wonderful thing. I've had this picture up on Flickr for some time now, and about six weeks ago somebody asked in the Flickr comments if a pattern was available for it. I had no idea - but the other day I was reading quilting weblogs and Tommy the Material Girl had a picture up of one that her mother was making. So I asked Tommy about it in her comments, and she e-mailed me the answer: it was a block-of-the-month on Simply Quilts, so the pattern is available online! (Here.)

In other news, the autumn leaf quilt is quilted, and I picked out sort of a turkey red for the binding. I need to quit playing GuildWars at night and get the binding on that quilt. It's only a little over a week until the quilt show!

(I quilted it with sort of a gentle squiggle that goes diagonally across the quilt. I like how it came out.)

Added: Dante's raffle is up!! Chances at really cool stuff for $4 a ticket!

Amy Butler's "Belle"

Amy Butler "Gothic Rose" fabric
Originally uploaded by Mellicious.

I'm looking at fabric again, so expect more to come. Here's some more of the Belle line:

Sweet Peas in the Mountains

Sweet Peas in the Mountains
Originally uploaded by Mellicious.

Made by Nancy Pearson and Paula Hitz. From the Faculty Showcase at IQF 2004.

I wanted something spring-like to look at today, so I found this one. Incidentally, in case you haven't stumbled across it already, I have a whole set of spring quilt pictures on Flickr, so that's where that came from.

Not much quilting progress to report, really. The top of the autumn quilt is together, and I got a back for it ready to go, too, so I will hopefully be able to get it all quilted this weekend. (My plan for the quilting was very, very simple, anyway - I want it to look like wind.) Then if I can get the binding on it I will be almost there!

Think Pink!

Social Climber Roses
Originally uploaded by Mellicious.

Made by Melinda Bula. From the exhibit "In Full Bloom II: Floral Quilts Honoring Helen Pearce O'Bryant" at the 2005 International Quilt Festival.


Updated to say that I got a very nice e-mail from Melinda Bula, who made the quilt above. Turns out she has a website, melindabula.com. (And she didn't even berate me for the fact that I apparently have her quilt turned sideways in the picture! See here.)



When I have something specific I want to talk about, I tend to pick a quilt picture that goes with my theme, have you noticed? I'm slippery that way.

Today the theme is "pink" (as you may have guessed!) - I had the link to the Quilt Pink site back when I posted the picture of the Moda fabric a month or so ago, but the site wasn't live then, and now it is. Just so you know. What they've got planned sounds like fun!

Quilty things

I went to the guild's spring retreat today, just for the day. I'm sort of sorry I didn't go for the whole weekend, but I still had fun. And guess what - the zipper quilt is finished! 100% done, finito. Label, sleeve, binding - everything, all done. (Now I have 3-1/2 weeks to finish the other one.)

I didn't take my camera today and I was sorry, because people were working on some really cute things and I can't share. A bunch of people were doing a mystery quilt - it was a pretty complicated one, but some of them had been working on it since yesterday morning and at least one had a completed top. Three or four other people were working on gorgeous Judy Niemeyer patterns (including this one, which I'd never seen before and which I really like), and of course, there were other people working on various other things. One of the bees has started doing Dear Jane quilts, and the girl across the table from me was working on that. (She did two while I was there. Only two hundred and fifty-something to go!) This retreat is not as big as the one I always go to in the fall in central Texas, but sometimes smaller is good. For one thing, everybody at the fall retreat is spread out all over the place, and at the spring retreat everybody is pretty much in one big room, so you can see what everybody is working on. (At one point, I was pretty much walking up to people and demanding that they show me what they were working on. In my defence, I was tired, by that time. And the stuff they were doing was really interesting!)

Yesterday I went over to Mom's. We ended up going to the quilt store so that I could get Printed Treasures fabric or the equivalent thereof to make labels with. (I'll have to check and get the name of the one I bought, because it worked very nicely.) I also, while I was at it, bought 2-1/2 yards of brown tone-on-tone floral to use for the back and binding of the autumn leaf quilt. Two and a half yards is probably overkill, but I figured better safe than sorry. Especially since I'm sort of in a hurry!

(This also means that I am still technically in the running for Use What You Have month, since yesterday was still March. I never did officially sign up for the Use What You Have project, anyway, but I am going to try to abide by it. Anyway, everything I bought yesterday was extremely necessary!!)

When I pulled the autumn leaves quilt out, it was not as far along as I was thinking it was. I had to sew the last few loose blocks together, and then start sewing that to the rest of the sections. I still have a couple of seams to sew to get the main part of the top done, before I start on the border again. I think I can make it, though!