Fat Quarter Shop has Moda Roman Holiday on sale - 50% off on charm packs and jelly rolls! Somebody go shop vicariously for me, because I am trying to resist. I would put a picture up, but I already did one earlier and I don't have time, anyway, because I about to go to Austin, yay! And please note that I did succeed in posting an entry every day this month. Applause please!!

By the way, I took that Amazon widget with the deal of the day down, because it was annoying me. The one at the bottom for the store is still there, though. Several of you have bought things from the store; I appreciate it, and eventually I will get a gift certificate, thanks to you guys - and I promise to write a review of whatever I get! (If anybody loved the Deal of the Day thing and wants to lobby for its return, I will listen. But I'm not holding my breath for that.)

By the way, this is the kind of day I'm having: I just spilled an entire cup of coffee on the brand new carpet. So I have been sponging coffee out of the carpet for the last 15 minutes. Cross your fingers for me with the traveling!

Totems

Totems, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

"Totems" made by Pat Doyle Mikrut of Illinois; entered in the judged show (category: Art-Pictorial) at the 2007 Houston International Quilt Festival.

Exercises in perspective

"Roman Patience" (above) made by Dena Bauer of Indiana; entered in the judged show (category: Art-Pictorial) at IQF 2007.

Not quite as dizzying as that one, but still interesting:


"Up Up and Away" (above) made by David Taylor of Colorado; winner of an Honorable Mention in the category Art-Pictorial at IQF 2007.

Shadowland

I love black and white quilts.

"Shadowland" (above) made by Liz Jones of Herefordshire, UK; entered in the judged show (category: Miniature) at IQF 2007.

Batiks etc.

I saved a copy of this graphic that the Fat Quarter Shop did for its Batik Club, because I loved the colors so much. And remember that batik that I posted the other day? Somebody asked in the comments about what I was going to do with it, and I'm still not completely sure, but it'd go perfect with these kinds of colors, don't you think? So I think I may have a color scheme for another quilt. Not a pattern, yet, but a color scheme. (If you've been paying attention to all these projects I've been talking about the last month or two, you may have noticed that this is not unusual for me. The colors often come before the pattern.)

Kaleidoscope Stars

Kaleidoscope Stars, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

I think I've posted some of these before - there were all these old quilts floating around in the family closets, and many of them ended up with me because nobody knows what to do with them. We don't know for sure who made them - my mother thought that my grandmother paid somebody to make at least some of them, out of the family's old clothes. Mama thought she recognized some of the fabric.

This is an interesting quilt - it's really one of those spiderweb patterns, but that part recedes into the background, and it's the 'stars' in between that show up.

I don't really know what I'm going to do with all of them. I like them, though, so I don't really want to get rid of them.

Projects, projects, projects

OK, I just love this fabric:

I don't really know what I'm going to do with a yard of it. It's one of those things I just bought because I liked it so much.

This is the "miscellaneous" category:

Two more paisleys, you notice. I have a definite thing for paisleys. The folk-art angels are for the Day of the Dead quilt - matter of fact I think they may be the color scheme for it. The colors in it are about what I was intending to use anyway, more or less, but it'd be nice to have something to look at to keep me on track, you know? There's also two Kaffe Fassett fabrics on the bottom right, which go along with this FQ set:



This bunch is called Cloisonne, and I think they're great, now I'm just going to have to figure out what to do with them, one of these days. (But as you can see, I've got enough fabrics and enough projects to occupy me for a while. A long while.)

Whirlpool

I don't think I ever said that the exhibit photos are finally all up. Here's a sample:



As near as I can tell, it looks like this is all Fossil Ferns, except for the black solid. "Whirlpool" (above) made by Virginia A. Walton and quilted by Sue Patton; from the Faculty Showcase at IQF 2007.


-------------------------------

By the way, all this fabric I keep talking about? I totalled it up and it was just about 50 yards even. So here's more of it.

This is the little bit I bought at quilt festival:

(Bear in mind that I clearly made up for this restraint in other places.)
The beautiful silk yarn came from Treenway Silks, btw.

I do really love these Kaufman paisleys, but was it really necessary for me to buy them in three colors?


I put up a picture of some of these months ago, but the pinks have grown in the interim:


Clearly I will have enough pink left over, even after I make a whole pink quilt, to put in a pink and green one based around these two fabrics:

I really like this idea - I have no idea what I'm doing with it pattern-wise but I really love the colors.

Lots and lots of fabric

I promised to take pictures of all that fabric I've been washing and folding, and here's the first installment.

Taupes, 50 of them - it took two pictures to show them all:



I didn't realize that these lines of fabric had so much variation in them. Everything is sort of a grayed version of the color, yes, but as you can see, there's greens and blues, pinks and reds and even one black - it's not all what I think of as taupe. (Although actually I think some of them look brighter in the picture than they do in real life.) All of these were made by the same Japanese manufacturer.

I bought the taupes from this eBay seller, who I highly recommend - but she doesn't seem to have any more of them right now. She always has great Asian fabrics, though.


There's also blue and white Tonga batiks, from Virginia Quilter:


More to come.

A Decade of Doing My Block

A Decade of Doing My Block, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

Quilt above made by Jan Mullen of Fremantle, Australia; from the Faculty Showcase at IQF 2007.


So I washed a ton of fabric, yesterday - everything I've bought for practically the last year. It took 4 loads in the washer and 3 in the dryer (big commercial machines, too). I sorted everything light to dark and put the reds in with the darks because I was afraid something would run. If anything did I can't tell it. By the time I did that I was exhausted so I just smoothed everything out and stacked it up instead of trying to iron and/or fold it. Actually I made two stacks, one for FQs and one for bigger pieces, which was mostly half-yards. (If it was bigger than a half yard then I folded it down to that size.) I am not ironing anything right now, instead it's all on the couch and I'm working on folding it all nicely. I figure quilt fabric gets ironed so much later that it doesn't matter if it's perfectly ironed to begin with. If it seems to need it when I get ready to cut it, I'll iron it then. Because this is such a huge amount of fabric I'll never finish otherwise.

I'll have to take pictures when I'm done. You just would not believe the fabric. (Actually I'm sure there are people who bought this much just at quilt festival, although if they did they'd have to buy another whole suitcase just to get it home! anyway, it's a lot of fabric.)

Rhapsody in orange?

This is not a Ricky Tims quilt. It does look like one, which makes sense because it was made in one of his classes, the "Rhapsody" class, which is also what his new book is about. I doubt that this is entirely a coincidence. (I took a different class of his - it was called "Caveman-Style Quilting" or something to that effect - a few years back. If you ever get the chance to take one of his classes, go. Not only is he a good quilter, and a good teacher, he's just a hoot to be around.) The Rhapsody book was all over the place at quilt festival - I guess it's newly released. I flipped through it, but applique is not really my thing so I can't say I looked terribly closely. I'm not planning on making one, after all. But they're very pretty quilts, anyway.

"Regalia" (above) made by Susan Webster of Minnesota; entered in the judged show (category: Innovative Applique, Large) at IQF 2007.

The last breath of autumn

After Thanksgiving, we're not going to be in the mood for autumn-y quilts so much (even if it's still technically autumn for another month), so here's a sampling.



"Autumn Orchard" (above) made by Kathie Briggs; from the exhibit "Small Wonders VIII" at IQF 2006.




"Fall Into Spring" (above) made by Cheryl See of Virginia; winner of first prize in the category Innovative Applique, Small in the judged show at IQF 2007.




"New England Stream" (above) made by Linda Creagh. From the 2004 Dallas Quilt Celebration.



"Country Roads" (above) made by Nancy Prince; from the Faculty Showcase at IQF 2006.


And possibly my very favorite:


"Autumn" (above) made by Noriko Endo of Chiba, Japan; entered in the judged show (category: Art-Naturescapes) at IQF 2007.

The Eyes Have It

These two make me giggle.



"Black Eyed Susans with Fruit" (above) made by Pamela Allen of Canada; from the exhibit "In Full Bloom".



"Flowers of Curiosity" (above) made by Akiko Shiraishi; from the exhibit "Prize Winning Quilts from Quilt Week Yokohama".

Losses

Losses, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

Quilt above made by Elaine Quehl of Canada; from the exhibit "Sacred Threads" at IQF 2007.

This is really beautiful.

Colorplay II

I'll find the name to this one later!, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

I am putting this one up without a name because I really like it, and I "need" to post before midnight! (I think the list is out in the car, I'll run out there before I go to bed.) I have posted daily for over half the month, and I don't want to ruin my string now.

I guess I like the mosaic look because I seem to gravitate towards quilts that use it. And it has beautiful colors.

Quilt above by Anne Lullie of Illinois; from the exhibit "Celebrate Spring!" (It didn't occur to me that this was the same person as the other mosaic quilt until I saw the name.)

Hundertwasser

The judged show pictures are all up - 302 of them. I'm still working on the exhibits. I didn't take near as many exhibit pictures this year - I did the judged show first and I was tired and cranky by the time I got to the exhibits. I take many fewer pictures when I'm cranky.

OK, now here's something where I'm not sure if it's really a quilt:


It's a pretty thing, whatever it is. Actually if you click over to flickr and click on "all sizes" to get the big version, it appears to be quilted. So I guess that answers that question. (There were some things called "art cloths" in one exhibit that are definitely not quilts, for what's that worth. They were cool, though. I will get those pictures up soon.)

"If Hundertwasser Did the Northern Lights" (above) made by Carol J. Moore of Toronto; from the exhibit "The Sky's the Limit" at IQF 2007.



(Actually, the rest of the pictures are already up on flickr; they are just hidden because they're not labeled yet. I am unhiding them as I label them. If I have you marked as a "friend" as well as a contact you can sneak over early and see them.)

Insane, or Bewitched?

Compare and contrast:

(Whole thing is here)



I just happened to notice that these two were the same pattern because I was looking at the flickr activity page - but two different people had favorited them, so I'm not sure if one (or both) of them had caught it or if it was just a coincidence!

"Bewitched Bothered & Bewildered" (top) made by V. Wayne Sneath and Jim Sherburne, of Illinois; IQF 2007. "Insane Sampler" (bottom) made by Mary Ellen Zeitz of South Windsor, Connecticut; from IQF 2006.


And another thing: someone posted on one of my Livejournal groups this morning saying that one of these quilts (the one on the left, I believe) was stolen a week or so ago. That's sad, and sort of odd. Is there something particularly valuable about that particular quilt?

Bubble Bath Day

Contemplate this quilt for a little while:


It took me a while to puzzle out how it was made. It's very clever. The basic block seems to actually just be 4 small Dresden Plate-type blocks put together. (Or maybe four Dresden Plate - uh, what do you call them, strips? appliqued onto one backing. Aren't they usually appliqued down rather than pieced, anyway?) Then the blocks are offset just a little, so there's a little set in square once in a while to make that fit. But it comes out looking entirely different. I love it. (Plus these are so my colors.)

Quilt above made by Wendy Hill of Oregon; entered in the category Innovative Pieced, Small at IQF 2007.

Feather Fantasy

I know the Painted Surface category at IQF was basically created for Hollis Chatelain, but I actually think this one is my favorite in that category:



But then I kind of have a thing for peacocks, anyway. -- Incidentally, I'm not saying that the category was created for Hollis' exclusive use or anything - but I do think it was created because of her, and because of the "controversy" over whether what she was making was a quilt at all. (People, it has multiple layers. It has quilting - an awful lot of quilting, for that matter. It's clearly a quilt, painted or pieced or not.)

Quilt above made by Kim Bradley of Sydney, Australia; from the judged show (category: Art-Painted Surface) at IQF 2007.

Moonglow

Carol Taylor wins yet another ribbon - first prize in the category Embellished Quilts in the judged show at the 2007 Houston International Quilt Festival.

I think Embellished is another new category, isn't it? I love embellished quilts and I have been known to say the more embellished the better, although I don't really think that's always true. Sometimes less is more. But sometimes more is more, and there are a lot of highly-embellished quilts that I really love. This one is fairly restrained compared to some of those. (This one, say - or this one, for a really extreme example!)

Japanese whimsy

Below: "The Witches of the Ginza"


Quilt above made by Junko Sugahara of Tokyo; entered in the judged show (category: Art-Whimsical) at IQF 2007.


Below: "Sue Had a Little Lamb" (detail)


(Note the musical staff.)

Quilt above made by Mari Saito of Tokyo; entered in the judged show (category: Art-Whimsical) at IQF 2007.


Unrelated:
Somebody (not me!) needs to make a quilt like this picture. I assume that is tiles in the picture since that's an architectural blog, although it's hard to be sure.

Actually I may be working on a Grandmother's Flower Garden, although I certainly never intended to. But my mom had a half-finished one and I'm toying with the idea of trying to finish it. I can't think of anything else to do with it. I hate the idea of it sitting around unfinished.

Whimsy

The Art-Whimsical category is sort of a grab-bag of things that don't always quite go together. I suspect that it's meant to be that way. Primarily it's a place to put the intentionally comical quilts - there are always quite a few of those, but then you also get the ones like the 1st-place winner which are belong more in a fantasy universe and less in a funny one:



I guess you could call this whimsical, but it's a very mainstream sort of whimsy, fairies and all that - I really think I would have put it in some other category. Mixed technique? Embellished? Somewhere like that.

"Woodland Story" (above) made by Elizabeth Dillinger of Ontario; winner of first prize in the category Art-Whimsical at IQF 2007.


Second prize is considerably more whimsical, although I wouldn't call it outright funny, either:



"Vertigo" (above) made by Kathy York of Austin, Texas; winner of second prize in the category Art-Whimsical at IQF 2007.


I really was going to make this longer and add more quilts but I am suddenly very sleepy. I will have to post the rest tomorrow.

Category winners

Here's a couple of quilts that won first place in their category that I especially liked.



"Chromatic Counterpoint" (above) made by Leslie Rego of Idaho; winner of first prize in the category Art-Abstract, Large at IQF 2007.




"Northern Lights" (above) made by Janet Fogg of Oregon; winner of first prize in the category Art-Pictorial at IQF 2007.

I have a couple of detail pictures of that quilt, too: here and here. (I especially like the way she quilted the snowflakes into the background.) I also have a couple more pictures of her quilts, which tend to feature these terrific pieced animals. She won Viewer's Choice last year for this kitty and a couple of years before that there was a bear - and it looks like this tree is also hers. Really nice work.

Loose Curves

This is kind of the most fabulous quilt ever. The black "background" is not part of the quilt at all, it's the curtain behind it. In fact, you could call this nine mini-quilts attached to a grid, rather than one big quilt. Although it's all attached to each other, of course.

Quilt (or quilts) above made by Dianne Hire of Maine; winner of second prize in the category Art-Abstract, Large in the judged show at the 2007 Houston International Quilt Festival.


Ooh, just made it in before the NaBloPoMo deadline!

IQF all year around

Did y'all catch that in addition to the fall IQF in Houston and the spring IQF in Chicago, there is now going to be a summer IQF in California? I wonder if they aren't going to overextend themselves at some point. Although I have gotten the impression that the Chicago show is virtually a repeat of the Houston one, so if they're just taking the same show and moving it around three times a year, I guess it might not be quite as much more work as it sounds like!

Here's a couple more quilts I really loved from the Pictorial category:



Quilt above made by Lee Brown of Kent, England.
(Note the way the arch in the foreground seems to glow.)



Quilt above made by Ann Fahl of Racine, Wisconsin.


And on an unrelated subject: I posted elsewhere a while back that I liked this thing but certainly wasn't willing to pay $175 for one, and a friend of a friend offered to knit one for me! (Which, y'know, is why I love Livejournal so much.) I'm paying for the (cashmere!) yarn but I still feel like I ought to make her something in return - maybe a little mini-wallhanging or something. I'll have to think it over.

The Usual Suspects

I've already seen pictures of this one in two or three places, but darnit, it's adorable. So here it is again. There's also a detail picture here.

Quilt above made by Nancy Brown of Oakland, California; winner of an Honorable Mention (category Art-Pictorial) at IQF Houston 2007.

The Time of Amber

The Time of Amber, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

Another one I really like - it's different.

Quilt above made by Junko Sawada of Kanagawa-Ken; entered in the judged show (category: Art-Pictorial) at the 2007 Houston International Quilt Festival.

She

She, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

I heard them say over the loudspeaker Sunday afternoon that "She" had won Viewer's Choice, but I had no idea which quilt that was. Apparently it's this one! Although come to think of it, I had noticed before that there was a lot of "ooh"ing going on in its vicinity. (Detail pictures here and here.)

Quilt above made by Tomoko Matsuura of Kanagawa, Japan; winner of Viewer's Choice in the judged show (category: Handmade) at IQF 2007.

Colorplay V

Colorplay V, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

Made by Anne Lullie of Illinois; entered in the judged show (category: Art-Abstract, Small) at IQF 2007.

Hope for Our World - Best of Show

Guess what, Hollis Chatelain won Best of Show again - with a little help from Archbishop Tutu!



Here's a piece with some info about it from the Houston paper. (There are several other articles about the festival, too, if you follow the links in the sidebar of that page.)


I'm a tired puppy. I did get a few pictures up, and hopefully I'll get some more up tonight and tomorrow.

More later.

On my way - almost

Somebody put up some quilt show pictures, already, and I looked at a couple and then stopped. It's like spoilers; I don't want to know ahead of time! I'm sure the list of winners is posted by now, too, but I've resisted looking for it. I'll find out soon enough, in just a couple of hours.

I nearly forgot that I told my aunt I'd have lunch with her. I'd better get going! And the Livejournal people are meeting at 6:30 tonight, not 6, so it's a good thing I checked on that.

OK, what am I forgetting?
camera - check
batteries and recharger - check (although I'm wondering whether I should go buy more!)
comfortable shoes - check
toothbrush and hairbrush - check
change of clothes - check
money and ticket - check

Really, what more do you need?

(I am tempted to stop at the new Best Buy on the freeway and buy an extra memory card for my camera, actually, as well as the batteries. Last year I ran out of room!)

Getting ready for IQF

Quilting-related task for today: find camera batteries, lots of them, and/or the recharger and lots of rechargeables. The quilt show requires many, many batteries. I can't remember how many I went through last year - I know it was at least 8. And rechargeables go even faster than regular ones. I prefer to use them because it feels less wasteful, but it'd be nice if they could make them last a bit longer.

I dragged way too much crap up to Houston last year but I have vowed to do better this year. And I'm going to try not to buy too much stuff, either. I have a new computer, have I mentioned that here? It wasn't a horribly expensive one but it was still an unplanned expense so we are trying to watch the spending extra closely. I have enough quilting stuff for any three people, anyway, god knows.

A month of posts for NaBloPoMo

I signed up for NaBloPoMo ("National Blog Posting Month") and promised to post every day this month, thinking that this would be easy since I will - hopefully - have a zillion pictures to post soon. The "hopefully" is because I have not been doing too well with technology lately, and at the rate I'm going I would be surprised if I managed to blow my camera up somehow, or something. So cross your fingers.

I usually post a bunch of pictures of Halloween and then Day of the Dead related quilts this time of year, but the fact is, I don't really have anything new to show, and I get tired of posting the same ones every year. So I'll let you decide for yourself about the pictures: if you haven't already seen all those pictures (or heck, just want to see them again), here they are!

(Hmm, a photo-free post is really rare for me here, but I intend to make up for it later!)