Belated quilt show report

I wrote this more than a month ago and I can't believe I didn't at least link back to it from here:

So, I went to the quilt show. I went zipping through the whole thing - exhibitions, vendors and all - in a little over four hours. (People who haven't been there and don't know how incredibly big this thing is will not appreciate this achievement.) I did not take a single picture - I didn't even take the camera, actually, for the first time in ten years or so. It certainly made things move much faster! I walked up and down every single aisle and at least glanced at every quilt and every vendor. I'm not sure what my aunt was talking about, about the quilts being better than usual - I will have to ask her. I mean, they were good, but I always think they are good. Here is the winners list, with pictures. Sharon Schamber won Best of Show for the second time - that seems to have become a pattern lately, actually. (Two-time winners, I mean.) Her thing is that she does really fabulous machine quilting - which, of course, you can't see at all in that picture. (Here's a detail from her other BoS, though.)

I only bought a couple of things, amazingly, and only one of them was a quilting thing. I bought a pattern (a pattern! I never buy patterns!) for a quilted crown, of all things. It looks like stained glass and it came with the stiff foundation material, along with the pattern, and it was just so cute I couldn't resist. I used to be known as the "Princess of Chat" on a forum I hang out on, and so crowns have a sort of odd significance for me. Besides, crowns are just cool. (Oh look, here are the crowns - mine is the second one from the bottom.) Then I bought a finished pair of polymer clay earrings, and a bunch of pewter beads - just spacers, mostly. That was it.

I didn't notice a lot of new trends at the quilt show, generally, but if I did, I would say that embellishments was one. Every other vendor had beads and fibers and paints and things like that. Oh, and you know what? I saw a surprising number of teenagers there. I hope that's a good sign for the future of quilting, because quilters in the 20-35 range are still awfully rare. It seems like there was a generation skip there, or something. (I'm aware I'm not the first person to notice this!)

Oh, and there was a whole exhibit of political quilts - some very funny ones, too. Somebody did a whole series of quilts about recent elections - so there was one with the Clintons and the Doles, for example. (Bob and Bill were having a chicken fight on their wives' shoulders, no less.)

Oh look, she's alive.

I'm back, sort of! It's still to be seen if I will keep posting, but I've been meaning to post for ages and let you guys know where I went off to. I've been updating my Livejournal pretty regularly all this time and so if you really want to know the whole story, it's over here. Short version of recent events: hurricane, evacuation, flooded apartment, new apartment, new town. You know, all that sort of fun stuff.

As far as what happened to the pictures, that pre-dates the hurricane and in fact, it was the same thing that happened to several other bloggers that I know of around the same time: some people who exhibited quilts at the International Quilt Festival, but who apparently had never paid any attention to the International Quilt Festival's policy on posting pictures, decided to report us all to Flickr for copyright violations. I don't believe that I was violating copyright but after a couple of rounds of this I made most of my quilt pictures friends-only to stop it from happening again. I have gradually been making more of them public again but it's a slow process and of course it completely messed up this site. I hated to do it but at the time it seemed like the best option. And I meant to post and explain at the time but it was hard to know what to say. And I was angry and anything I said showed it all too clearly.

So anyway, here's a belated catch-up post and if I decide I have something to say about quilts I will post again. I haven't been quilting so far since the move, but most of the fabric and stuff survived the storm so I may yet! I did update the quilt show calendar while I was at it, and I have re-posted some of the pictures, but I think I have to do that manually so I don't know how far I will get.

(Ooh, there's a couple of pretty quilts on this page.)

Happy holidays, y'all!

The Five-Dollar Quilt

I don't think I ever posted the picture of my mom's "five-dollar" quilt. (I should've gotten this up earlier so you could enjoy it for Mother's Day, but better late than never!)



(Click through to the big version to see Denise Green's beautiful quilting.)

Quilt pieced and embroidered by Billie Standley, from a pattern from Painted Pony & Quilts; quilted by Denise Green and finished by me. (I finished the binding and the sleeve about 12 hours before it was due to be at the quilt show!) This quilt is to be given to my sister, and then there is a sort-of-twin made partly from the same pattern that is mine.

Coventry Stars

I keep forgetting to go back and check my Mayfest program to see if I can figure out for sure who made this quilt:


("Coventry Stars" is the name of the pattern, but they must've named their version something else, because I couldn't find that in the program when I looked before.)

(Added: the quilt is "Folk Art Funky" by Karen Watts. The pattern, "Coventry Stars", is by Jo Morton.)

I knew the pattern name because my mother had made a quilt using it, too. I initially couldn't find a picture of hers, but I finally unearthed one last night. (I have over 200 pictures of my mom's quilts on Flickr and there are still a significant number that are missing, which is just a little bit mindboggling when you think about it!) So here it is (and once again, click on the picture to see the bigger version):

Very much alike, and yet... not.

(This won't surprise anybody who knows me very well, but really I like the other one better than my mom's. I'm a bright-color person to the core.)

(And... that's funny, I coulda sworn I posted this entry already - but here it is in draft mode. Trying again!)

Mayfest Best of Show - Cathedral Windows

This is not as visually arresting as some Best of Show winners I've seen, but it's beautiful workmanship.

Redwork

I haven't gotten the picture of my mom's bluework quilt from the show online yet, but here's the redwork one which was also entered:



Redwork done by Billie Standley and Gloria Marquis; pieced and quilted by Billie Standley from an Alex Anderson kit.

My mom and her friend Gloria went on a bus trip to New England in 2003, and during the trip they did all this embroidery. I was with her when she bought this kit; it may have been in Brenham earlier that year. This has an extremely light batting in it - we were thinking it might be Thermore.

Quilt shows!

Updated list:
Apr 23-26: AQS Quilt Show & Contest, Paducah, KY
May 1-4: Denver National Quilt Festival, Denver, CO
June 19-21: NQA Quilt Show, Columbus, OH
July 12: Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show, Sisters, OR
July 24-27: Quilt Odyssey, Hershey, PA
July 25-27: International Quilt Festival (new summer edition), Long Beach, CA
Aug 20-23: AQS Quilt Expo, Nashville, TN
Sept 4-7: Pennsylvania National Quilt Extravaganza, Harrisburg, PA
Sept 18-21: World Quilt and Textile on Tour (whatever that is!), Manchester, NH
Oct 8-11: AQS Quilt Expo, Des Moines, IA
Oct 16-19: Pacific International Quilt Festival, Santa Clara, CA
Oct 30-Nov 2: International Quilt Festival, Houston, TX
Nov 13-16: Greater Chicago Quilt Expo, Schaumberg, IL
Jan 15-18, 2009: Road to California, Ontario, CA
Feb 26-Mar 1, 2009: Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival, Hampton, VA
April 2-5, 2009: Quilters' Heritage Celebration, Lancaster, PA

Annnnd I have to pimp my own quilt guild's show: Lakeview Quilters' Guild's Mayfest, which is this weekend in the major metropolitan area of Alvin, Texas (south of Houston). Hours and directions and stuff here. C'mon by, it's usually a very, very good show for its size.

Friday five

(As posted on calicocats)

1. What is your favorite color? I like practically all colors, and the answer to this tends to vary according to when you ask me, but I have been very drawn to green lately. So let's go with green.
2. What is your less favorite color? Beige.
3. What is you favorite color combo? I love blue and green.
4. What is your less favorite color combo? I'm sorry to have to say this, but I loathe red, white and blue unless you vary the colors somewhat.
5. Show us a picture of your favorite colorful quilt (yours or someone's else):
Well, this has to be one of them:

Made by Sonia Brown, who I think may have a book out with this in it.


(I have already caught a bit of flack for saying I didn't like red, white and blue. Maybe "loathe" was a bad word choice! What do y'all think? Am I the only person who has OD'd on red, white and blue?)

Bluework

Detail of bluework quilt, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

My mom's quilt - quilted by Denise Green.

Tulips and Vase

Made by Irene Kahmann; from the exhibit "Hands All Around XXI" at the 2006 Houston International Quilt Festival.

Field of Flowers

Made by Julie Hirota of California; entered in the category Innovative Applique, Small at the 2005 International Quilt Festival.

Fancy Iris

Quilt above made by Doris Teixeira of Brazil; entered in the category Art-Naturescapes at the 2005 International Quilt Festival.

Buttercup

Made by Holly Knott of Marcellus New York; shown in the judged show (category: Art-Pictorial) at the 2006 Houston International Quilt Festival.

Signs

Hmm, well, flickr's "blog this" feature doesn't seem to be working today!! So let's try this manually.



Made by John Flynn. From the 2004 Dallas Quilt Celebration.

Happy green day, or something like that

Here's a couple more quilts with a lot of green in them for your St. Patrick's Day edification:



Quilt above, "Rhubarb", made by by Karen Hampton of Indiana; entered in the category Art-Abstract, Small at the 2005 International Quilt Festival.



Quilt above, "Nebraska's Rising Sun", made by Sandi McMillan and Laura Franchini of Albion, Nebraska; winner of 1st prize in the category Two Person at IQF 2006.

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I went to the one-day version of the quilt retreat a couple of weeks ago - that is, other people stayed longer, but I just went for the one day. I was really glad I went at least for that long, because instead of taking those same blocks I've been stalled on, I took the not-quite-finished quilt of my mother's that I've been meaning to put the binding on for ages. I got that all cut and pressed and sewn on, and now I'm doing the hand-sewing on it, and it should be finished soon. (I'm usually quite good about doing the hand-sewing once I get to that point.) And then I got finished with that around lunchtime, and I spent the rest of the day cutting pink fabric. Remember that pink quilt I've been saying I'm going to make? Well, it's no longer a pile of uncut fabric; now I have a pile of squares instead, which should eventually become a pile of triangles. We'll see how long it takes me to get to that point.

I wish I'd stayed longer at the retreat, really, because a lot of people were there that I hadn't seen in ages and I didn't feel like I got to talk to all of them for very long. (Oh, and also? You ought to see what Cynthia England is working on. It's a long way from being finished, but what she has finished is absolutely gorgeous.)

Ooh, a contest!

Dana of Old Red Barn Co is giving away a quilt. A really cute quilt, too, made with Denyse Schmidt's Katie Jump Rope fabric. You have until Wednesday to enter, I believe, so go put your name in!

Green

It's sort of funny that I'm not a huge fan of St. Patrick's Day, because I love green. Of course the green color associated with St. Patrick's Day is, well, bland - that plain old kelly green, you only ever see that one exact shade, for the most part. Bland and boring. The greens I like are the million variations of nature, sort of like the quilt above.

(Unfinished quilt above made by me and unofficially named "Monochromatic #1" - based on designs in the book "Spectacular Scraps.")


I haven't been doing much quilting lately, partly because I've been spending all my time making jewelry instead. And - surprise! - this has included an awful lot of greens.




(This pair is made with lampworked beads from Erica, incidentally.)

I have a lovely pile of green Czech beads of various shades and finishes - I should take a picture cause they're gorgeous. I just happened to throw a few together and they looked so good I just kept adding more, and the more I added the more beautiful they got. I suspect that that encapsulates my whole attitude toward color, right there.

Fabric rhapsody

Yike! How has it been 10 days since I updated? There has been some actual quilting going on in the interim, too, and clearly I just need to make myself sit down and write about it, don't I?

Well, anyway, that will have to wait a bit (although I promise to work on it today) - meanwhile I just wanted to point out a great sale - Ricky Tims' hand-dyed fabric is half-price - $12.50, for the ones I looked at, instead of $25/yard. And he's changing his formula, not discontinuing the fabric, so we don't even have to be sad about the reason for this! I splurged on a yard of this stuff at full price, back when I took a class from him a few years ago, and it's lovely fabric. So go! shop!

Strata Garden

Strata Garden, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

Quilt above made by Scott Murkin of North Carolina; winner of third prize in the category Mixed Technique in the judged show at the 2007 Houston International Quilt Festival.

The Calico Cat brought home a picture of a (very) different quilt by this same guy from the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Show a couple of weeks ago - this one. Man, oh, man. (I like the one above better, though.)

Breeze from the Stage

Breeze from the Stage, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

Quilt above made by Miwako Miyamoto; from the exhibit "Culture of my Country" at the 2006 Houston International Quilt Festival.

Churn Dash

Maker unknown. But isn't it cute?

Peace

I'm on a green kick!

Quilt above made by Suzanne Marshall; from the Faculty Showcase at the 2006 Houston International Quilt Festival.

Web of Life

Web of Life, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

Made by Ann Horton of California; entered in the judged show (category: Computer-Aided Machine Embroidery) at the 2007 Houston International Quilt Festival.

But Can He Sing?

But Can He Sing?, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

Made by Roberta Williams of Milwaukee; entered in the category Innovative Applique, Large at the 2005 International Quilt Festival.

Journal quilts by Ami Simms - and an interview

From the exhibit "Journal Quilt Project 2006: A Page From My Book" at the 2006 Houston International Quilt Festival.

There's a good interview with Ami Simms up, as part of the Save Our Stories project. It makes me want to make something to send in to Ami's Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative. (Actually, I think I have an idea about something to do for that. More later, if it pans out.)

(I think I've posted this picture before, but it seems to be the only thing of Ami's I have a picture of! Besides, they're related to the AAQI and they're cool.)

Everyday Best

Everyday Best, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

Made by Becky Goldsmith, Sherman, Texas. From IQF 2004.

Becky Goldsmith is one of the Piece O'Cake ladies so I bet this is in a book somewhere.

It's Pink

It's Pink, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

This is a bit blurry but I think you can get the idea.

Quilt above made by Betty Carpenter and Kim Shalom. From the 2004 Dallas Quilt Celebration.

I guess the Dallas quilt show is coming up soon, actually. Anybody going?

Progress report

I haven't gotten too far on this, but I thought I'd post the progress on the sashing. I'm not far from finishing - the third row is partly done, too. I really should get back to it and get it over with. Assembling blocks has never been my favorite part of quilting.


Adding: I also haven't posted a picture of the sewing room, now that it's actually functional (if not exactly beautiful):



That pole sticking up on the right is the Ott-Light that I bought at Office Depot, which I love. It has a very different bulb in it than any other Ott I've ever seen, but it works just fine.

Drink

Drink
Originally uploaded by Mellicious.

Here's a water quilt I don't remember ever featuring before; it was made by Joan Sowada of Wyoming and entered in the category Art-People, Portraits, and Figures at the 2005 International Quilt Festival.

Water Quilt: Reflections

I put up a picture of this quilt before, but that was 18 months ago and I know everybody doesn't look at archives. And it fits with my water theme that I've been doing lately - so what the heck, we'll repeat. Besides, it's a great quilt.

Quilt above made by Cyndy Martin. Shown at Lakeview Quilters Guild's 2006 Mayfest quilt show.


Also, would you believe a hand-pieced Dear Jane? (That link from churlish over at Livejournal.)

I put the next few quilt shows from the list I posted earlier over in the sidebar. Now we'll see if I remember to update it in a couple of weeks!

Oh, and I called my aunt to see if she was interested in going to a show this summer, and she is. (I kinda figured she would be, she likes to travel, in general!) So we are tentatively planning on going to Columbus in June, that being the best compromise of dates and distance, etc, that we could come up with so far. I looked at hotel prices but not plane fares, yet, I hope they're not too high.

Upcoming quilt shows

This is an expanded (but not necessarily complete) edition of what I started in the last entry: "major" US quilt shows in the next year:

Feb 21-24: Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival, Hampton, VA
Feb 28-Mar 2: Quilt Festival of New Jersey, Somerset, NJ
Mar 27-30: Quilters' Heritage Celebration, Lancaster, PA
Apr 11-13: International Quilt Festival-Chicago, Rosemont, IL
Apr 23-26: AQS Quilt Show & Contest, Paducah, KY
May 1-4: Denver National Quilt Festival, Denver, CO
June 19-21: NQA Quilt Show, Columbus, OH
July 12: Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show, Sisters, OR
July 24-27: Quilt Odyssey, Hershey, PA
July 25-27: International Quilt Festival (new summer edition), Long Beach, CA
Aug 20-23: AQS Quilt Expo, Nashville, TN
Sept 4-7: Pennsylvania National Quilt Extravaganza, Harrisburg, PA
Sept 18-21: World Quilt and Textile on Tour (whatever that is!), Manchester, NH
Oct 8-11: AQS Quilt Expo, Des Moines, IA
Oct 16-19: Pacific International Quilt Festival, Santa Clara, CA
Oct 30-Nov 2: International Quilt Festival, Houston, TX
Nov 13-16: Greater Chicago Quilt Expo, Schaumberg, IL
Jan 15-18, 2009: Road to California, Ontario, CA

I didn't link these individually, but here are the links: Quilts Inc (which is IQF), AQS, NQA, Quilt Odyssey, QHC, road2ca, Sisters, and QuiltFest for the rest.

(I'm sure I've missed some things and I will gladly take suggestions - but please don't everybody send me the dates for their local quilt show, or this will get out of hand fast!)

Seagrapes - and quilt shows

"Seagrapes" (above) made by Sarah Louise McClean of Fort Lauderdale; entered in the judged show (category: Art-Naturescapes) at the 2007 Houston International Quilt Festival.


I was thinking about making a list of upcoming big quilt shows, and I haven't really gotten very far yet (and you don't know with me whether I ever will!), but FYI, here's the ones for this year from the quiltfest.com people:

Feb 21-24: Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival, Hampton, Virginia
Feb 28-Mar 2: Quilt Festival of New Jersey, Somerset, NJ
May 1-4: Denver National Quilt Festival, Denver, CO
Sept 4-7: Pennsylvania National Quilt Extravaganza, Harrisburg, PA
Sept 18-21: World Quilt and Textile on Tour, Manchester, NH
Oct 16-19: Pacific International Quilt Festival, Santa Clara, CA
Nov 13-16: Greater Chicago Quilt Expo, Schaumberg, IL

I seem to have the jones to go to a quilt show. I actually went so far as to look up how much the fare would be to fly to Norfolk on the 22nd. (The cheapest on Southwest was $357 round-trip, which isn't TOO too horrible, but I'm not sure how my husband would react if I decided just to fly halfway across the country all suddenly like that!) What I think I'd really like to do is to plan something for this summer. Then I'm like, do I want to ask my aunt to come with me? Do I want to go by myself? I don't really mind doing stuff like that by myself. Sometimes it's easier - you can just do what you want to do and not worry about pleasing anybody else, you know?

Anyway, that decision can come later, if I ever even get that far. I came up with summer because we're going to Ohio in April already and I don't want to schedule myself too heavily. What quilt shows are in the summer? I know Columbus is, but my mother-in-law would kill me if I came to Columbus and didn't go see her. What else? Sisters, but that would be awfully expensive. And I guess there's that new Quilts Inc one in California, too. Is there anything else I'm forgetting? (Is there someplace where there's already a calendar?) I may have to do some more research!

Vacation

Continuing with the water theme. (I can go on a good while with this by the way, I have quite a few even if I limit myself to ones I haven't shown here before!)

Quilt above made by Keiko Kitamura of Hyogo-Ken, Japan; shown in the judged show (category: Art-Pictorial) at the 2006 Houston International Quilt Festival.

Wading in Water

Wading in Water, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

Made by Marsha Hennigan. Shown at Lakeview Quilters Guild's Mayfest quilt show, 2006.

Leaving Ireland

Another very nice quilt of the watery persuasion.

Quilt above made by Robin Haller of Carbondale, Illinois; shown in the judged show (category: Art-Naturescapes) at the 2006 Houston International Quilt Festival.


(This picture won't be back, since this is one of the ladies who felt that their copyright had been violated. However, she was very nice about it - unlike some others. I really liked this quilt, though, and I'm sorry you can't see it too.)

Transformation

I know some people are getting more winter weather than they'd like - even here on the South Coast it's pretty darn chilly - but just the same, here is a nice winter landscape to admire.

Quilt above made by Pamela Druhen of Vermont; entered in the judged show (category: Art-Naturescapes) at the 2007 Houston International Quilt Festival.


(Hmm, I seem to have unconsciously had a water theme going the last few days, so maybe I'll continue with that!)

View from House Rock

Quilt above made by Sue Reno; from the exhibit "Small Wonders VIII" at the 2006 Houston International Quilt Festival. (I had a note on flickr that there was an article about Sue Reno in the September Quilter's Newsletter - I'm guessing that probably means September 2006, but I can't swear to that.)

River Walk

This is a test to see if you've ever been to San Antonio - if you have, you probably don't need to ask where this is!

Quilt above made by Nancy Sterett Martin of Kentucky; entered in the judged show (category: Art-Pictorial) at the 2007 Houston International Quilt Festival.

Owatatsumi (and friends)

Owatatsumi, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

I love Japanese woodcuts, so naturally when I see quilts made using those kind of designs I gravitate towards them - like a bee to honey and all that. :)

Quilt above made by Marie Karickhoff of Michigan; entered in the judged show (category: Art-Naturescapes) at the 2007 Houston International Quilt Festival.

This quilt with the same design source was at IQF way back about 2002. I don't know the quilter's name, but clearly it is made a bit differently than the other one. They are both lovely, though. (It's only the picture quality that is lacking in this one!)

Cosmati Stars

Cosmati Stars, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

I am not by nature a maker of extremely complicated things, and thus I have trouble understanding the psyche of people who make things like this quilt. However, there's no denying that the results, in this case, are really nice!

Quilt above made by Judy Mathieson of California; winner of second prize in the category Innovative Pieced, Large in the judged show at the 2007 Houston International Quilt Festival.

Star swap blocks

This is what I've been working on - this picture was taken a week or so ago when I started auditioning sashing fabrics. I posted this on the calicocats LJ group asking for opinions on the two sashing fabrics I was thinking of using. They mostly said, use the cranberry (the slightly darker one) - but the fact was that I didn't have enough of the cranberry to do the whole thing anyway, so I ended up using the more pink one between the blocks and the cranberry on the outside. I did go to Quilts by the Bay and look, first, and they didn't have anything that would do, and I didn't want to wait to get anything from elsewhere, so I went with what I had. The pink(ish) one is the one I really intended to use in the first place, and obviously I spent some time second-guessing myself, but I think it's going to work fine after all.

Swap blocks made by members of Lakeview Quilters Guild, 2006. (There are three more blocks besides these, and they are destined to become a table runner.)

Angels Watching Over Me

Quilt above made by Billie Standley, from a block of the month by Sue Garman. Shown at Lakeview Quilters Guild's Mayfest quilt show.


I'm never quite sure exactly how all the membership stuff works with The Quilt Show, but if you are a "star member" you can get a free block of the month (no, not the one above; it's a new one) from Sue Garman. If you do applique, it's definitely worth taking a look at - it's very pretty. I was amused by this blog post where they were amazed at how quick Sue got her sample done, because I know Sue in real life, and believe me, that's just how she is. She's possibly the most driven person I know, and that's saying something. But that's probably a good quality in a pattern designer! and her designs are beautiful. (In case you can't get to those posts on Ricky and Alex's site, there's also a picture of the quilt here.)


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Sometimes I have to show you interesting crafty things even if they're not quilts, and here's a rather unusual example: a knitted dissected frog (from Boing Boing, of all places).

And on a different note - if you're into sewing clothes, Pattern Review has 2007's Best Patterns.

Papillon

I've been looking at my "interesting" page again, and obviously flickr does not equate interestingness with page hits, because the picture with the most hits - this one - is several pages in. This is a really lovely piece and everything - it's one of my favorites, really - but that still doesn't tell me where all those hits are coming from. I'm curious, and so far flickr is not giving me the answer, darnit. It's a mystery.

Mini-quilt above by Billie Standley; based on a Dierdra McElroy pattern. (Scroll down on that page and you'll see a picture of the pattern.)

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And in unrelated quilty news... my sewing room is taking shape, at least a little bit, and there has been ironing and cutting of fabric taking place there, and I made a visit to Office Depot earlier and now there is a new lamp in it, because it was way too dark in there. There's no overhead light, and I had a couple of lamps (and my mom's small Ott-Light) but it wasn't nearly enough. The new lamp is only 18 watts, but it puts out quite a lot more light than the 13-watt Ott lamp does. I put a better bulb in one of the other lamps, too, and between the two it doesn't look so gloomy in there any more. (Oh, and it was $20 cheaper than on the website, too - I wanted instant gratification and so I didn't figure I was getting the lowest price in the world but it's sort of nice to know it could've been worse!) (And who knew that Office Depot sold Ott Lights, anyway?)

Thread

Lots of thread, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

Rayon on the right, cotton on the left!

Organizing time

Between unpacking and then the holidays, and then Vegas and then the flu, I never have gotten around to doing much with the sewing room, much less actually sewing. But I've finally started feeling better this week, and it seems to be time. So I'm organizing - first thread, a whole drawer-ful of it, and now I'm working on the fabric I brought home from Mama's house. There's a lot of that, too, and I only brought home a fraction of it, at that. I'm making piles, by color, and then I'll have to merge it with the fabric I already had. It's messy enough in there already, and it's probably going to get even more messy before it gets better!

There was a lot of rayon thread - especially Robison-Anton, on those big bulky spools - and a few spools of silk, and two spools of invisible thread, which I'm sure I will never use but I hate to throw away, and then a whole rainbow of cotton - mostly Mettler. You can tell the colors Mama liked - there's a lot of green and gold, and then a lot of pastels - pink and purple, especially. And luckily a lot of beige - I really like to use neutrals for most of my piecing, anyway. Well, I sure won't need to buy thread any time soon!

Mosaics and other linky things

Pat Durbin, who makes those great mosaic quilts like the one above, has a book out: Mosaic Picture Quilts: Turn Favorite Photos into Stunning Quilts. I haven't had a chance to check the book out in person yet, but if she can show how she does her quilts, then it sounds like a great idea to me.




Also, here's Martingale's new release page - several of those sound interesting!


Upcoming quilt shows (I always wish I could go to more of these, but my travel budget is limited, and I think what with the trip to Vegas it's pretty much gone for a while.)


There's another Fab Shop Hop going on, which is a good thing - except they send out these weekly newsletters that annoy me. "Don't you just hate it when a friend tells you the ending to a movie you haven't seen yet?" they say. Yeah, like telling where the bunny is is the same as spoiling a book or a movie! It's enough to make me want to post a list of bunny locations. (Don't worry, I won't. I may be rebellious, but I'm also lazy.)

Little Flower Urchins

Another quilt that I remembered the existence of because somebody marked it as a favorite. I think this is as good a use as any of last year's Hoffman Challenge fabric, which I wasn't crazy about. (Next year's looks a bit more promising.) (And I don't mean to imply by that that I don't like this quilt, I do! It looks like something my mother might've made, actually, if she'd taken up crazy quilting. And that's a compliment.)

Quilt above made by Debra Spincic of Montgomery, Texas; from the Hoffman Challenge exhibit at the 2007 Houston International Quilt Festival.

Kwanzaa Glow

Kwanzaa Glow, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

So I was out of town, and then I came home from Vegas and promptly got sick, so I have fallen down on the job, rather. But here is a Kwanzaa quilt! (Although I frankly thought it was a Hannukah quilt when I saw it.)

Quilt above made by Kit Tossmann of Kentucky; from the exhibit "Sacred Threads" at the 2007 Houston International Quilt Festival.