quilts galore

Texture Magic

2010-09-27T00:22:00.000-05:00

Once again, this may be something that's not new to all you active quilters, but I hadn't seen it before: Superior's Texture Magic. I've mislaid the original link I got there from, but what it is is a lining-type fabric that shrinks 20-30% when you steam it, so that if it's sewn to a regular fabric before it's steamed, the regular fabric has to scrunch up when the Texture Magic shrinks. Does that make sense? If not, watch the videos on Superior's website and all will become clear. (Try video #3 to start with, because that's the one where you first see the finished effect.) It looks really cool. Apparently you can use it with or without batting and you get really nice results either way.

Quiltless 2010 (more or less)

2010-09-22T00:41:00.003-05:00

Hi there, I'm alive, and this is my more-or-less annual entry! I might even manage more than that, you never know. I've been evincing some more-than-sporadic interest in quilting recently, although I haven't actually gotten the sewing machine out or anything, so far. (I have gone so far as to contemplate how I would go about doing that - our second bedroom is still an ungodly mess. We'll see.)

I did go to a quilt show with my aunt weekend before last - it was a new show put on by the Coastal Prairie Quilt Guild, and it was very nice, especially when you consider that they hadn't done one before. The show was in Stafford, on the southwest side of Houston, and I got the impression that their meetings are also in that area, although I don't see confirmation of that on the website offhand. Anyway, good job!

And then on a whim I re-subscribed to The Quilt Show, so see, I am all awash in quilt things lately. I have watched exactly half of one episode so far, which featured Camille Roskelley, who has a book coming out soon. (Simplify with Camille Roskelley: Quilts for the Modern Home (Stash Books)) I liked her quilts; they are fairly traditional, with sort of a modern twist to them. Apparently she also designs a line of fabric (with her mother) for Moda, which is Bonnie & Camille. You guys may know all about these people by now, but they were new to me, anyway - I am very behind on the trends. I am still planning on going to the Houston festival next month so I will have to try to catch up!

Dying with the most toys

2009-11-12T22:17:00.003-06:00

I did a post on the jewelry blog that's at least as much about quilts as it is jewelry. Over here.

(Locking comments for this because it's been attracting a large amount of spam and I'm tired of deleting it!)

FYI

2009-11-04T16:11:00.003-06:00

I seem to have abandoned quilts in favor of jewelry, at least temporarily, and in case you're interested, I am blogging doggedly away over here. (I just threw in a quilt picture the other day, though - you know I can't resist for long.)

I did go to the quilt show, but predictably, all I bought was beads. I did look around at the quilts - I was most interested in the Tolkien quilt, which can be seen on the winners page. I also got a parking ticket, which may be why I am a bit grumpy about the whole subject!

I started updating the list of quilt shows while I'm here, but if it doesn't say "2010" on the date don't depend on it. I'm glad to see Houston is back to its proper place in early November next year. October 15th just didn't feel right!

Blog(spot)roll

2009-04-07T16:22:00.005-05:00

I would like to fuss at people for not putting one of those kewl "Follower" widgets on their Blogspot pages, because I've just been adding people like crazy and it does make it easier - except I don't have one either. I added it and then I took it off again, because I have exactly one follower and it looked silly. Of course it makes sense that I have no (well, few) followers since I am not really updating these days! Anyway, if you happen to have wandered over here, you might take a look at my profile and you can hopefully see the whole ton of people I'm following. I went through my delicious craft-blogger list and added everybody with a Blogspot blog who seemed to be blogging at all these days - and an amazing number of them are, considering some of them have been on that list for close to five years, I think. That's aeons in internet time!

Belated quilt show report

2008-12-15T16:32:00.003-06:00

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.

2008-12-15T14:41:00.001-06:00

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

2008-05-11T20:57:00.002-05:00

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

2008-04-28T23:15:00.004-05:00

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

2008-04-27T01:00:00.003-05:00

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

Redwork

2008-04-24T23:04:00.006-05:00

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!

2008-04-21T20:54:00.002-05:00

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

2008-04-18T19:11:00.004-05:00

(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

2008-04-11T14:07:00.002-05:00

Detail of bluework quilt, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

My mom's quilt - quilted by Denise Green.

Tulips and Vase

2008-04-07T18:21:00.003-05:00

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

Field of Flowers

2008-03-31T06:42:00.001-05:00

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

Fancy Iris

2008-03-26T20:17:00.001-05:00

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

Buttercup

2008-03-18T21:46:00.003-05:00

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

Signs

2008-03-18T21:45:00.003-05:00

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

2008-03-17T18:40:00.001-05:00

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.

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

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!

2008-03-17T07:11:00.000-05:00

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

2008-03-15T16:53:00.001-05:00

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

2008-03-13T15:23:00.003-05:00

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

2008-03-03T22:01:00.002-06:00

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

2008-03-03T17:44:00.002-06:00

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

2008-03-03T10:13:00.001-06:00

Maker unknown. But isn't it cute?

Peace

2008-02-29T07:07:00.001-06:00

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

2008-02-27T21:19:00.002-06:00

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?

2008-02-27T05:50:00.002-06:00

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

2008-02-20T16:55:00.003-06:00

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

2008-02-18T10:51:00.002-06:00

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

2008-02-18T10:47:00.002-06:00

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

2008-02-14T15:47:00.003-06:00

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

2008-02-11T23:33:00.000-06:00

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

2008-02-07T20:24:00.000-06:00

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

2008-02-06T23:29:00.000-06:00

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

2008-02-05T21:47:00.000-06:00

"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

2008-02-03T22:47:00.000-06:00

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

2008-02-02T14:57:00.001-06:00

Wading in Water, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

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

Leaving Ireland

2008-01-31T22:27:00.001-06:00

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

2008-01-30T23:01:00.000-06:00

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

2008-01-29T20:05:00.000-06:00

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

2008-01-28T20:10:00.000-06:00

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)

2008-01-24T22:49:00.001-06:00

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

2008-01-23T21:48:00.001-06:00

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

2008-01-19T11:21:00.000-06:00

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

2008-01-16T20:39:00.000-06:00

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

2008-01-14T20:52:00.000-06:00

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.)

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

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

2008-01-13T17:11:00.001-06:00

Lots of thread, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

Rayon on the right, cotton on the left!

Organizing time

2008-01-11T23:45:00.000-06:00

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

2008-01-10T21:59:00.000-06:00

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

2008-01-08T21:28:00.000-06:00

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

2008-01-02T15:09:00.001-06:00

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.

Christmas Past

2007-12-23T00:32:00.001-06:00

Unknown IQF quilt, 2003, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

I found another holiday-ish quilt that I don't think I've posted before, so here it is. Maker unknown, from IQF 2003. Probably based on a Currier and Ives print. (And that's not the name of it, in the title. I just made that up because that's what it looked like to me!)

A Quilter's Tree

2007-12-22T22:30:00.001-06:00

A Quilter's Tree (detail), originally uploaded by Mellicious.

I don't think I have any new pictures of Christmas quilts, but here's one that seems sort of seasonal. I like it a lot, actually!

I have not been very good about posting in December, after my big flurry in November - and now I am off to do family things and then we are going to Las Vegas for a few days! So don't expect to hear from me for a week or so. Happy holidays, everybody!!

Quilt above made by Michiyo Kato of Aichi, Japan; shown in the judged show (category: Handmade) at the 2006 Houston International Quilt Festival.

Unknown ninepatch variation

2007-12-18T20:35:00.001-06:00

ninepatch variation, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

From the Sisters quilt show, 2001.

(I put this up on flickr yesterday and then forgot about it, but it's getting rave reviews from the commenters over there. I do like this pattern - wonder how it would look with a black background?)

People say they've seen this pattern before - anybody know the name of it offhand?

Tepee Dreams of Buffalo Wings?

2007-12-13T21:55:00.000-06:00

Unknown (but possibly very oddly-titled) quilt from Sisters 2001.

WoW

2007-12-06T22:18:00.001-06:00

WoW, originally uploaded by blp1979.

A friend of mine asked (jokingly) if I'd ever considered making a GuildWars quilt. Actually - and a bit surprisingly, really - it had never occurred to me. Then I started wondering if anybody else had. And I'm still wondering - but I did find this World of Warcraft quilt!

I also tried searching "wow quilt" but that got me lots of things that didn't have to do with the game. This is not what I was looking for, but wow, yes!

I found a few other things involving games:
Hex quilt (some sort of table game, I think?)
Q-bert!
a Mario Brother
and another one

And also these:
Scrabble
I think Megaman is a TV show or something, not a game, isn't he?
sort of generally game-like, at least (but cool, whatever it is)
hey, baseball!

There were a couple of chess and checkers quilts, too, but that wasn't the kind of game I had in mind, so I skipped them. You'll have to do your own flickr search if you want to see them!

Shhh...

2007-12-05T22:47:00.001-06:00

Daddy's Shirts, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

If you know my cousins and you're reading this, don't tell them about any of this, because one of them is getting this quilt for Christmas!! (I don't have any reason to think she reads here, but her mother might.) I have been looking for this quilt ever since Mama died, and and I finally found it, in the very very back of the last closet I emptied - behind the ski boots and the bad oil painting, in a paper bag underneath a quilt I really dislike. Mama hid it well, although I doubt that she did it on purpose. I didn't even look in the bag at first, because what was on top was so unprepossessing.

Anyway, this is a quilt made over 10 years ago, shortly after my grandfather died, out of fabric cut from several of his shirts. There is one of my cousins in particular who I know would treasure this, so she's the one who's getting it. Anybody else who thinks they know who I'm talking about, just hush up til Christmas, ok?

Quilt made by Billie Standley, in memory of her father, W.C. Novosad.

Shop Hop

2007-12-03T22:05:00.000-06:00

I found a list written on what looks like a piece of calculator tape - I think it's a list of what I bought at a Shop Hop past. I think from the items that it was around 2001 or 2002. It's very detailed!

Painted Pony
Pigma pen
1 yard teal & brown 18th c. repro
4 fat quarters - brown, pale blue & white, pink swirl, red butterfly
$18.12

It's a Stitch
6 FQ - juvenile brights and pink-red
14.61

Plain & Fancy
set of 1/2 yards
27.50 for 15 pc

Front Porch
1.75 red "toile" - end of bolt
4 FQ - 2 reds, green leaf, black
magazine

freebies:
Juliene's - FQ
PP - needle case kit
IS - patchwork heart
PF - big spool of thread
FP - birdhouse pattern

The funny thing is that I remember what several of these fabrics are. That teal and brown one, especially. And the red toile. I think there are still pieces of both of those floating around. And the 1/2 yards are on the back of the triple four-patch, I think.

Renaissance Revival

2007-12-02T21:57:00.001-06:00

Renaissance Revival - detail, originally uploaded by Mellicious.

I had dinner with Anjea last night, and in the course of conversation this quilt came up. I had practically forgotten about it (I said, "Oh, yeah, the one that looked like a tapestry!"), but I always did like it a lot, myself. (Here's the whole thing.)

"Renaissance Revival" (above) made by Mariya Waters of Melbourne, Australia; winner of a Founder's Award (along with a $7500 prize!) at the 2007 Houston International Quilt Festival.

2007-11-30T09:04:00.000-06:00

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

2007-11-30T00:05:00.001-06:00

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

2007-11-29T23:56:00.000-06:00

"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

2007-11-28T06:45:00.000-06:00

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.

2007-11-27T17:17:00.000-06:00

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

2007-11-26T23:16:00.001-06:00

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

2007-11-25T21:27:00.000-06:00

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

2007-11-24T18:30:00.000-06:00

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.

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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

2007-11-23T20:54:00.000-06:00

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

2007-11-22T22:46:00.001-06:00

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?

2007-11-21T18:01:00.000-06:00

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

2007-11-20T20:48:00.000-06:00

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

2007-11-19T07:09:00.000-06:00

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

2007-11-18T19:53:00.001-06:00

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

2007-11-17T23:47:00.001-06:00

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

2007-11-16T16:27:00.000-06:00

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?

2007-11-15T21:13:00.000-06:00

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

2007-11-15T11:52:00.000-06:00

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

2007-11-14T06:51:00.000-06:00

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

2007-11-13T22:11:00.000-06:00

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

2007-11-12T20:24:00.000-06:00

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

2007-11-11T23:36:00.000-06:00

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

2007-11-10T17:34:00.000-06:00

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

2007-11-09T23:55:00.000-06:00

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

2007-11-08T20:35:00.000-06:00

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

2007-11-07T07:14:00.000-06:00

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

2007-11-06T21:46:00.001-06:00

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

2007-11-06T09:30:00.001-06:00

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

2007-11-05T16:04:00.001-06:00

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

2007-11-04T17:57:00.000-06:00

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

2007-11-03T09:38:00.000-05:00

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

2007-11-02T06:42:00.000-05:00

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

2007-11-01T19:08:00.000-05:00

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!)

The fabled sewing room

2007-10-27T15:08:00.001-05:00

So, there is a room with a sewing machine in it, and a whole lot of fabric and other related items in it. Unfortunately, it also has boxes and boxes of other stuff in it, too. Sorting it all out is going to take a while.

Here it is on Tuesday, the day after the move.

Here's the sewing machine (although I have to admit that it's not actually plugged in yet):

It was my mom's - I think it's a Janome MemoryCraft 4800.

What you can't see in that picture is the rest of the mess on the table:

It could be worse, I guess - but I still haven't figured out what I'm going to do with all those big flat boxes. The movers did a really good job with all this stuff - what they did was wrap the particleboard furniture in big pieces of plastic - you can see some of it around the little cabinet at the bottom. (It was full of thread and things, too, so it's good that they wrapped it up tight!)

Autumn Reflections

2007-10-23T21:23:00.000-05:00

Quilt above made by Bonnie Borer of Thompson, Ohio, and shown in the judged show (category: Art-Naturescapes) at the 2006 Houston International Quilt Festival.

Fall is my favorite time of year - and it finally feels like fall, even down here on the Gulf. So hooray for that! (And hooray for my sewing room! I will have to post pictures, even if it is still a big mess!)

IQF ribbon winner: Hoffman Challenge

2007-10-18T22:44:00.000-05:00

The quilt above is "Happiness-Peace-Love" made by Janet Henshaw; winner of 1st prize in the Hoffman Challenge at the 2006 Houston International Quilt Festival.

I am moving this weekend, so don't expect to hear much from me for the next few days. But hey, after that, it's almost time for Quilt Festival!!

New pictures, and another version of the list

2007-10-16T20:00:00.000-05:00

I scanned a few more pictures. The one below is by Moira Farah.

Quilt Pink quilts (although they may be from before they started using that term) from IQF, year unknown:

I forgot to mention another thing that I bought, except I ordered it online and it hasn't come yet that I know of: the Sidewinder Bobbin Winder. I noticed when I was in the store the other day that they seemed to be mailing them out, so it may be sitting in my apartment office waiting for me. I will have to try it out when I get it, and report back.

Updated project list

I took the project list I had made before and broke it down by where the quilts are in the process. It's less depressing than just having one tremendously long list!

(A lot of the comments on the different projects have changed, while I was thinking this out. And see the entry below for pictures of some of this stuff, if you didn't look before.)

Just need quilting/binding:
- community service quilt (almost done, even the binding is done)
- green triangle quilt (I'm thinking this may grandly be called "Monochromatic #1", and the beginnings of #2 are down below.)
-- Added (I remembered more stuff, I knew I would): bindings for two of Mom's quilts, otherwise finished. One was intended for me and one for my sister. I probably ought to try to do the one for my sister right away, so I can give it to her at Christmas.

Blocks done, just needs assembling/finishing
- Quiltmaker's puzzle (swap blocks in fall colors)
- Christmas swap lap quilt - 9 blocks
- Christmas swap table runner

Blocks done, but I don't know quite what I'm doing with them!
- Poetry wallhanging - I have a lot of triangle blocks and fabric for sashing; now I just have to figure out how I'm arranging them!
- Cuppaz wallhanging- I have 20-odd blocks, I think
- Crazy quilt wallhanging - 3 blocks (I seem to have played out on making these, so I'm thinking of just setting the three blocks I have vertically, otherwise it may never get done)

Still in the piecing stage:
- Ohio star sampler - 8 of 12 blocks done
- Indigo log cabin - number of blocks still undetermined!
- Frank Lloyd Wright quilt - my oldest UFO - I need to figure out if I even have enough stuff to finish it as is, or if I need to buy more

Projects that haven't been started (but have materials):
- Tutti Frutti quilt (from a kit that was given to me)
- t-shirt quilt for my husband - I have a pile of his old running t-shirts, and there are many, many of them - I need to start putting stabilizer behind the designs and cutting them up, and then see where this stands
- "the pink quilt" - currently just a LARGE pile of pink fabric, but I'm thinking this may be end up being "Monochromatic #2" since I seem to be drawn to the one-color idea
- Dia de los Muertos quilt - a lot of embellishments, some fabric and some ideas, still rather vague

Also, decide what to do with...
- Mom's few UFOs - (1) grandmother's flower garden, (2) bright Friendship Bee blocks - that's all I can think of, at least (and I will have to take pictures of these and get some ideas from you guys!)
- mystery quilt top from my grandmother's house
- leftover green squares from triangle quilt - I have lots of these! And also some HSTs. I feel like I ought to do something useful with them. Maybe community service quilts. I suppose I could do a Monochromatic #3!

Actually I have way too much fabric, period. I need to be making many, many community service quilts.

(Re: the Day of the Dead quilt - I think where I need to start is with the pictures. My mother had put a couple of pictures of my grandparents on fabric, I need to get more pictures and figure out from there where I'm going with it.)

Purchases and projects

2007-10-12T19:38:00.000-05:00

I went to Quilts by the Bay yesterday to get quilt show tickets and I escaped with only one piece of fabric - which is pretty amazing, really! - but I did get two books, since they had a bunch of That Patchwork Place books on a buy one, get one free sale. I only spent $40 altogether, which is cheap just for the two books, don't you think? Much less with a piece of fabric and a quilt show ticket, besides. The books I got were these: The Border Workbook: Easy Speed-Pieced & Foundation-Pieced Borders and Spellbinding Quilts: Wizards, Witches And Magical Characters. We'll see if I ever get around to using them; it's not like I really need any more projects. But I am always saying I am going to start putting more elaborate borders on some of my quilts - mine tend to be very basic - and heck, who knows when you're going to need a paper-pieced dragon? (That book in particular, I have been admiring for some time now.)

(More entry after the pictures!)

Speaking of projects... Now that I'm going to be able to quilt again in the foreseeable future, I've been assembling a list of the projects I already have going. I posted it over at Livejournal, and I don't mind sharing it with you guys too. (Although it's gotten kinda scarily long - and in fact has grown longer just since this morning!)

In no particular order:
1. unfinished community service quilt (just needs the quilting finished, and it's ready to go)
2. green triangle quilt - needs pinning and quilting
3. Ohio star sampler - 8 of 12 blocks done
4. Tutti Frutti quilt (from a kit that was given to me - good baby quilt)
5. and 6. Two, count 'em, two sets of swap blocks - need to be assembled and quilted (here's one of them - the other is fall colors) (and hmm, I suppose this really ought to be 5, 6 AND 7, since as you can see in the picture, I am intending to make two projects out of that one - but I'm not renumbering again, anyway!)
7. Poetry wallhanging I think the blocks are finished. The setting in that picture is probably not what I'm going to use, that was just how I was sticking them up on the wall as I went.
8. Indigo log cabin
9. The fabled pink quilt, which is only a pile of fabric right now - enough fabric for several quilts, actually. I think I may start out with triangles again on this one, and go from there. This pile of fabric probably has some Quilt Pink blocks in its future, too, although that's not what started it!
10. t-shirt quilt - also just a pile right now, so I need to start cutting the shirts apart and putting stabilizer on them, and then see where it stands
11. Frank Lloyd Wright wallhanging - my very oldest UFO

Also, decide what to do with...
- Mom's few UFOs - she only had a couple (she was big on finishing things)
- quilt top from my grandmother's house (I bet my grandmother didn't make it, but I have no idea who did!)
- Cuppaz blocks - I think I still have 20 or so, and I need to make something with the remaining ones
- crazy quilt blocks - I have 3, maybe make a 4th and then finish? or make a table runner or wallhanging with the 3?
- leftover green squares from triangle quilt - I have lots of these! And also some HSTs.

Quilting space

2007-10-10T18:22:00.000-05:00

So I have been seeing this book around, but it looked like it was intended for people who could afford all those expensive built-in fixtures.

(In case the fancy link-with-picture up there doesn't work for you, what I'm talking about is this: Creating Your Perfect Quilting Space: Sewing-Room Makeovers for Any Space And Any Budget)

But then again, it says right there on the cover that it's for all budgets. So which is it? Has somebody looked at this book? Is it any good to someone who's not about to go spend a lot more on the sewing room? My husband was none too happy with me about buying 2 $100 bookcases, so clearly the budget is pretty seriously limited for my sewing room. I do have a couple of good pieces of furniture that I'm starting out with, anyway. I don't actually need to be buying a lot of expensive stuff.

I mentioned this on a Livejournal list earlier today, but just in case: there are - or were - apparently at least a few rooms available at the convention center Hilton (the Hilton Americas, it's called) in Houston for at least some of the dates of the Quilt Festival. If you're in the market for such a thing, it might be worth checking out. I had booked a room at the Four Seasons and I switched over - much as I love the Four Seasons, the Hilton is slightly cheaper, much closer and very nearly as nice.