Thanksgiving quilts 2014

So I save patterns. I have patterns from the 1960s. Some I keep because I want to make it some day. Some I keep because they give me inspiration to do something like it. Some I keep because they teach me color management, which I am not very good at.

One day about a month ago I got out a bunch of my pattern boxes and started going through them just to remind me what I have saved. I found a Fons and Porter's Quilting Celebrations magazine from September 2013. It had several fall patterns I liked. There is one called Thanks. It is a round pattern that can be used as a table topper or a wall hanging. I decided I had to make one. I started drawing the pattern onto fusible web and thought, "I'll make three." So I drew out enough for three. I found fabric I liked. I did not have enough of any one fabric to do all three, so they have different fabrics for everything except the pears and the pumpkin.

I just finished putting the binding on the last one today. I put them next to each other on the floor and was trying to decide which one I was going to keep and which one I would send to my sister and the last would go to my mother. Hmmm. Hard decision. Each one has something I like better than the other two. Each one has something I did wrong but didn't on the other two. Hmmm. Not sure.

Which one would you keep?

Number 1:

Number 2:

 Number 3:

Yeah. Maybe I should just keep all three. No. No. That would be redundant. Help me choose. Send me an e-mail at contact@BeehiveQuilts.com or comment below. I will post which one I kept in a few days.

Keep on Quilting

River City Quilt Guild Show November 2014

I am a member of the River City Quilt Guild. Each year we put on a fantastic quilt show on the second weekend in November. We are just finishing up the run today. It is a three day event open to the public. Judging of quilts is on Wednesday. Set up is on Thursday. The show is Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It is amazing to be part of this show and see all it takes to put it on and have it be so successful. I used to go to shows and just enjoy what is on display there. Now I am so much more appreciative of all the hard work. It is appreciated to all guilds and there shows, not just River City's.

There were over 200 quilts on display at that show and numerous vendors there, too. The quilts this year seemed to take on a more artistic side. I love traditional quilts, but I truly appreciate all the work that is involved in doing the art quilts. I took a few pictures of what was displayed. I hope you enjoy looking at them.

Día de Las Muertas - Day of the Dead.

Always have to include a Halloween. This is one I would make but it would probably take me 15 years to complete. There are a lot of small pieces that were needle turn appliqued here. Love it.

I love hats. I love this quilt.

Unbelievable.

This is a small wall hanging but it is stunning. It is covered with embellishments of buttons, ribbons and shiny objects. I took a close up in hopes you could see some of what is there.  See below.         

 

These are five quilts made by five different people. Below is a picture of the explanation of the quilts. Very unique. They could be hung alone and be stunning, but they really need each other to tell the whole story.

Another Halloween inspired quilt. Sorry the picture is a little fuzzy. I was taking the pictures in between people trying to get up close to it. I really like this quilt.

Cats! Need I say more?

This is one of the featured artist's quilts. I just love the yellow background. And look at that border. I think the unique border is what makes this quilt.

Another of the featured quilter.

I took this picture as a close up to a quilt that had a bunch of 3D effects to it. I failed to take a picture of the quilt itself, I guess. I need to do more 3D embellishment on my quilts. I really like the effect it gives to a quilt.

Love all this but especially the snowman in the middle.

Pelican. Love him.

Very small quilt with very small embroidery. I love to do embroidery and have a lot of respect for this work.

This is a tiny quilt (around 24" square). Imagine how small that piecing is!

Another small quilt - 17" square. It has a lot of embellishment on it to make it look like a true night scape. Very nicely done.

This is a close up of the quilt below. All those white "squares" are individually cut and sewn onto to the background fabric. The background fabric has a little puffiness to it which gives the quilt some dimension. I like the overall effect this process gives the quilt.

This is a very large quilt. Look at the border! Just magnificent.

Pretty wall hanging. The geraniums are 3D. Pretty cool.

Very watery or fluid looking quilt.

This is a quilt that was made from blocks in a winter themed block exchange. I was involved in this exchange but have not finished my version of the quilt yet. I love how this was put together with the piano key inner border that brings the colors together. FYI the snowman and the sled are blocks I contributed to it. All so pretty.

I really love lighthouses, so this quilt grabbed me right away. I especially love it because the quilter added dimension to it by adding netting for the waves. Good job. See up close picture below.

Love the colors in this quilt and that border is divine.

Very nice quilters. I cannot even say ladies, because our guild has several men participating in it. So just a good job to all. Maybe I will even enter one of my quilts next year. We will see.

Keep on Quilting

Quilt store visit in Placerville and Auburn California

My friend, Venita, and I went for a two shop visit a couple of weeks ago. We had a great time. We started out early and hungry. Venita had researched where the best place for breakfast/lunch was in Placerville and came up with a delightful restaurant called Sweetie Pies in downtown Placerville.It is housed in an old house with a dining patio out front. We had a great breakfast. I had eggs benedict where they used ham instead of Canadian bacon. Yummy. Venita ordered from the "light" menu. She got scrambled eggs, bacon and one olallieberry pancake with olallieberry syrup. That "small" olallieberry pancake was bigger than a dinner plate. Not such a small breakfast afterall.

They also sold pies and breads. I bought a loaf of apple cinnamon bread to take home. Toasted, it was the best. Venita took home an olallieberry pie. It was a hot day. I'm sure by the time she got home, her pie was nice and warm and ready to have ice cream on top of it.

After breakfast we headed out to find High Sierra Quilters in Placerville. It recently moved there from Cameron Park. What a treat it was. It is a relatively small shop, but it has a lot of fabric to choose from. I needed several different colors for borders on star quilt top I had made. I found all that was needed there plus a little more.

Venita found a couple of panels and other fabrics for quilts she was working on.

We had the store owner take a picture of us under their quilted sign with my phone. I didn't check until we got home and found it didn't take, so I can't share that with you. I did take the following picture of a sample quilt hanging on their wall. It is so beautiful. The piecing is about 1/4 inch thick. Wow!

After having fun there, we headed for highway 49 that runs between Placerville and Auburn and through Coloma. Coloma is where Sutter had his gold mill back in the 1800s. It is a beautiful drive. Easy for me to say, as I was not driving.

Arriving in Auburn, we quickly found the quilt store there thanks to a smart phone GPS. From the outside, the Whistle Stop Shop didn't look all that big. But it is good sized. They moved from Colfax a few months ago. I loved their little shop there, but it was not a shop I went to often, as it was quite a drive to get to. This one still isn't really close, but we do travel through Auburn more often.

I did spend quite a bit of money there. I bought some fabric, of course. I also bought a pattern that I am busy making. It is a salmon table runner pattern. I am putting two salmon tail to tail on variegated blue material. I have one sewn down after fusing it to the background fabric. I have the other one fused but not sewn down yet. That is a lot of work. It will be a gift for my brother, who is an avid fisherman.

The picture below is Venita in the Placerville store. It is a little fuzzy of Venita, but it shows part of the large array of fabric the store carries.

We had a good time. We will have to do it again when she gets back from her travels. Have a good time, Venita.

Keep on Quilting

 

Harmonic Convergence quilt

In February my friend, Venita, and I went to Modesto to a Ricky Tims Seminar. It was three days of great fun as we listened to Ricky, Pam Holland from Australia and Alex Anderson talk about their inspiration, perspiration and accomplishments. [See my February 2014 post of this event.] Great incentive to Keep on Quilting. During one of Ricky's seminars, he showed us his Harmonic Convergence quilts and how easy it is to make one. I thought I can do this. So I on the way home, Venita and I stopped at a couple of quilt stores. I purchased the fabric to make the above quilt. That was Saturday. On Monday I entered my quilt studio hoping I could remember all he said or at least my notes would cover what I couldn't remember. After just a few hours the top was done. So easy.

After I finally quilted it, I took it to my guild for show and tell (or Chantell as Ricky calls it). As I mentioned the pattern name, I said I bet most of you have probably made one of these quilts or are aware of the pattern. Lots of nodding. My first thought is they have done this and are not interested. Wrong. Many probably had done it or seen it done and was not interested, but a lot of people asked me what the name of the pattern was again and the ease of it all. Our guild president is a gentleman that has been a member along with his wife for many years. He is just getting into piecing himself and said it would be a long time before he would attempt something like this. I told him actually he could do it now because it is super easy. It really is. It is just strip cutting two coordinating or contrasting pieces of fabric and then putting the strips back together again in reverse order of each other. Love the technique. Love the ease of making a quilt that people oh and ah over. I especially love the fabric I chose for it.

If you ever get the chance to go to a Ricky Tims' Seminar, go. It is so worth the time and the money.

Keep on Quilting

Spring wall hangings

At a yard sale, I purchased several small wall hanging kits. That was several summers ago. As I have had to narrow down my sewing area recently, I came across them. My decision was to donate them to my guild or make them. I decided to make them and I am glad I did.

 Easter Chicken was completed just before Easter and looked so cute on the wall for that day.

 Spring Strawberry went up on the wall as soon as Easter was over. Love its bright red berry.

I love making small quilts. The strawberry one was completed in less than a day, start to finish. Gives me a real sense of completion.

I still have at least one more of these small kits. The one I remember having is an ice cream cone. Perfect for the summer coming up.

Keep on Quilting

Pictures of quilts from unknown quilt shows. Beautiful, though.

Okay. I have a favorite camera that I like to take to quilt shows to take pictures with. I like it because it is light and easy to use. Plus it takes good pictures. Being small is a deficit at times, though. I lost it over a year ago and could not find it anywhere. I figured it would show up eventually. It finally did. I found it at the bottom of my crochet bag - a bag I have not used for, hmmm, a couple of years.

In the camera were the following pictures of quilts taken at quilt shows. I know one of the quilt shows was Rivercity Quilt Guild in Sacramento. I recognize the best of show quilt in 2012. Other were taken at Pioneer Quilt Guild. They are the ones that have oval name tags on the cards attached to the quilts. Others I have no idea.

The quilts are beautiful, though, and very inspirational. So I am posting them anyway. Enjoy.

 The above quilt is gorgeous. I love the border. What caught my eye first was the beautiful pinwheels next to the white background fabric really makes them standout. Plus the unique sashing between the pinwheels are just dynamic. Great quilt.

 Love chickens. Love embroidery. What can I say? I love this quilt!

 Something you will notice in this collection of pictures is there are a lot of embroidered quilt blocks. I love this quilt. I do not drink coffee or tea, but I love coffee and tea cups and kettles. This is nice. I put a close up picture of one of the tea pots below. Look at that quilting! Oh my goodness.

Lovely seascape. I keep saying I am going to do a sea picture. This seems simple to do but it has a lot of depth to the quilt.

 Talk about visionary. This quilt is a black background quilt with quilting, or is it embroidery, on each block. Each block is probably 16" square. Stunning!. I put a close up of one of the blocks below.

 This quilt guild also recognizes apparel with quilting aspects to it. This bags are lovely.

 What can I say about this quilt? It is stunning. The colors are muted and all go so well together. Love the applique around the inside border. Even though some of the blocks are copied, it is hard to tell because of the use of different fabrics. Very nice. Look at that pieced border. Lovely.

 I love applique. This quilt is so pretty.

Halloween. I have to have at least one from each show. I think there are more coming. I do like this quilt. I might even have the pattern in my stash somewhere. I would have purchased it just for the skeleton alone.

 This is a great fall pumpkin quilt. If it were mine, I would put it up in August and leave it until after Thanksgiving.

 Sometimes I get home and look at these pictures and wish I would have written down the name the quilter gives their quilts. I would love to know what this is called. It is so unique. I love everything about it. I love the centers of the blocks. How unusual, but it works. I really love the triangle inner border with the little flowers coming in between the triangles. Then the squared border is great. Using white as the background fabric with bright colors always makes those colors pop out at you. This could have been done in many other colors, including black, but I don't think it would have been as stunning as with the white.

 I love 1930s fabric. I love the baskets, too. Really well done.

 Rooster! Love him. Look at his eyes.

 This is the quilt that won Best of Show at the River City Quilt Guild in Sacramento in 2012. It looks like you could go sit in that chair.

Civil War reenactment. Story well told here.

 More chickens. These are really wild chickens. Good job. I would love this in a country kitchen.

 More embroidery. I have embroidered this pattern. But I have not made them into a quilt yet. It is on my UFO list to complete this year. After seeing this picture, it really makes me want to work on mine. Love the setting. I didn't have that top block in my pattern. I do love it. I may copy the idea into my quilt.

 I am a member of Sacramento's River City Quilt Guild. This was challenge fabric for 2012. We were to make something using the fabric on the front. It could be anything - quilt, clothing, bag, or even a table runner like this one. I must confess, I did not make anything. I kept the fabric on my design wall for a couple of months trying to have it inspire me. Nope nothing. What a beautiful table runner, though.  The coordinating fabrics were one of the turquoise fabrics. I think it was the lighter border one. and then the triangles that have turquoise, orange and white.

 This is another of the challenge quilts made for River City Quilt Guild. Can you find the challenge fabric used?

I want this pattern. How cute is this? It is full of black bunnies all dressed a little different. In fact I just noticed they are calendar bunnies! Find the Santa bunny and the 4th of July bunny. Oh even cuter than I originally thought! I did take a close up of one of the bunnies. See below.

 It is the Halloween bunny. So cute!

I do like this quilt. Looks like the judges did, too. It is unusual. I love how the "moon" shows its colors once again in the border. But only once.

 Look at that border. I like the blocks, but the border really grabs me. Also look at that striped binding. Lovely.

 Embroidery, embroidery, embroidery. This quilt would take me 10 years to do all the embroidery on. Love it all. Look how small some of the blocks are below.

Another border that really is wonderful. Love the blocks, too. A lot of time went into all that applique. I have shown one of the blocks up close below. Love all the little berries!

 Here, Kitty Kitty. I think a sewing group must have had a challenge, as there was more than one of these cats. Love them.

 Here, Kitty Kitty, again.

 Here, Kitty Kitty, again again. Love them all.

 Whimsical Garden. I made this quilt. Well, not THIS quilt but a quilt using the same pattern. I love mine, but I love this one, too. She used brighter colors than I did. She also put beautiful vines on the corners. I love mine because I made it. I also love my borders. I put different colored and different sizes of yoyos around on it. I think it really added to the quilt. Look at the ribbons this quilt won. I guess the judges liked it, too.

 Embroidery, again. Love this. I especially love the wonky blocks between the embroidered blocks. Too cute. See close up below.

McKenna Ryan pattern of a seaside. Very nicely done. I like the little bit of the show quilt that is shown on the right. I wonder why I didn't take a picture of the whole quilt. Very charming.

I hope you have enjoyed looking at these quilts. Maybe they inspired you? A couple of them sure did me.

Keep on Quilting

And go to every guild show around for more inspiration.