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.

Thread Catchers X 4

So my sister, Anne, asked me to make her a thread catcher for her birthday. Okay, Anne, I will. What are you going to make me? No response.

Her birthday was in the middle of February. At that time I was busy finishing up the Golf and Guitar quilt (see previous post). It was due at the golf course at the end of February. So the thread catcher had to be put off.

Finally last week, I figured I should work on that project. I found a pattern I had when I had the store. I was always going to make me one. I figured that was the pattern I would use for Anne's.

It comes with an applique flower on the pincushion part. I love applique, so I started there. As I was getting fabrics out, I figured I might as well make one for Elisa, my daughter. She had asked for one, too. Then I thought of my other sister, Kris. She loves to sew and would appreciate it. So now I'm up to making three. Well I always need something like that when I go to classes, so I added another one. Four is almost as easy as making one if they are done assembly line style, so off I went. Half way through, I thought of my friend, Venita. She would love one, too. I was too far along at that time to start on a whole new one, so sorry, Venita, you are not getting one.

The pattern called to put those little plastic balls in the pincushion, but I think those would dull the pins and needles. Gil and I went to Lowe's a purchased the smallest bag of play yard sand they had - 50 pounds. I funneled that into the pincushion instead. Sand is known to sharpen pins.Oh and by the way, I have a lot of sand left over if anyone needs any.

I made the four of them in three days time. Pretty good for a procrastinator like me. I took pictures this morning before I prepared my sisters' for mailing. I had already given Elisa hers, so it is not included in the pictures. I'm keeping the blue one.

I think these are going to work great.

 

 

Now my sisters don't have theirs yet, so, shhhh, don't tell them. 

The pattern I used is the Flower Pot Pincushion and Threadcatcher by Margo Langueodoc.

Keep on Quilting

Quilt for a raffle

My husband volunteered at a golf tournament at Haggin Oaks Golf Course in Sacramento last year. He came home and said he offered a quilt to them made especially for this years tournament. One they could raffle off. So time went by and this quilt and its design was in my head often. What design? How big? What fabrics? How can I combine golf and guitars in the design and/or fabric? Finally I started looking for fabric even though I still didn't have the pattern in mind.

I found several I liked and bought some. But now I had to find a pattern that would fit in the amount of fabric I had purchased. A lot of the fabric was purchased from e-Bay, as I looked through there to get ideas. Buying that way often has just a small amount of fabric to purchase, so many of my buys were only one yard cuts.

Finally I settled on a Debbie Maddy design called Labyrinth. Love the design. She says it is an easy pattern to make, plus the pattern had lap, twin, queen and king size instructions. Yeah for me!

So now I had to put the fabric to the pattern, which meant buying a lot more fabric. That was fun, though. I came up with two guitar fabrics with acoustic guitars. I chose acoustic guitars because the people that come and perform at this tournament are usually Country Western singers. The guitars makes up the first round of diamond and square.

I purchased a green fabric with golf balls and tees on it and some black with golf bags and clubs. Those two fabrics make up the second round of diamond and square.

I thought I had purchased white golf balls for the background material. But when I went to cut it, I found I didn't. I guess I found it and thought this is what I WILL buy for it. Well this was in January, so I didn't have time to find it, ship it and sew it. I went to my LQS (local quilt store) and purchased a white on white fabric of little tiny circles. You have to look at it up close (really close) to see them but they look like golf balls. Works!

A friend gave me some old time golfer material - that is new fabric with old time golfers on it. That fabric makes up the star points. Then inside the star is the tournament's logo, which was provided by the golf course.

The backing is green fabric that looks like a picture taken looking down on a golf course. It has greens and flags and water hazards and trees and more. Perfect for the backing. Too busy to be used up front.

I like how it turned out. My husband liked how it turned out. The people at the golf course like it.

A special thanks has to be given to my daughter, Elisa, who long arm machine quilted it. She used a pattern that looks like the ball is going here and there and over here again. It was a perfect pattern for this quilt. It was quilted in white cotton thread, which does not show up too much in the front. But the backing it really looks great being on the bright greens of the golf course.

Good luck, Haggin Oaks with the raffle on this quilt. I was happy to make it for the event. The event takes place in May and benefits "The First Tee of Sacramento" and the "Make a Wish Foundation".

Keep on Quilting

Do you like to do binding?

I love to work on binding. I have a friend that hates to, so I do most of her binding jobs. This quilt is a signature quilt for a friend of hers. She asked me to bind it. So yesterday I put on the movie Ulee's Gold and sat down and got the job done. I enjoyed the movie, too.

That is why I love to bind. I love movies, especially old ones. Yesterday it rained most of the day, so it was a great day to work on handwork. I can sit with the movie on and the quilt in my hand without feeling like I should be doing something else.

Bring them on. I will do them.

Keep on Quilting