Auburn California 2016 Quilt Show

The Foothill Quilters Guild quilt show was held over this past weekend. I always love going to see their quilts. Beautiful always. Here are the pictures I took there.

The quilts shown here were in a display of a guild member that passed away shortly before the show this year.

 Oh my goodness! Look at those tiny pieced blocks. Below is a close up of it.

 Look at the border of dolphins, plus the fabric she chose really makes this a stunning quilt.

 Lovely stained glass effect.

This was the flyer posted at her display. On the bottom of the flyer it stated "in loving memory of Margarita Wilcox February 24, 1932 - February 22, 2016. What a wonderful tribute to a lady that made beautiful quilts.

The featured artist is Patti Henderson. Here are a few of her quilts.

 I love this quilt. I love the beautiful fabric and the simple design.

Pretty cool chair. Most of it is painted - all except the seat. Great job.

Lizards!

This is a close up of the lizard quilt. I wanted you to see the metallic thread art on the plant. Quite effective.

Felted wool.

Embroidery. One of my favorites.

More felted wool.

Chocolate by the day!

Around the world. Love the border full of leaves!

Moose!

 Those of you that have seen my posts on quilt shows before know that I always gravitate towards Halloween. I have more Halloween themed quilts than any other. I make no less than one a year. Much of my fabric is Halloween colors and designs. I look for Halloween ideas. I love this one.

On Pinterest you see lots of garden items made out of tea cups or tea pots and placed on posts to put food or water out for birds. Here is the theme done in quilting. So cute.

 The above is the guild's Opportunity Quilt. Each block is made using the exact same pattern but with different fabrics. This really shows off what happens with just changing the fabrics. Lovely quilt. The theme was Fruits of our Love and Labor. The center block is a bunch of cherries and the border and backing are cherry fabrics, too. Then each of the volunteers at the show were wearing a name tag with cherries attached to them. I loved the theme running throughout the show that way.

I bought tickets for this quilt and waited by my phone Sunday afternoon for the call that I won the quilt. The call never came. Darn. I really love this quilt.

 The above quilt is a huge quilt. The quilting (which doesn't show up well in the picture) is of sea shells and star fish. Below is a close up of the fishing vessel coming into port.

T-shirt quilt. The t-shirts are from all over the world. Great way to document travels.

 Purple and orange blocks. Interesting color combinations here. Very pretty.

 Of course I would take this picture. It has a border collie in it!

 The black blocks are done in Sashiko stitching. It doesn't show up well in the picture. Truly beautiful on the quilt.

 Adorable horse quilt. I also love how the guild puts a picture of the quilter with each quilt. It really personalizes the quilt.

 House quilt done with Halloween fabrics and embellishments. I want this quilt.

 I made this exact same quilt. Well it is the embroidered blocks I made. She did hers on white background. I did mine on beige. She used bright colored threads. I used muted, soft colored threads. I like mine. I like hers more.

 More embroidery. I love they are set on point.

 Love the quilt on the right. The quilt used Hawaiian themed fabric throughout to make such colorful fish.

 The two above are almost identical quilts. Almost.

I have this pattern. I believe it is an Alex Anderson pattern. Look at all those circles! Oh my goodness.

The guild did a great job in setting the quilts out. Lots of room between the rows. Lots of light to see them with.

 The guild even hung some from the rafters. I am afraid they get missed in all the glory on the racks below.

 Halloween and Embroidery. Can't get any better.

 Give me one quilt I will never, ever made, Alec. Stunning, though.

This is a quilt I will make one of these days using me as the model. Well, maybe. Or maybe my dog instead. I don't know I want a quilt of ME! I do like the concept though.

 The above and the one below is using the challenge fabric the guild selected. This doll above is so striking. Some people look at fabric way different than I do, for sure.

 Turtles. So cute.

 The way the "water" is framed by the leaves it makes it look like there is really water!

 Penguin!

 Tiny, tiny piecing. Admirable!

 The above is a round robin. The first quilter did the center block. The rest followed her/his lead. Wow!

 More of the challenge fabric. I think instead of fabric, they were given the flowers. The flowers are in every item.

As we walked out of the building that had the quilts on display, we came across this peaceful Koi pond with the old mining cart sitting next to it. I have to admit the Auburn Fairgrounds is a great place for a quilt show. Lots of walking between the buildings, but that helps narrow down the amount of people in any one building. It was a very successful show. I am glad Venita and I went.

Keep on Quilting

Service auction quilt

In December our church ladies auxiliary holds a service auction. It is great fun. Since we are a non-profit, we cannot bid using money. Someone came up with a way to earn points and use our points for bidding. To determine our points, they hand out a sheet at the beginning of our monthly evening meeting. On this sheet are different statements with points attached. If you accomplished the statement, you were allowed to claim however many points that are listed for that statement. Such as "I prayed this morning - 5 points." Or "I made my bed today - 2 points." They have about 50 statements to answer. After claiming the points for each statement, we add up how many points we can use. Usually they add up to between 400 and 500 points. You can not "bet" more than the points you have and you have to subtract points if you "buy" something with them.

This year I was top bidder for a box of pens that someone had decorated AND a group of handmade greeting cards, which I gave to my mom. She loves to write notes and send birthday greetings to everyone she knows. When all was said and done I still had over 100 points to use.

There were other things available to bid on. One is a lemon chiffon cake one of the church members offers up. I won it last year. She will make it whenever you ask her to as long as you give her 24 hours. Oh my gosh that cake is good. We have a couple of massage therapists. They always offer up a massage. Same with a hair stylist offering her services. Some people make sweets or blankets or quilts or other things and those items go home that evening with the successful bidders.

This year I didn't have anything ready to take that night, which I how I prefer to offer my "service." So I typed up a sheet that I would be willing to make a quilt that would be approximately 45" x 60" in the color of their choice. I put a caveat on it that it wouldn't be made until the end of January at the earliest. This activity was held the first Tuesday of December. I didn't want someone wanting to give the quilt as a Christmas present. The lady that won the bidding on the quilt was my previous visiting teacher. She has been to my home many times and knows the quality of work I do. She saved up all her points and used every last one to win this auction item. She was so excited to get it.

She asked it to be in blues and yellows. She has someone in her family that is expecting a baby boy. So I couldn't make it with lots of flowers and fancy designs. I spent about an hour at Beverly's yesterday going through their fabrics coming up with the color combination I liked. I had considered taking the winner with me and letting her choose the fabrics, but I was there and wanted to get started on it. Sorry. It became my choice. I hope she likes it.

I bought 1/3 yard of nine fabrics. I cut each one into four 10" squares. I will now sew the squares into four large nine patch blocks with the white square in each block.

Other than the white being in each center, I want the blocks to be random in how the colors are placed. I learned a long time ago with quilting that if you want things to be random, you better plan it somewhat. So I took each fabric and attached it to a paper and assigned a number and a color crayon to it. Then I drew out my nine patch blocks times four and randomly colored each block in. Later I will sit down and sew the blocks together using the "randomly" selected guide.

After sewing the blocks together into four separate nine patch blocks, I will cut each one in half and then in half again. And then they will be sewn back together again in some pattern that strikes me at the time.

I like this pattern. I learned it while I attended a class hosted by Meissner's Sewing Center here in Sacramento in 2014 and featuring Eleanor Burns. It is relatively easy but makes the quilt look like you did a lot of piecing. It is a great way to show off beautiful fabric because most of the blocks stay in relatively large pieces.

I will share the finished quilt when I get it all put together.

Keep on Quilting

Garden Tea Party blocks

My friend Venita and I have been working on The Quilt Company's pattern of the Garden Tea Party. We get together and share fabrics and ideas on what works and how to do the individual blocks to this pattern. There are only four blocks, but they are big blocks. They finish out at 18 1/2 inches each. These are my four.

The pattern calls for a row above and a row below of teacups. I am not going to do that. I am going to put a small inner border and then a larger outer border on it probably with big flowers. Or I will do the border the pattern suggests. I have not decided for sure yet.

I really like how the blocks came together. I wasn't sure how I would like the mismatched corner triangles, but that is what the pattern showed. Now they are done, it has grown on me.

Here is a copy of the pattern:

Hmmm. I don't know. Maybe the teacups need to be there. I do like the flowers on the outer border.

It has been a fun pattern to work on. Most of the fabric came from my stash, which is always nice to use since I have so much of it.

Stay tuned. I will eventually finish this quilt and even get it quilted. I will post the pictures of the finished quilt when that happens.

Keep on Quilting

Just checking in

Oh my gosh! My last post was just after the River City Quilt Guild show in November!!!! Whatever happened to my goal of trying to post no less than weekly? Hmm. Plans often go astray.

In all honesty, I worked really hard to get everything I was submitting to the guild to be ready that by the time the show came and went I was tired of material, sewing, quilting and everything that goes with it. Though I did take time to quilt some quilts on the long arm for customers. But that is different. It wasn't a choice.

Here it is at the end of January and I am just getting back into sewing every day. I try to quilt on the long arm at least three days out of the week. I have only done two this week and I don't see me doing any more this week. Which means next week I have to do four. It is not like I don't have them to do for sure!

I took a class at Meissner's in December on using templates with the long arm. I was intrigued and bought three templates. Then I had to get the table extender for the machine. I was going to purchase one when I found out we had one. It just had to be located, which took a while since we were busy with Christmas, life, school and everything else that hits in December. Finally I got it the week after Christmas and it sat for three weeks while I just looked at it - afraid to try something new. At the beginning of this week, I put a Community Service quilt on the machine and decided this would be the day to try out the new templates. The first one was using the circles I purchased. I love this template because it has like 10 different sized circles to use. I used the biggest one and then went in three and used the next one and then went in three more and used the next one. So it looked like a circle within a circle within another circle. I could have gone one more, but didn't because that looked too small to get around. I will try it some day. Anyway it turned out pretty cool looking.

The quilt had some applique to it. One of the template I bought is one that fits over the hopping foot of the long arm. It is made to hold on to the hopping foot and guide it more smoothly around appliques and such. Oh how I love that template. I do a lot of applique and can never quilt nicely around the designs and am always disappointed with how the quilting looks. I like this though I wish I would have had this when I did my sister, Anne's quilt. It would have looked a lot better than it did.

I like to read Bonnie Hunters blog. She writes every day - unlike me. She had the following on her blog. I liked it and decided to show it here:

Good sentiment.

Keep on Quilting

or dreaming while looking at the stars!