My Lucky Stars - a Finish!

Wow, October already!  I can't believe it's been so long since my last post!  But it's been a busy month and I have lots to share with you.

The quilt show has come and gone and was, I think, pretty successful!  I'm not quite recovered, but I'm slowly getting there.  It was a long time getting ready for the show, and then a long weekend with a lot of work during the show.  I got very tired . . . but it was also a lot of fun at the same time.

I managed to finish all six of my quilts in time.  Whew!  I wasn't sure I could do it, but I did.  Yay!

So, since I teased you a couple of times with this one, I will show this completed quilt first:

My Lucky Stars

Ta da!  My Lucky Stars quilt.  It finished at 62 x 80 inches.  This photo was taken at the quilt show.  It's so big and heavy that it's hard to get a good photo at home.

I won these fun wonky star blocks from the Block Lotto in 2013.  They were "Red Skies with Tall Stars", since the blocks are actually rectangular instead of square.  Here's the link to the instructions if you'd like to make some too.

Hopefully you can see that this was quilted in all-over circles.  It was hard to choose which pattern for the quilting, but I'm very happy with the way the circles play with the stars.  I used a local quilter (Julie Boersema of Seams Sew Beautiful)  this time, for the first time.

These blocks came to me from 20 different states as well as Australia, Canada, England, Israel, New Zealand, Norway and South Africa.  I love finding such happy mail in my mailbox!

Blogger is putting some of my photos upside down or sideways today, as well as doing funny things with my text formatting.  It's always an adventure! 

Here is a "crumpled" shot.  Almost like using the quilt, isn't it?  *grin*

The quilt show was fun.  We had over 300 quilts and about 500 visitors to the show, plus lots of good vendors.   My sister was able to come this year, so we had a fun weekend.  She even helped with the show take-down on Saturday evening - what a trooper!

I still love the border triangles I did on Lucky Stars, thanks to my DH for that suggestion!  I'm doing all my bindings by machine now.  It's so much faster and easier, and I really like the way they come out.  I learned how to do this from Mariquilts at The QuiltingEdge blog.  Here's the link to her tutorials.  This photo also shows that I put a quilt shop-quality turquoise flannel on the back of the quilt.  Now it's cuddly and warm for the coming winter!

I did a wonky or "liberated" star demo at the show, and people were amazed at how easy the stars are to make once they understand the process.  I heard a number of people say "I could do that!"  That makes doing the demo fun!

Here is what I would look like if I were in the new Peanuts movie coming out in November,  Thanks to Barb of 'Fun with Barb' blog for sharing the link!  If you want to see what you'd look like as a Peanuts character, go here to Peanutize yourself!

I've got lots of quilt show photos to share with you, as well as the rest of my finished quilts.  That will come over the course of the next week or two.  First up is Jury Duty, starting tomorrow.  

A Smorgasbord of Stuff

I'm still here....still sewing and trying to finish my projects for the quilt show.  Of course, lots of other stuff is going on as well, most of which is too boring to go into.  You know, all that day-to-day stuff we all have going on.  But that's not why you're here, is it?

Remember my Traveling Round Robin?  (If you missed the blog post about that, you can see it here and here.)  Well, my Robin has come home to roost!  This is all my blocks when I got them back.  Aren't they awesome?  Everyone did a great job on the blocks.  In fact, they were all almost the perfect size.  In about 10 days, I had them all put together into a quilt top.  It is currently being quilted.  I forgot to take a photo of the flimsy, so you'll have to settle for this photo for now.  Of course, I'll show the finished quilt when it's done!  I'm getting excited to see it!  

The first weekend of August - over a month ago now! Time flies! - my DH The Potter had one of his big art shows of the year.  Of course, it was blazing hot.  But we survived and sales were good.  This show is put on in a beautiful garden that I always enjoy visiting.  I got a  couple of photos that I want to share with you.

This garden is full of vignettes of fun yard art.  This guy enjoying the teeter-totter was right near where we were set up.  Isn't he fun?

And this is Mt. Rainier, photo taken across the neighboring farm's pastures.  The next day the smoke came in and you could barely see the mountain.  This is the least amount of snow we've seen on the mountain in the 8 years we've been here. There's snow up there now though!

Once I got "My Lucky Stars" to flimsy status (see previous post), I took a break from what I was supposed to be doing to get this little baby quilt put together to flimsy status.  I had inherited two of these columns of patchwork, and enough left-over bits to make the third column.  So I put them together and they looked pretty good.  I'm not quite sure why the ends all came out different lengths.  It should have worked out.  Oh well, the baby won't be a critic.  I found this yellow plaid and it worked pretty well.  Now all I have to do is get this quilted - someday.  It was a nice break from all the "have-to's".

Last month DS found a nest of baby bunnies in the yard.  We watched them for a week or so, and when they were big enough to venture out on their own, he caught one of them.  We petted him and talked to him and then we let him go.  He was so soft!  And very sweet.  I've never been that close to a wild bunny before, although they are in the yard a lot the last couple of years.  They're not very afraid of us.  That was fun - bunnies are some of my favorite animals.

If you've ever seen the movie "Field of Dreams", you'll recognize this take on the tag line for the movie.  This cracked me up!

Here is a harbinger of Autumn.  We've had some fairly cold weather lately (a high of 61* today) and some of the trees are already starting to show color.  It seems early to me this year.  Oh, and the wild geese are already heading south - actually, they have been for weeks now.  

a sneak peek!

"My Lucky Stars" is back from the quilter and is getting it's binding put on right now.  Photos soon!

Oh my stars! It's another flimsy finish!

I've been sewing my little fingers to the bone, trying to finish quilts for the quilt show.  And I have another finish to share with you!  Remember these?

Here is where they live now:

My Lucky Stars

Presenting "My Lucky Stars"!  The little sneak peek stars are the cornerstones in the sashing on another Block Lotto win.  (The colors in this photo aren't true to life.  That is red in the quilt, not the hot pink that's it looks like on my computer screen.)  These are the Tall Stars that I won back in August 2013.

blocks on the floor

Here is where I started, with my initial layout of 48 blocks.  The block was an adaptation of Bonnie Hunter's Maverick Stars, except that it was made in a rectangular size, using red for the background.  You could do a scrappy background, with one fabric for the star, or one fabric for the background with a scrappy star.  These were so fun to make!  If you want to try one, here is a link to the info on Block Lotto.  I got the idea of putting the stars together like this from Joe Tulips.  Thanks, Julie!

darkest & lightest blocks side-by-side

I decided on a dark to light layout, but I'm not sure you can tell from the photos.  It runs diagonally across the quilt, with the darkest block in the bottom left corner and the lightest block in the top right corner in the photo at the top of the post. I tried to find a red solid that worked with all of the scrappy reds in the blocks.  I was kind of surprised when I compared the darkest block to the lightest block.  That red center square, which is the red solid I found, looks like 2 different colors in these two blocks!  Isn't that interesting?

After I got the center assembled, The Potter suggested I add some triangles that echo the star legs in the blocks into the border.  I thought that sounded good, so I proceeded to make a bunch of them.  I really wasn't quite sure what I was doing when I started.  I seem to flail about for a while before I figure out what I'm doing, but I eventually got into the swing of it.  The only downside was the absolute mess I made in the quilt studio.  I have red scraps and bits of fabric everywhere!  I ended up using all of that red solid except for one strip about 6 inches (the width of the border) by 12 inches.  Whew!  That was close!

Here is one of those little cornerstones from the sneak peek.

In one cornerstone, I decided to do something different, and made one big wonky star.

Some of those crazy triangles in the border.

Anybody recognize the blocks you made?

This quilt has gone to the quilter now, and I'm so excited to see this one done.  

The next quilt is on the design wall.  I've gotten my Traveling Round Robin blocks back, and that quilt is on it's way to being completed.  I hoping to get to flimsy stage over the weekend.

As most of you know, Washington is having a horrible, record-setting fire season this year.  Most of the fires are in Eastern Wash. and I live in Western Wash.  This was what the sunrise looked like last Sunday morning.  That is a smoky sky!  It stayed that way all day.  It smelled strongly of smoke, and we had ash falling on the cars.  I can only imagine, if it was that bad here, how bad was it where there are the fires?  My heart goes out to all that are affected by the fires, and I applaud all the firefighters doing so much to stop those fires.  We're all praying for some rain.  It looks like our prayers may be answered this weekend.  I just hope some of the rain makes it over the Cascades to the eastern part of the state.  

Cheery O's!

Sorry I've been so quiet around here lately.  I have been busy though.  I've had a busy summer, and I've been madly sewing to have a quilt or three to hang in the quilt show in October.

Cheery O's has achieved flimsy status!

Cheery O's
60 x 74 inches

These were the 'Big O' blocks I won from Block Lotto in December of last year (2014).  We were supposed to use black or another very dark color for the background and the bright fabrics were quilter's choice - whatever we wanted.  These blocks were a lot of fun to make, and very easy.

The pattern is actually one quarter of a circle, and you need 4 blocks to make a complete circle, which finishes at 14 inches.  So making the quilt goes pretty quickly!

I made a few more blocks to complete the rainbow color scheme I was doing, and the unused blocks will be on the back.

I dug into my scrap bins for all the blocks that I made.  I didn't even make a dent!

I decided that I needed to make some smaller O's to go in the corners, so I drafted the block out.  The quarter squares finish at 3 1/2 inches and the complete circle measures 7 inches.  And even though they were small, they were still easy to make.

I made some more blocks to finish the ends of the middle row.  If you enlarge the photo, you can see the black on black print I used for the border.  I found that at Fabric Depot in Portland, Oregon.

Shade doing his inspection

The top is currently at my long-armer Shari's, waiting to get quilted.  I can't wait to see how she quilts this.  I left it up to her, and I know she'll do a great job.

"It looks good, Mom."
Note his excellent cat hair addition.

I think this block has a lot of possibilities, and would like to play with it some more in the future.  Thanks, Sophie, for a fun pattern!   Here is the link to the pattern, if you'd like to play with it too.

Now I'm working on another Block Lotto win.  Ready to add the borders this week.  Here's a sneak peek:

I hope you have a creative week!

A Little Eye Candy

When I was at the fair last weekend, I managed to get photos of some of the quilts there.  Unfortunately, I didn't get the names of the quilters, so I can't give credit like I should.  Some of these quilts were made for charity.

I love the boxer shorts!

A Quilt of Valor, made from a panel

A Seahawks quilt

I've been working on various projects lately, and I've made some progress on my long-term black and white quilt. 

first part of the blocks

It was so hot here that I could not stand to be upstairs in the quilt studio.  So I moved some stuff downstairs and set up my travel machine on the card table in the living room.  I only sew this project on my travel machine (due to seam allowance differences between my two machines), and so I managed to get quite a few blocks done in the heat wave . 

the rest of the blocks

 I've got about 8 more blocks of each color left to do.  But now the heat wave has let up, so it is put away for now, and I'm working on a different project upstairs!  Progress is progress and I'll take it where I can get it. *grin*

Thank goodness the heat wave has let up here!  Everything has gotten so brown and dry that we look like California.  The last couple of days have been quite cool and we've even gotten some rain.  Yay!  But it looks like the heat is back by mid-week.  Hopefully it won't get quite so scorching as the last time.  97.5* was too much!

Happy quilting!

Quilts and Fabric and Hamlet

I've been trying to do this blog post for a week now.  Life has gotten in the way.  But I think I'm finally getting it done!

I have a rather random collection of things for this post.  I hope you'll bear with me.

First of all is my big news:

"Best of Division" ribbon

I won the top ribbon at the local county fair!  I was totally shocked!!  Also very happy!  I had a goofy grin on my face all day after I found out.  Those of you who are my friends on Facebook have already learned about this, but I thought everybody else might want to know too.

This is the quilt that won, my "Mod 9-Patch: Comma Musings" that I've shown on the blog before.  

We had a rather small turnout this year in the quilts category as the fair turned out to be a little of a last-minute thing.  Our fair has been having problems for the last few years (the county no longer wants to run it), but a new group of local people have taken it over and we have high hopes for next year.

A couple of weeks ago I won a giveaway over on Stephanie's blog kwiltzbystephanie.  Last week my goodies arrived in the mail.  I won some fat quarters of text fabrics!  A big, big thank you, Stephanie!  I love them!

Some of these fat quarters are a very generous size (larger that a FQ).  And I have never seen these prints before either.  Fun, fun, FUN!

My DH recently made a business trip to Taiwan, and I asked him to bring me some traditional Taiwanese fabrics, if he could find some.  I was envisioning something like Japanese indigos.  Here is what he brought me:

He's made a number of trips to Taiwan and knows where "The Cotton Store" is in the fabric district.  So he headed there.  These fabrics were bought in another store that he was sent to, as The Cotton Store doesn't carry the traditional fabrics.  The sales clerk told him these were traditional, and when I did a Google search, this type of design is what came up.  DH says all the women wear dresses made of similar fabrics.  I think these are really fun!  I don't know what I'll be making with them, but I'm looking forward to working with them.  I got a meter of each.

Check out this selvage!  I can barely remember my history well enough to remember that Taiwan used to be called Formosa.  Wait, does that mean I'm showing my age??  *grin*

We had a sad happening here a couple of weeks ago.  My DS's sweet old kitty Hamlet had to be put to sleep.  He was about 15 years old, and was suffering greatly from diabetes and liver failure.  

Hamlet

Here is one of the last pictures of Hamlet, taken in our back yard about 2 weeks before his death.  I think my son got a beautiful picture of him.  Hamlet was the best kitty ever!  He had the sweetest temperament of any cat I've ever met,  and was just so calm and loving. Hamlet got along with everyone, whether they were people, cats, dogs, pet rats or even livestock. He taught my kitty Shade how to be a good housecat when we rescued Shade from the backyard, plus he helped raise another kitten later.  Hamlet was with my son throughout the 7 houses and 3 states that they lived in, and as long as he could be near my son, he was happy.  He will be sorely missed.

Hopefully my next post will not be such a long wait for you.  I've already got it planned . . . hopefully the execution will happen soon.  In the meantime, I hope you're having a great summer (or whatever season you're in), and getting to do some sewing.  Happy quilting!