My favorites of the quilt show

Last weekend was my quilt guild's annual show. I almost thought I wasn't going, but found some time on Sunday afternoon before the show closed.

Below is a HUGE quilt that was made for the now-retired president of the guild for the past 2 years, Sue Lee.

Everybody was given the white center strips of fabric, and they selected the other colors from their stash.

I picked hand dyes and black for my own block.

I didn't do the lime green frame around the block though, I assume the person who put the top together did, probably to help make all the blocks the same size. :) So I was "in" the quilt show, but didn't know until I saw the quilt!


Scrappy quilts always catch my eye.

If I ever have too many of the same size squares, at least I'll have an idea what to do with them!


A quilt from the antique section, made around 1870.

There's stars in the quilt... but it took me a minute to find it. I'll give you a hint, they have brown centers.


Nothing captures my eye as easily as black and bright quilts do.

Sad news is that I'm down to my last 3.5 yards of Kona black - need to order some more! I've probably have used up about 50 yards of black in the past 2 years.


Another antique quilt, love the green.

I think I'm also ready to start making some 4-patches. Easy, fun, hard to goof up. ;)


Pretty quilt, right?

The size of the hexes are insane though! A dime would cover an entire hex. I kept putting my finger near it, trying to grasp the size it actually is. My thumb could cover 3 hexes at once. I'm still shaking my head, trying to imagine somebody actually sewing that!


Anybody who has snow, cold weather or anything below 50 degrees... please, please, please send it my way! It's too late, the sweating has already begun. It just makes me so sad. Can you get SAD (seasonal affective disorder) in the summer? :P And I just got a new fleece jacket and a fleece pullover from REI! Maybe I'll get to use them in November.

I also put away my couch quilts, it's just too warm to pull them over me now. And soon my husband will put away his quilt... I hear the housing prices are great in Antarctica! ;)

Leah

Back on the wagon

I think I'm back on the stash busting wagon! ;)

Last Sunday (I know, I'm still slow in blogging right now) I was in the mood to do something nice and easy. Especially because I boo-boo'ed on the mystery I'm testing. I just threw it all into a box and plan to deal with it sometime in March.

But I wanted something big (especially after Bonnie's Carolina Crossroads!) and quick. So I made a 4x5 blocks of Strip Twist, except this time I offset the rows so the blue would create a downward diagonal.

Looking at my blog archives, I realized this was not the first time that I've resorted to this pattern to blow some "steam" from frustrating quilts. :)

I was smart enough to cut some extra blue binding pieces, so whenever I want to quilt it, I don't have to fuss with digging in my stash again. Plus, I used up almost all the fabric from both the blue and red. Started at 1pm Sunday afternoon, was done by midnight. And I took my sweet time too - checking on the computer for emails and such, getting dinner, taking breaks.

2 yards of the blue
1.5 yards of the red

I'm still trying to figure out how in the world I had so much red in my stash... I do not like red. I will not be keeping this quilt whenever I finish it. But I do love how I can get away without needing a single pin in the whole top! :)

Leah

Time flies

Kim send me an email that I haven't "blogged in weeks". Well, it's been 12 days... close enough. ;)

Yes, I'm alive, and I'm doing pretty well. I haven't gotten sick with any of those cold or flus that's been going around. (Sorry if you do have it!)


And yes, my sewing machine still works, here's proof. ;)

I'm working on another mystery quilt (as a pattern tester), so that's all you're gonna get from me. But I do have Bonnie's Carolina Crossroads quarter-square-triangles as my current leaders and enders. I just needed a break from all those itty pieces! But this way I'm still making progress, however slow.

Please don't be jealous of the sunshine in my window though... my heart is sad that summer will soon be upon us. And then I will sweat buckets. And worry to death about ruining my hearing aids again. And be annoyed at how many shirts I've sweat-stained the armpits. At least those are a lot cheaper to replace than my $2,000 hearing aids. :P


I've also been squeezing in some more baking time. Gotta do it while it's cool. I hate baking in the summer. See the sweat paragraph. :P

Yesterday I made honey muffins and 75% whole wheat tortillas. (3 cups of WW flour, 1 cup of white bread flour). The muffins are great breakfast food, only 3 tablespoons of honey. Everything else is pretty healthy, oats, whole wheat flour, craisins... and hubby will actually eat them. That's the best part. Recipe here.

Tonight's dinner is gonna be New York strip steaks (on sale, more than 60% off) with potatoes. Since we'll be firing up the grill, I'm gonna have hubby BBQ some hamburgers. Those can go into bean soup tomorrow. And we're also having potatoes... so I might as well make crockpot potato soup with ham later. Or maybe tomorrow... I'm craving it now. :)

Leah

I won a quilt!

I can't believe it, but I actually won a quilt, from Karen Gass. You can see a picture of it here.

That just makes me so excited about quilting... that I'm gonna go turn on my machine. And yes, I'm doing so much better now with my back/hip. I've figured out what triggers the pain, so I avoid them. Unfortunately one of the things that causes spasms is when I shave my legs. I used to shave 3 times a week!

I've got really fuzzy legs right now. :P

Leah