It is Fair Month!

The last two weeks have been a whirlwind!  I confess.... I love seeing my quilts on display.  I am not in it for the money, as a blue ribbon is only $3, but I do love to display my quilts.  I gift a lot of quilts, but each year I look back through photos and decide on some quilts to enter in our local county fair.  I am a co-superintendent of the quilt/afghan dept. and take an afternoon off work to help check them in.   I decided on 9 quilts/wallhangings, all in different categories to enter this year.

I am there for the judging and I am the one who stands with the judge to tell her which category this quilt or afghan is in.  Our fair is judged on the American system, one set of ribbons unless there are 10 items in the category or more.  Many years ago I was doing a LOT of quilting for others and started entering in the professional division, although I am FAR from a professional.  I still enter that category as the fair board said it's hard to switch back, even though I don't quilt for pay anymore.

I did get my Canyon Dance quilt finished.  Terrible photo in a hurry before the fair.

Canyon Dance

quilting closeup

We had a LOT of entries this year.  84 to be exact.  My friends got this display set up after judging.  I have two quilts in the front row.  My Canyon Dance with Best of Show professional and my Crown of Thorns with a blue and extra $15 sponsored cash award at the judge's discretion.  In the photo are also my Splash of Lime and Cat Houses and Snippets.  My friend also made a Canyon Dance with my templates and her quilt is on the front row right.

 I was working with two young men on the other side putting up afghans and smaller quilts in the two  photos below.  My One Block Wonder is in the second phot on the bottom.

 Then my friends did this wall with the wallhangings and tablerunners.  The screens are up so nobody can touch or steal!

 Another view of my Crown of Thorns and Canyon Dance after the screens are up.

I actually did very well, winning 9 blue ribbons.  Part of the fun of fair weekend is family.  This picture is distorted since we were in a curve, I am really not such a giant, my mom is taller than me!  Me, mom, SIL Dee holding Isaak her grandson, niece Kylie, sisters Lori and Sue.  I hadn't gotten back in line after finding a classmate walking by to take our picture.

So if that wasn't enough.... there is another fair in the next county.  They allow entries from the surrounding counties and I have never entered before.  I have never even been to that fair!  My husband wanted to go to "town" and pick up some things and I said if we went Tuesday I would enter quilts.  So after work we did.  I picked 5 because their categories were very limited.  They judge on the Danish system, entries get a ribbon if they deserve it.

I had to go down Saturday as my car was throwing codes and needed a checkup so I went to the fair. I was shocked to see the entries behind plastic, but at the same time, it keeps dirty hands off of them!  I was awarded 5 blues!   I went back Sunday afternoon to pickup up my entries.

Baby Boy Grandson quilt

Canoyon Dance was all folded up and laying down.

Two wallhangings

Crown of Thorns with a Best of Class.

I want to get back to some quilting, all I have done is make a big mess, trying to design a small wallhanging for th Teal Swap to support Ovarian cancer.  

Linking up with Small Quilts and Doll Quilts for Design Wall Monday.

Making Progress!

I was able to finally turn my 110 Canyon Dance blocks into a quilt top.  In an earlier post I had auditioned sashing, but decided against it.  I already have a Canyon Dance that is a little brighter, I was just trying to use up some of my batiks!  I will probably eventually donate this quilt, when it makes it to the top of the "to be quilted" pile!

Canyon Dance

I spent quite a bit of time piecing a backing out of leftovers for this quilt.  I LOVE these fabrics.  I pieced this top in November, 2015 and I want it done this year for Christmas, so I thought August 

was a good time to do it!  I am ready for machine quilting now.

Snippets by Cottonway pattern with Jingle fabrics and a few others!

 I had picked up a couple pair of eclipse glasses earlier in this month and took them to work today.  My husband had another viewer at home that was free in the paper.  My coworkers and I stood outside and watched the eclipse.  We are north of the area of totalality and had about 95% coverage.  I did not take pictures of the eclipse with my cell phone, but thought the crescents in the shadows of a tree were pretty interesing!

Linking up with Small  Quilts and Doll Quilts and MCM and Oh Scrap!

Quilt Explosion

I will preface this by saying I have been quilting for 30 years.  I am completely obsessed with quilting.  I used to have more hobbies, but they don't get much time dedicated to them.  Now onto my quilts!  I have friends that have joked they could come take quilts out of my house and I would never miss them.  Those same friends were coming to my house Saturday night.  Plus we are having out of town guests this coming weekend who have never been here.

One of my summer projects was to straighten my quilt closet.  Saturday morning I decided to straighten the closet to make it easier for those friends to take quilts out (joking of course).  This is what the closet looked like when I started, I had to shove quilts back on the floor to get the door open. I have been a slob at putting them away!

After several hours this is the finished closet.  Guess how many quilts are in there?   Seriously, guess! Keep in mind I went through a mini phase and I have MANY wallhangings.  The floor is holding mostly larger quilts with Heart themed quilted on the far right (short pile).  The next shelf up holds 2 1/2 piles of Christmas quilts and 2 piles of fallish quilts.  The next shelf up is mostly wallhanging and smaller with some throw size quilts including Easter.  My patriotic quilts are out right now.  I will say in addition to the quilts in the closet I counted all the quilts in my house not in the closet.  There are 69 more!!!  YIKES!  I give away a LOT of quilts too!

I finally got all my Canyon Dance blocks squared up.  My design wall isn't big enough!  I didn't get a picture before I started auditioning possible sashing strips (or not), see below for options.  I just put a few pieces of each color on the wall.  They will finish at 1" IF I decide to use sashing!

 Option 1 - turquoise

 Option 2 - purple

 Option 3 - navy

 Option 4 - no sashing

Which is your favorite?  This is the original one I made. If I use sashing I will have 20 extra blocks and can make a quilt for a Care Center resident.

 
Linking up with Small Quilts and Doll Quilts for Design Wall Monday.

Busy Month!

Happy Memorial Day.  I am grateful to everyone who has served this great country.  This is my flag on the front of my house today.  

May is one of my busiest months of the year.  I have squeezed in some quilting, but not as much as I would have liked.  We had a very wet spring, and that caused a huge delay in spring planting on the farm, so May has been go, go, go.  I also had all my end of the year testing for my school, I was in charge of administration of that and I'm glad it's over.

We just have 7 days of school left and although I have a huge list of house projects to get done this summer, generally I do those in the mornings and spend my afternoons quilting!  I have had massive amounts of yardwork to do (and still do, trying to hire help, but having difficulty with that).  I also made a weekend trip to visit my daughters, grandkids and sisters.  It was a lot of fun watching my grandson play t-ball and my granddaughter in a dance recital at age 3!

Now to some things I have accomplished, or tried to anyway!

charity lap quilt I quilted for my guild, it was given to us as a top

backing I had on had

finished tool panel lap quilt for charity

block closeup

backing that was provided, but I had to piece it with some extra to make it big enough

lightweight denim backing I had on hand

printed fabric I added a back to and quilted for charity

all 110 Canyon Dance blocks sewn and pressed, but not squared up

project I am machine quilting to give as a gift

I am linking up to the new home of Design Wall Monday.  Small Quilts and Doll Quilts

Lots of cutting, some piecing

Another month flew by!  How can that be?  I was very busy in April and along with some home dec sewing, hemming a wedding dress with 5 layers, and a lot of cutting of projects.  I had groupings of fabric and I cut 8 projects!  I still have a big mess, but I have made progress. For home dec, I couldn't find the valance I wanted for the dining room, but I found fabric and then decided to do new valances for the family room.  Along with that I made some chair cushion covers for a chair that belonged to my MIL.  My daughter wanted the chair and I had already purchased fabric so I made the covers, complete with zipper plackets. Now I have not been able to find a chair I like to replace it!  I will keep looking.

I went to a quilt retreat this past weekend and made a little progress with some piecing.  For quite some time I have had the pattern Rhubard Pie by Madison Cottage Design.  The pattern showed the quilt and variations made in green and pink.  I LOVE turquoise and black and whites and started cutting.  I ended up with more quilt blocks than I planned (and have strips leftover) and as is this quilt would have finished at 72 X 80 without borders.  I didn't need a quilt that size so I took some of the blocks off.  Here are all the blocks together.

Rhubarb Pie diagonal layout

 This size is better, it would finish at 56 X 72 without borders.

 I chose a couple different layouts for the remaining blocks.  I like the second option best.

My quilt guild is small, but does a lot of charity quilt work. Someone was moving and giving away fabric.  I was given a couple sets of panels of tool fabrics.  I cut them apart and adding a sashing and now have a nice lap/throw quilt for a care center resident whenever it gets quilted!  I have backing for it as well.

I trimmed the panels as well as I could to get a smidgen of black around the panel blocks.  I think it adds a lot to the quilt top.

Several years ago I made a couple Canyon Dance quilts.  I have an exorbitant amount of batiks and these quilt blocks are so easy to piece and are cut with acrylic templates.  I cut up 55 batik FQ's and will have a total of 110 blocks when I am done for a king size quilt.  I have 30 pieced.  I will donate this to charity.... maybe...  I already have one.  The link to it is HERE.   I also made two in earth tones and gifted them and got one back when the friend passed away.  I then used it as a prize in my blog giveaway last year.  Link is HERE. 

That is my excitement for now!

Favorite Colors

Apparently I have some favorite colors as I have several quilt tops using these colors!  These are my go to colors!  I looked at a collection of fabrics I have sitting there to make "Fire Island Hostas" and yes, they are pretty much the same colors!  I have one quilt that isn't shown.  I quilted it and donated it last year without taking a picture!  It was leftover strips from the Log Cabin pictured below.

Crown of Thorns - top pieced in Sept. 2014 at a retreat sponsored by Quilt Taffy.  Pattern by Judy Niemeyer.

Stars and Scraps.  Pieced in 2013 and 2014.  Currently almost finished quilting and it will be a gift.

wallhanging with scaled down blocks 4" for 4 1/2" tall rows

Log Cabin - pattern by Judy Martin  pieced in Nov. and Dec. 2013

trees - some of the blocks were made by friends with fabrics I provided

Round Robin turned into a shower curtain

Canyon Dance - finished quilt is on my bed

leftovers - will add border, quilt and donate