Knit One Quilt Too

The Pine Needlers

Cheryl and I went to the Camp Sherman Quilt Show right after leaving class.  It was a treat to see so many pretty quilts in this small space.  The Pine Needlers are a small quilt guild, but they make a splash here.  The husbands are called the Pine Nuts and they are in charge of the food!   The quilt above was the first one as you walk in the door.  The exquisite hand quilting stopped me in my tracks.  One thing about this show was that there was a lot of hand quilting, something you see so rarely these days.

This next one is their raffle quilt and I just love it!  The green is actually more lime green in person and is one of my favorite green fabrics.

I guess I didn't get a full shot of this quilt, but I thought the border quilting was very unusual.

This is Sue Spargo's pattern, Ginger Grove.  I love the central bird block.

There were many antique quilts in this show, including this gorgeous string quilt.  Lovely hand quilting too.

This folded log cabin is based on a technique that Sarah Kaufman teaches. 

 

The show had a special exhibit by Tonye Belinda Phillips, author of the new book- Hand Appliqued Quilts.  I took a class with Tonye at last year's Quilter's Affair and had a really good time.  I knew at the time that she was working on a book, but forgot about until a couple of weeks ago when I ran into it at the Stitchin' Post.  I had to get it and I highly recommend it for the inspiration.  It's really a beautiful book. 

Anyway, the whole loft portion was filled with Tonye's quilts and it was fantastic.  She almost always hand quilts too.  I love her whimsical, colorful style.  I like the scallop applique border on this pitcher quilt.

I really, really love this one.  I was especially drawn to the squares.  It was funny because Tonye is known for her circle applique.  When I asked her about the squares she said she started doing them because she realized how much quicker and easier they are than the circles.  Here they are so unexpected that they add a great whimsical touch.

The red quilt below is the one that we worked on in the class last year.  I got inspired to work on mine again.  I've got two vases down and I'm working on the third. 

I love all the different basket styles here.  Also the irregular triangle border.  I also like the flower shape on the bottom row.  I think she told us last year why she didn't do another basket, but I forget why.  Perhaps she was just tired of them!

Cheryl and I got a chance to have a good chat with Tonye.  She's very warm and friendly and remembered me from last year.  I wish her continued success, her work is really stunning.

More to come!

Quilter's Affair

The week before the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show, is a frenzy here in Central Oregon.  All the quilt shops have special hours and special classes.  The Stitchin' Post (originator of the show and all around best quilt shop I've ever been to), puts on Quilter's Affair which is a weeklong set of classes featuring teachers from near and far.  If you are interested in attending next year, you must pay a small fee to be on the mailing list and then send in your registration almost before you even get it just to get into your preferred classes.  Next year, Gwen Marston is coming and I'm bound and determined to get into at least one class with her. 

Anyway, Cheryl and I signed up for Project Patchwork with Jane Davila, co-author of the Art Quilt Workbook.  This class is based on the same idea as Project Runway, which I'd heard of, but never watched.  The gist is that we would get three challenges and have two hours to complete each one.  My sis was a real trooper to sign up for this one with me, she had never even seen the Art Quilt Workbook and had no idea what was in store.  In addition she prefers handwork, but it's hard to do hand work when you've got only two hours.  She ended up trying several new techniques including curved seams, bias tape stems and her first free motion machine quilting!  One of the biggest challenges was- what to bring?  I ended up bringing my whole batik stash, figuring they'd all go together.  I also had lots of batik pieces that already had some fusible on them to make things quicker.

The first challenge was to choose a color from a bowl with slips of paper and a letter from another bowl.  With that inspiration we had to make a quilt with at least a small amount of the color and an alliterative title from the letter.  I liked this challenge, but with only two hours you basically start sewing before you even know what your title will be.  Cheryl got "black, T".  She did Two Time Twist.  I like the twist she added with hand sewing some felted wool strips on.  She even managed to get her binding done!  Be sure to click the photos if you want to see some detail.

 

I got "Blue, R" and did Running Rivers Rise.  The stars were orphan blocks, so were a bit of a cheat.  I tried couching on the bottom border and machine quilted the title in the right hand border.  I don't think this one was very successful contrast-wise, but it was fun. 

Here are some of the other students' artworks.

 

Challenge number 2 was to blindly choose a postcard of artwork, then create a quilt inspired by the form, composition, color or even just the title.  I didn't care for the art work, so went with the title, "The West Wind".  In the end it turned out I did have some similarities in color and form as well.  The yellow one is mine.  The quote is from Picasso, "Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life."  I went with the western sun with cactus spines and wind shapes.  I did some beading on the suns, but need to do more.  The quote is stamped on with fabric ink.  The one is my favorite of the three I did, notice there's no binding at all!

Cheryl got this lovely postcard and had no difficulty being inspired by trees.  She did some rubber stamping of the letters, "NATURE".  She also did some hand work with embroidery floss and beads.

Challenge #3 was to blindly choose a fortune cookie fortune and interpret it any way.  There was also a special word on the back and you were to try to use the word in the quilt.  Cheryl got "Love goes nowhere uninvited".  Her special word was taste, which was hard to include.  She made this adorable house quilt with a door that opens.  The smoke is rubber stamped.

"Prosperity is a way of living and thinking, and not just having money or things".  Special word- fish!  This is mine.  I got the house idea after Cheryl did, but mine is free pieced while hers is appliqued.  I finally got the binding done!  And I just happened to have some fish fabric. 

"You are going to have some new clothes".  This one is so cute.  Look at those jeans!  I also like the ricrac binding.

"We can admire all we see, but we can only pick one."

"Every man is a volume if you know how to read him."

We were completely exhausted by the end of the class!  But we weren't done.  We went to the Pine Needlers Quilt Show out at Camp Sherman.  This is a sweet little show and well worth heading out to.  Photos from that next time!

Fireworks

The 4th of July turned out to be a lovely day weather-wise.  We started off with the tradtional pet parade.  Chloe decided to ride her scooter in the parade and Ryan decided to sit it out, so Scrabble watched along with Ryan and I.   The dogs are everywhere at this parade, including this hula girl.

  

This "zebra" was quite noticible and when I went closer I realized she was handled by Liz, one of my chemo nurses.  She hasn't seen me since then and was happy to see me with hair!

After the parade there were popsicles all around.

In the afternoon we had a bbq with my parents and there was some ball play and a Scrabble game. 

For dinner we went out to Thai food, my favorite!  Then I had a bit of sewing time and fireworks.

The fireworks were inside as well as outside because I got a lot of sewing time over the weekend and finally got to play with my solid scraps.  What fun this was!  It all started with this.  I hadn't yet started a quilt for the Lazy Gal Summer quilt along.  When I came up with this idea, it was to repeat Ryan several times, then it exploded!

There are more here too.

I haven't decided yet what the setting will be for these (any thoughts?), but I'm excited to have so many done.  I love the colors too.  Now the solid scrap bin is just whites, blacks and a bit of brown.  Sounds like a Gee's Bend combination to me. 

Yesterday I volunteered at the Sister's Quilt Show office.  I didn't get to see as many quilts as I would have liked because most of the sorting was done last week, but it was still nice to get in there and see behind the scenes.  What a ton of work goes into this week's festival!  Today I sold raffle tickets for our guild's quilt at one of the local quilt shops.  Tomorrow Cheryl comes!  I've also found out that Quiltville Bonnie and Marathon Quilter Cher will be at the show as well as Celtic Knots Cathi who I already knew was coming.  It would be fun to meet some of you in person, so if you happen to see me at the show, give a shout out!  Posts may be sporadic over the next week, but I'll be around.

Father's Day

 

Playing with the new camera today, we came away with some awesome photos.  We'll head back for more some day when the light isn't so bright.  We had a great day with my parents too.  Mom, Chloe and I went to see my dad's play, The Taming of the Shrew.  It was a good production, very funny.  Then home for a homemade lasagna dinner and chocolate cake! 

This week I'm on a mission to finish blue and yellow and this one from last year!  I'd really like it done for this July 4th.  No promises though!

Happy Birthday, Sis!

Today is my sister's 40th birthday.  Happy Birthday Cheryl!  I hope you have a marvelous day.  This photo was taken two years ago at the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show.  The great news is that she's coming again this year to visit for the show.  We'll be taking a class together and getting up to no good in all the quilt shops.  It should be loads of fun!  Below you'll find the gift I sent, so, Cheryl, if you're reading this don't peek unless you've already opened the package. 

Mother's Day Surprise

Happy Mother's Day!  We had a delightful day with my parents.  We had a delicious brunch made by Chloe and my dad.  Then we played Pictionary and Trivial Pursuit.  The guys won the first one, the gals won the second!  Up above is the Kiri Shawl, finally blocked and presented to my mom for Mother's Day.  I'm glad to see this one finished because the knitting was done last summer!  Remember that? 

And now, because I know there are a few who are curious, I'm finally ready to reveal my new, short, short haircut.  I've actually had one haircut since my hair started growing out.  It's coming in rather unevenly, so I had to have a cut just to make it less shaggy.  I like having short hair right now, though would like it to be a little less boyish.  I haven't had short hair since I was a baby, so this takes some getting used to!

Happy Valentine's Day!

We've already had a very full day and Mark and I haven't even gone out for our Valentine's dinner yet!  Today the kids and I went up to Mt. Bachelor for a snowshoe tour and snow tubing.  What a blast!  The weather was absolutely gorgeous and we had a great time.  In this photo, to the left is South Sister and to the right is Broken Top. 

We had some fun last night making our Valentines.  I was so glad to have a few hours to work on them as it's become a tradition.  Earlier in the week I thought we might not have time.  By the way, on Tuesday I went with my mom to see a showing of the documentary, The Breast Cancer Diaries. It was really great and I'm glad we went.  I highly recommend it if it is ever showing in your neck of the woods.  Anyway, we made Valentines and Ryan did so great!  He is showing more of an inclination for arts and crafts lately.  I wrote out the names of those he wanted to make them for and he copied the names.  Actually his hand writing has improved tremendously.  I think he made about three Valentines for his favorite puppy!

Chloe made a beautiful pop-up Valentine for her grandparents.

I made bookmarks for everyone.

I had a little trip to the Stitchin' Post last weekend for a free workshop on using Shiva Paintstiks.  I've had the supplies at home for a while, but just hadn't gotten around to using them.  Now that I've tried it out I can't wait to do it again.  Anyway, while there I couldn't help but pick out some gorgeous fat quarters and I while I was at it, why not get 13, since when you buy a dozen the 13th is free!  Some of these are from the new Kaffe Fassett line and they are gorgeous!  The lucky thing is that tomorrow and Saturday I'm taking a class with Jean Wells, the owner of the Stitchin' Post, and I get to take another look at the fabrics while I'm there.  The class is called "Intuitive Quilting" and I'm really looking forward to it.

It's been such a hectic week, but I did have a couple of hours the other morning to work on Better Not Pout.  Tonya sent out a motivation post over at the Lazy Gal Winter Class blog and I felt like I ought to get going on it.  I decided to use the Christmas tree picture that Ryan did on the left.  The Santa on the right will be appliqued and embroidered onto the circle of white fabric.  I think I'll probably use buttons for the baubles on the tree.  In the center, if you look closely, is a green truck (I think) and I might see if I can find a truck button for it.  I also have some other ideas about how to do the truck, but that can wait until the quilting is done.

I still have to do the sleeve and beading on Chloe's birthday quilt.  I hope to have Sunday as a totally free crafting day!  Oh, that would be so nice! 

Lastly, here are some dragon eggs made by Chloe's Campfire group.  Aren't they cool!  They blew out the eggs and hot glued them onto the skewers.  Then some of them applied the hot glue in swirls on the eggs and lastly they were spray painted.  I think they are gorgeous.  This would be so much fun to do for Easter eggs.

Many thanks

Thank you so much for the birthday wishes for Chloe.  She had a wonderful day!  Her cake was a joint effort by she and I.  I baked the layers and she decorated with whip cream, strawberries and a dusting of powdered sugar through a cake stencil.  She also made the 15! candles last fall when she was making beeswax candles.

My big surprise for her was this mini quilt showcasing Scrabble.  Better photos to come soon.  I managed to almost finish it on the day of her birthday.  I got it all done, down to the binding.  I still have to add a hanging sleeve and will embellish with beads.  There's a quote there that says, "My goal in life is to be as good a person as my dog thinks I am."  I asked her for her favorte dog quote and had her look at a basket of fabrics and tell me which were her favorites. That's how I got the color combo I knew she would love.  She had no idea what I was making.  Stay tuned for better photos of this quilt!

It's been a crazy week what with selling Campfire candy.  Luckily, Chloe has met her goal of 300 boxes and we have just a few more people who want some.  Thank goodness it's done for another year!  If you've never had to do this before it involves long hours sitting in front of grocery stores waiting to sell candy.  I needed a quick, mindless project and found one when I went to Norma's blog last week and saw her stripey Noro scarf.  I had some Noro Silk Garden hanging about in the stash so I started this last week.  It's already almost done.  I love this pattern originally seen on Brooklyn Tweed, probably the most gorgeous knitting blog out there.  You can take two different balls of Noro that you'd never stick together otherwise and get a really smashing scarf.  A complete scarf photo should be available any day now.

One last thing to show you.  I managed to machine quilt and bind this quilt this morning just in time for quilt guild tonight.  This was available as a kit from the community quilts group in our guild.  My friend, Michelle, offered to piece the top.  Then we basted it together and I did the finishing.  I'm so glad it's done!  And now I'm off to the guild meeting!

   

My sweetpea

Chloe turns 15 today!  She'll always be my little sweetpea, no matter how big she gets.  She is a source of constant amazement with her imagination and creativity.  She still writes nearly every day and she just finished reading the Lord of the Rings.  That series took me 6 months to get through and she read it in about a month.   I suspect that was just to show me up, but nevertheless I'm so proud of her.  What a lovely young woman she is becoming.

Live, Love, Laugh, Learn

My sister, Cheryl, is just as crafty, or even more so, than I am.  She has had a stained glass business for years and is a talented artist as well as crafter.  She draws and designs all the stained glass herself.  A few years ago she also took up fused glass and makes sun catchers, ornaments, bowls and plates as well.  You can check out her wesite, Silly Dog Art Glass.  This ornament was one of our Christmas gifts from last year.

She started quilting soon after I did.  She makes really beautiful quilts that are all hand quilted with her stab stitch quilting method.  Soon after my diagnosis she started making this gorgeous pillow for me.  It is especially significant that she stitched the words, Live, Love, Laugh, Learn in the hearts.  That is the name of my unschooling blog which you can link to on the left hand side bar.

This is the back which has some really pretty embroidery stitches.  You can click these photos to see them bigger.

This pillow came at time when I was feeling really low from the chemo and was such a thrill to open.  Thanks so much, Sis!