Merry Christmas and Happy Quilting

Here it is, almost Christmas and I have not been making quilty gifts. I realized a few years back that my family has just about everything they want, so I stopped.  It is kind of nice.  I now have quilting time for me in December.  I've been working on a couple of things.

The first thing is a red and green Christmas quilt.  I don't do Santas and Snowmen, but I do make red and green quilts, as you can see from the photo above.  This one is one that I started in 2008. It's the one on the bottom.  I am still quilting it, so the picture will follow when it is done, which I hope is next week.

The second thing is a red and green quilt.  Sometime this spring, I was on Pinterest and my DH saw a quilt that he really liked.  It was a Judy Neimeyer pattern, lots of paper pieced spikes and a lone star in the center.  I thought it was a good thing that he pointed this out to me, so I bought the pattern.  I also bought some fabric I thought he might like.  Unfortunately, after starting the center piece, I realized that I didn't like the fabric...so it sat for awhile.  Recently, I was telling someone how much I liked red and green quilts and it became obvious that I might actually finish this if I made it red and green.  I am just about to finish the center star and all of the paper pieced sections are pieced, so as soon as I get the center pieced, I will post a picture.

Last month I mentioned that I was waiting for a juried decision on my Goose Lake quilt.  Well, bummer, it didn't get in.  I will enter it somewhere else and see how it does.

Lastly, we revealed the completed raffle quilt for Sinnissippi Guild.  If you would like tickets, let me know.  It is an original design and was made with the help of 30+ guild members.

Here it is:

Whimsical Garden

So much for now.  Hopefully I will get a few things done before the end of the year.

One Amazing Week

Last week was an amazing week.  It started with a trip to Chicago to see Hamilton.  I was lucky to get reasonably priced tickets to a bus trip with other from the Starlight Theater crew.  It was a truely unique and wonderful production.  The music, the lighting, the stage setting, and the costumes were exceptional.  I think I could see it several times, just couldn't afford that.

The very next day we headed out to Houston.  Tuesday was the awards ceremony for the IQA show.  They certainly do it right.  They have a winners circle where all of the ribbon winners sit together.  That means that I was in an area with people I had only admired from afar.  Sitting next to me was Cynthia England, she not only congratulated me on my award, but won best of show.  I was in awe of where I was and who I was with.  Unfortunately, I didn't get many pictures, but my DH got this one of me with my quilt.

They want you to stand near your quilt as much as you can.  I spent several hours at different times of the day and met a lot of great quilters.  It was fun to answer questions and, in general, just talk about quilting.  It was a whirlwind three days and something not to be missed.  If you would like to see all of the winners go to quilts.org.

Now that I am home, the holidays loom, but I hope to post another quilt soon.

...goin' to Houston

Welcome to my new blog space.  I am a quilter and hope to share with you some of my quilting experiences.  First of all, I am going to Houston for the IQA show.  My quilt won an honorable mention and, because of that, I get to be a small part of the bigger winner's circle!  How could I miss that.  It will be a quick trip since I already had some plans for that same week, but my husband and I will be driving like mad to get there.

Here is my quilt:  A Time for Lime.  It is a combination of applique and piecing, using Sue Garman's patterns for the applique and a feathered star as the counterpoint.  I used Kaffe fabrics for the applique and offset those brilliant colors with a great red civil war repro as the background and some lime greens to make it sparkle.

I have several other projects in the works and will follow up soon with those pictures.  One of the things I will need to keep you updated on is our mini group projects.  When we meet, we set up a challenge to be completed by the next time we meet.  More on that later...