Hello Paducah!

This weekend I had the great pleasure of attending the AQS show in Paducah for the first time. I believe it is just behind Houston as the largest quilt show in the US. It was a ton of fun and I will probably split up photos into multiple posts.

I completely lucked out on the ride down because I got to sit next to Casey York! It's so fun to talk to others about quilting and this is the first time I've gotten to chat up someone who's blog I follow. It was a blast and I hope I can get to know others whose blogs I follow soon too :)

I got to see Christa Watson's quilt in the (very small) modern quilt section. Go Christa!

For this post I'll just focus on some general impressions of Paducah. These are generally all in comparison to Pacific International Quilt Festival (PIQF), which is the only other large quilt show I've been to. First off, Paducah had fewer quilts but waaaaay more vendors. I most definitely ran out of time to do everything I wanted and I had to skip out of the vendor tent early to ensure I actually made it to all the quilts.

Second, this show was definitely more traditional than PIQF. There were far fewer pictorial/art quilts and more traditional patterns. There was quite a bit of hand applique. All of the traditional quilts had a serious "wow" factor, but I have a passion for landscape quilts so I wish I could have seen more.

Lots of big and bold medallion quilts like this one by Masa Yanagimoto (btw there were also a ton of quilts by Japanese quilters. That's a whole nother post!)

One thing that was a little frustrating was that you could not get close to the quilts. A lot of this quilts shined because of their amazing details, and unfortunately you just can't see those details from 6 feet away. Some quilts are really also meant to be viewed head on, and with the  chain you just couldn't do that.

Curse you, chain!

This quilt by Lorrie Hockett just begged to be viewed close up...but you couldn't! It was almost a travesty. I would have loved to found all of the fun details hiding in it.

I took close-ups of all of the blocks on that quilt so I could actually seem their contents!

This one needed to be viewed head-on for full effect. This angled picture doesn't provide  the impact that I know this quilt has. Quilt by Kathy McNeil.

Okay one more whiny point: the quilt descriptions were mighty short. Each quilt had merely a number next to it and you had to look up the number in the program. It seems each person was limited to about 100 characters for their quilts description. Almost none included a listing of the techniques used, which is typical in other quilt shows I attend. That's information I would like to know!

Criticisms aside, there were a lot of pretty flipping awesome quilts. I did one round of the show taking photos and a second round just taking in the quilts and enjoying them without the camera distracting me. It's fascinating how some quilts look awful up close and when I look through the camera lens they look completely different.

Take this quilt by Jo Ann Kilgroe and Jessica Jones Gamez. It wasn't until after I had been snapping a few photos of it that I realized the flowers in the corners were actually butterflies!

Okay that's enough photos for now. I probably be posting a lot more with some specific observations about use of fabric, color, quilting, and so on. It's always great how much you can learn and be inspired at these shows!

Kitties! Quilts! Kitty Quilts!

Sew many fun things have been happening around here!

First off, a surprise came in the mail!

It's a quilt rack! Thanks Mom! Right now it only has two quilts on it but as the weather warms more quilts will transfer from my bed over to the rack. As you can see, my kitty quilt seriously needs to be ironed after being folded up in the closet so long! It's great to have a place to keep quilts out and about instead of hidden away when not in use. :)

I also got another treat in the mail, although I knew this one was coming...fabric!

I joined a fabric of the month club that focuses on modern prints. I wanted to join back in Jan but they were full. They finally recently reopened membership and I jumped on the chance to join.  I normally don't buy fabric without a plan, but these modern prints are out of my comfort zone, which is precisely why I wanted to join the club. 

I foresee a lot of fun modern quilts in my future with all of these fun fabrics! Every month the club focuses on a different color, and as you can see, this month was yellow.

This one is a favorite. Look at those bicycles! Too cute!

In other news, actually sewing has, believe it or not, been occurring as well.  I am finally making real progress on the embroidery on my veggie quilts (photos coming...sometime)...and was for a while focused on finishing up the bear and salmon quilt. Then, a friend got seriously injured. And folks, just a PSA here, please get health insurance. Because you never know when you will fall down the stairs and break both your legs in a freak accident. And if you don't have insurance, like my friend, you are looking at a pretty scary hospital bill. 

So I was thinking of how to help and it hit me that I have a number of nearly finished tops lying around my house and this was the perfect chance to finish one. So...remember this quilt?

It's a duplicate of my Stairway to Cat Heaven quilt. It was kind of a commission via the internet and of course the person disappeared off the face of the planet...so this got folded up for another day. But all it needed was some kitties and a border...and I had all of the fabric, including backing and batting, on hand!

Of course I didn't take any photos, but I whipped up the top in no time (with a simplified border from the one I made for myself) and tonight got is about halfway quilted.  Basting was a breeze with my awesome new quiltak gun, although I got some lumps in the batting through my own fault.

Miss kitty was all about helping...in the worst way! The other day she sat in my lap while I was sewing the borders on and kept poking her paws towards the needle..and I kept jsut about having a heart attack! Today she went out of her way to be in the way while I was trying to quilt. Here I had flipped it over to check out the back and make sure there weren't lumps forming.

You can see the part I've quilted so far. It goes very quickly when there isn't a kitty in the way.

And of course when I turned it upright to do more quilting she made herself right at home! It was at about here that I gave up for the night! I am confident that I can get this quilt finished in another week (or less!) and hopefully get it to my friend to snuggle under while she recuperates. And seriously, please get health insurance guys.

One more kitty shot to take us out:

Awwwwwww...how can you be mad at a face like that?

Another mini update

Still playing tons of video games here! But sneaking in a little quilting here and there too. :)

I am back to being caught up on my skill builder BOM. Yay! I would like to keep it that way!

Here is the quilted machine stitches block. Like a chump, I used the wrong shade of purple thread for the quilting. I have another purple that I bought specifically to match perfectly with this fabric, and I forgot about it. Also my boyfriend pointed out to me that I didn't assemble the stitches consistently...sometimes the X is right over left and sometimes it's left over right! Oh well.  

And here is our next block. I also assembled this one a little wrong (the background strips are supposed to all go in the same direction) but I bet (hope) that once it's quilted, no one will notice.

The other quilt I am really working to complete is my bear and salmon bargello. Here are all the salmon laid out.

I was originally going to crowd them a bit more, like in the upper photo. I would make a few more salmon for that upper right corner. Then I thought, "you know, I worked really hard on this bargello and I don't want to hide the whole thing under fish!" So now they are all spaced out as in the photo below. I think it looks a little less realistic though, a little too perfectly spaced out. So what do you think? Top photo or bottom photo?

The cute grizzly bears have been made and I have figured out where each will go. I am hoping to get them all attached today or tomorrow.

Well hey there!

Eek..it's been over a month!! Not a ton of sewing has been going on here. I was studying for a big exam, then started a new job, then got madly obsessed with a new video game. I'm still obsessed, but I've gotten it down to about two hours per night of play instead of much, much more.

So...what's been going on down here?  I finished up the first two blocks for the Skill Builder BOM.

And yes, these are iphone photos. Otherwise nothing would have ever gotten posted.

I'm not loving the fact that I used veriegated thread for the lime parts, but I committed not because I bought three spools. I think it makes random parts of the quilting design stand out way more than others. For the ruler I tried out Leah Day's Super Circuit Board design. I had fun with it, but wavy or flowing lines are definitely easier than straight lines and sharp edges.

Just recently I finished up piecing block 3 for the BOM. I am now only one block behind, almost caught up.

Okay pet peeve time here. I don't like how much we are trimming things down in this BOM. Everybody needs a good trim once in a while, but I feel like the extent we are doing it here is pretty wasteful of fabric.

Check out this guy. Is he wonky? Heck yes! But I could have squared him up with maybe 1/8" per side.  Instead we shrunk a 4.5" block to a 3.5" block! In terms of total block area, that's a 40% reduction in the size of the block (20 square inches to 12 square inches).  That means 40% of the fabric I used to make this block was thrown away! 

Here's the other one. Needs squaring? Certainly. Needs 1/2" per side taken off? Nope.

 We are supposed to be trimming down our blocks after we quilt them, but I'm going to wait. If I am clever enough with the math, maybe I can get away with not trimming them down and just having a bigger quilt.

Anyways, that's all the photos I have. I have been making baby steps on a few other projects and also meant to show you photos of my newly restored needlepoint chair, but that would require getting off my lazy butt and taking some photos. Instead, I think I will go play video games. :P

War on Works in Progress

My guild is launching a "WOW" or "War on Works in Progress."  We were all given index cards and asked to list our WIPs that we want to complete this year. Throughout the year we can ask each other for help and encourage each other to complete these projects.

We also had a discussion about why things become WIPs, and it was one that I found enlightening. Many of us were stuck because of a technically demanding section. Many of us got sucked into other projects that "just couldn't wait" (like a baby quilt!) and had difficulty picking these projects back up again. A lot of people had quilts that just needed the binding added (I love this step!) and others had tons of tops waiting to be quilted (this is where I get hung up.)

This provided me a good opportunity to evaluate my WIPs. I even made a list and stuck it to the wall next to my sewing area so I don't forget them. You don't need to hear my laundry list, but I have decided to ditch at least one WIP.

This top is going to come along to my next guild meeting, to see if anyone wants it. I just don't like it and I don't want the finished quilt. The only way I would finish it would be to give away or sell it, but it has a lot of technical mistakes so I'm not sure selling it would make sense. At this point, I've got better things to do than spend the time and money on quilting this guy. Whew, that feels refreshing to say!

This week I have been doing very little sewing, and I know it's because I am intimidated. I am at the embroidery phase of my veggie quilt, and that's pretty scary. But I think if I make myself do even 5 minutes a day, I will make a ton of progress. The biggest hurdle is usually sitting down to start!

I am also a little behind on my Skill Builder BOM. When the instructions for the next block came out, I finally had motivation to hurry up and finish quilting the last two blocks!!

I was merrily stitching along on this ruler block when I ran out of thread. Oops. And it is a rare variegated thread too. Double oops. So I drove to two different quilt shops with no luck. I ended up ordering more spools online. I do like how the quilting is going however. This is a design by Leah Day called "Super Circuit Board." It has its share of wibble wobbles but I feel like this design is somewhat forgiving on that front.

I darkened this a bit so you can see the quilting easier. I swear the thread isn't this dark in real life!

Yesterday I continued quilting, moving onto the pebbling stage. Has this ever happened to you?

Forehead slap. Oh well.

I do have one more project to share with you. For many months I have been mulling how I want to complete my layer cake bargello:

I see this bargello as a backdrop for something greater. I wanted to include some kind of applique element to it, that fit with pink and brown. I thought of pastries, cats chasing balls of yarn, or flamingos. On Monday there will be a batik sale at the local quilt shop, so that was the initiative I needed to sit down and figure something out, so I can go buy the rest of the fabrics I need.

Here is what I came up with:

I have had Java House Quilts' pattern "We Bearly Made it" sitting on my shelf for a while. The pattern is totally adorable:

This is a fun way to incorporate my favorite element of her pattern (those bears!!) into an existing quilt. The little goldfish are being converted to salmon, and I am going to find an awesome teal batik to tie it all together. The teal in that mock-up isn't quite right yet. Don't you think the bargello looks like a stream current? I am pretty excited to finally have a plan for this. Stay tuned for the actual quilt, coming soon!

Final Layout!

YES we have a winner! Thank you to Tammy and my mom, who both suggested moving the pinwheels to the outside.

Woohoo! Now when I look at this, my eyes immediately go to the sign that says "Larry's Garden," as they should!

There's still a lot to do on this quilt. I plan on enhancing each block with at least a little embroidery. I also wanted to add a bunch of cute insects, but now I'm thinking they may just clutter it and would be better off in the border. And of course, I need to plan the border! No idea what it will look like, but this sucker needs to be big enough to snuggle under, so it is definitely getting more fabric added to it. I really want some cool applique on the border, and I am still trying to plan out how that will look.

For now, I'm proud of the progress I've made. This thing is really shaping up!

Veggie Quilt - changing the layout

I've been plugging away at my veggie quilt and today planned to sew together all of the blocks. However, when I laid them out I wasn't quite sure that I like how things are looking.

When I see this, the pinwheels are just too bright and too busy. Here's the B&W version:

It bums me out to redo part of this quilt, but I really think those pinwheels ought to go.

Here I've laid out solid colors for those spaces. It puts the attention back on the applique blocks and makes the color scheme more consistent and less jumbled.  I'm thinking of doing some simple two-tone design, similar to those triangles along the edges.

I'm still waffling about redoing those blocks...it wouldn't take that long, but the pinwheels are cool looking. Hmmm.

Edit:  Here's another option I worked up. The triangles now match the block color gradient instead of going in the opposite direction. It brings more consistency to the piece. I also moved around the pinwheels to match the block colors better. What do you think?