The Quilt Show!

Last weekend was the Darting Needles Quilt Show in Appleton.  I've attended this show several times, but never entered anything.  This year I decided to enter two quilts.  I was really excited to win ribbons on both of them!

Hocuspocusville won a blue ribbon.  This is a pattern from Crabapple Hill Studios.  The blocks are hand-embroidered and the whole quilt is machine quilted.  This quilt has fabric from the Ghastlies line on the back, and I think the back is as fun to look at as the front.

And my Bee In My Bonnet Row Quilt won a red ribbon and a ribbon for Best Domestic Machine Workmanship.  It was hanging in the front of the show when I first went in, along with the other ribbon-winners.  This show had separate categories for domestic machine quilting, long-arm quilting and hand quilting, so the winners of all three categories were hanging together.  It was pretty exciting to see my quilt with a big ribbon on it!  The judges comments for both quilts (different judges) were that my corners should be 90 degrees.  I thought they were, but apparently not close enough!  I guess I'll have to start paying a little more attention to that.  And strive for consistent stitch length - sigh.  I've been working on that, but it seems to elude me most of the time.

Joanne Blank won the Viewer's Choice award with this quilt, which was from the book by Yoko Saito and all hand-applique in Japanese fabrics.  This was such a fun quilt to look at, and the quilting was very interesting.  Each section had a different texture in the quilting.  This whole quilt was just absolutely gorgeous.  I think Primitive Gatherings had a club based on this quilt.

I didn't take very many pictures of the show because I was a little rushed for time, but it was a great show and I'm glad I entered.

The only recent finish I have to show is for the Country Threads UFO Challenge.  My UFO #2 is done - it was a fall cross stitch pattern that I made into a pillow.

Finishing this turned out to be more of a challenge than I anticipated.  I quilted the fabric, so then I had to quilt the cross-stitch part to keep it from puffing up and looking weird.  The fabric was left over from a fall quilt called Spice Medley, so the pillow will match it. 

So that's it for the September roundup!  Hopefully October will include a little more time in the sewing room.  The weather here has been beautiful for the last few weeks, so I haven't spent too much time in there.

Labor Day Quilt Along

Last weekend (Labor Day), Denise Russert at Just Quiltin' had a sew-along with a wonderful pattern she designed, called Mix and Match.  I made this quilt last weekend, and got the borders on this weekend.  This was a really quick, fun pattern that I plan to use as a charity quilt.  Denise's instructions call for a pieced border, but I didn't have enough fabric left to do that, so I just put the floral border on and called it done.  The pattern is still available free on her blog if you're interested.  You'll need to page back a couple times - the instructions came out in three installments.  This is one pattern that I will use again, especially for charity quilts. Thanks for sharing this with us, Denise!

What else is going on?  I've been working on my Summer Block of the Week from Primitive Gatherings...

I've had a lot of trouble keeping up on this one.  You'll see that the last three blocks are still missing.  We have the borders now, so I can start putting this together once I catch up the missing blocks.  I've enjoyed this quilt, but it seems like more work than in previous years!  I guess that's because we have to piece a block before we can start the applique process.

The Country Threads August UFO Challenge for me was this Row Quilt I made last year.

It was mostly finished - just needed some finishing touches and the label and sleeve added.  I'm happy to have this done and plan to enter it into the Appleton quilt show in a few weeks.  I really love the way it turned out.  The pattern for this one is in Quilty Fun by A Bee In My Bonnet.  This needs a final going-over before I pack it up for the show.  One of the rules for the show is that quilts must be clean and free of pet hair.  Clearly I'm not the only one who deals with this problem.  I laid my Pig Quilt out on the floor...

It hadn't been on the floor five seconds before the cat started rolling on it.  Apparently quilt tops are animal magnets.  I'm looking forward to quilting this one, if I ever get time to get it started.  The pigs are all polka dots, with 3D ears and tails.  I need to figure out a creative way to quilt this, once I de-hair it, of course!

My silly volunteer hollyhock just keeps blooming.  It's at least nine feet tall - you can see that it's started bending over because the top is too heavy.  It must really love the spot it's in!  I feel like I'm helping Mother Nature this year, because there are always bees buzzing around this flower.  Our weather is going to turn cool this week, so I think the time's up for this flower, but we've really enjoyed it this summer.

So that's what I've been up to the last six weeks or so!  Thanks for stopping by!