Quilter's Day Out 2009....

Saturday was Quilter's Day Out here in Evansville. Once a year, the 3 local area quilt guilds get together and enjoy a day of quilting exhibits, speakers, vendors, and sharing our last years quilting experiences through show-and-tell of our projects. It's a great day for all the area quilters! This is our raffle quilt for this year and if I can figure out a way to sell tickets to any of you that are interested and who don't live too far away (like across the ocean!) I will be happy to do so. Tickets are $1 a piece or 6 for $5. The raffle isn't until December at our Christmas meeting, so I will get back to this later.
There were lots of vendors waiting to take our money and a treasure table of items individuals wanted to sell.

A very nice display of Underground Railroad quilts for us to look at and enjoy.

Lot's of great quilting door prizes.......I won a couple of Fons and Porter items (a pin magnet and a lot of assorted pins). The big door prizes of the day, were 3 baskets each with 50 fat quarters.

We had two wonderful speakers. This is Dallas Reed and not only is he a great quilter, but one of the funniest guys I have ever heard. His talk...."Confessions of a Fabricholic" had the place in "stitches" :-) He also writes poems and I wish I had a book with his wonderful quilt poems....some funny, some nostalgic, all good.

Here is one of his African inspired quilts.

Our second speaker was Marti Plager and spoke on "My Journey as a Quilt Artist". Her work ranged from the traditional to much more modern works as her artist vision changed.

I'll admit that I like her early work best and this was one of my favorites.

And of course each of the guilds provided some beautiful quilts to look at as well as many "show-and-tell" items.

I have tons more photos and will add a link below where you can go to see more of our Quilt Day. What a great time we all had!

http://share.shutterfly.com/share/received/album.sfly?sid=0JZNnDRq3YsZO&startIndex=0&fid=7565d70e4bc4dcef

Green in my quilts for St. Patrick's Day....

I seldom make a quilt that doesn't have a lot of green....unless it is for someone else. My favorite quilt for the green in it....I love the greens in the border.
The "Lover's Knot" quilt has a lot of green.

One of my tea cup coasters that I made for myself....so green background, of course!

The back of Mike's car quilt is green and the label has his little green GTI on it.

A lot of green on the "Not My Grandmother's Flower Garden" quilt and the entire back is green with photos on it....but I posted that already.

Another green bit from that quilt.

2 quilted postcards that I made. The rose went to a friend, but I have never mailed the other one.

Green leaves and the green side of my reversable background, for this quilt.

Green squares in my daughter's "Uptown Seattle" quilt.

Green kitties making up the grass in my cat quilt.....with Mouse on the right.

Lots of lovely green batiks in my new bed quilt. I love sleeping under this one!
Time to create a new green quilt, I guess :-)

Pillowcases for Girl Scouts.....

Today was our Sew Saturday day at the local library. For the first 2 hours we had agreed to help a Girl Scout troup make pillowcases. What fun! A really simple project. All you need are two cuts of fabric.....one 27" the other 9" (width is just selvage to selvage..44-45") The girls do all the sewing with guidance from the ladies from our quilt guild who show up to provide the sewing machines and help.
They learn to iron the fabric.

Fold the 9" piece in half and pin it to the 27" piece. Sew this seam.

Rosie helping one of the girls with her sewing.

Such concentration! It is all straight seams and the girls get pretty good at it.
Once the top piece is sewn on, you straighten that upward and then fold the whole thing right sides to right sides to form a case and sew the side and bottom seam.

I love this little girl's hat! They loved holding up their colorful pillowcases.

Now they need to have a "sleep over" and use them!
A simple project for anyone who can sew a straight seam on a sewing machine. They looked so good, I will have to go through my fabric and make a few for myself! Good project to make for grandkids :-)

Quilt Bras.....

This is so good that I'm posting it in two of my blogs! These are so creative!

OH MY GOODNESS. What these quilters from South Carolina have done with bras!! It is amazing of the creativity and hilarious, toohttp://www.quiltersofsc.org/artfullbras/artfullbras.htm

UFO's......

I started last year with a list of my "UFO's" and am depressed to see that most of them are still on the list and I added several new ones. For any non-quilters out there you probably wonder when we talk about things like "UFO's" and "fat quarters". Well, I will tell you that UFO's have nothing to do with aliens from outer space and "Fat Quarters" have nothing to do with body parts!

UFO stands for "Unfinished Object". Usually they result from a project you are stuck on, or one you have lost interest in, or are part of a class you took and never finished. I have some of each!

UFO #1This last year I was trying very hard to learn needle-turn applique and made these two butterflies with the intention of doing "something" with them.....and probably making more. Well....this is as far as I got.

UFO #2
An applique class project that I finished the applique on, but didn't finish up the whole thing. It needs some embroidery done connecting the buds, flowers, and berries and then to be quilted and made into a wallhanging.

UFO #3

My sister and I wanted to play with the ideas in the book "Circle Play" and I started these. I have no idea what to do with them, but I did manage to get half of the circles sewn down this year and connected them into 3 strips....banners? With the idea of maybe hanging them from a piece of bamboo......or maybe not.

UFO #4

I quickly pieced this "tea cloth" to throw on a card table when I was having some friends over for tea......however it is just a top with unsewn edges and needs "something" more done to it. I seem to need a lot of "somethings" done to a lot of things! Maybe I'll applique teapots and tea cups in the center! A new idea at least.

UFO #5

Another class. Pineapple blocks. I only made 4 and never want to make another. I decided they needed appliqued leaves and flowers in the white areas and started.....another "something" project to finish. Sigh. I had no idea how to do the applique and will probably have to remove those leaves and start over.

UFO #6

A tablecloth that I started several years ago. My sister chose this pattern and different colors for me to make her a tablecloth and I wanted to test the pattern. I liked the colors I used for the test and decided to keep going.....but after making hers, I lost steam on doing mine. At least there are no "something is needed" decisions on that one.....just some time spent.

UFO #7

A "Crumb Quilt".......it was winter and I wanted something "sunny". Got the main part done and never chose a border or backing or had it quilted. Another "something" to choose things for.

UFO #8

Another sample piece I was using to practice doing crazy quilting on. I like parts of it and not others. Hate ripping stuff out. I have fabric to make it a large pillow or wallhanging or something if I ever finish it! It needs a lot of stitching yet to look pretty and there are many uncompleted areas.

Well.....those are my confessed UFO's.....there may be a couple that I never, ever plan to complete that I won't even mention.

I resolve to complete at least 2 of these this year! I did finish at least 2 on last year's list!

There's hope!

Mellow Yellow Monday.....

I'm going to love this new meme! Yellow is so sunny and right now we need some sunshine!

This is my Yellow "stash"......all quilters have a colorful stash!
Lots of lovely yellow!

A yellow kitty in my Cat quilt....

....a yellow sun.....

.....yellow flowers....

....more yellow flowers!

That's my Mellow Yellow Monday!

Thanks to Drowsey Monkey for starting this great meme!

Click on the icon at the top for more Mellow Yellow Monday posts!

Back from the quilter....gorgeous!

I got my Batik quilt back from the quilter and it is so gorgeous! Linda B is so talented. She did leaves and butterflies all over it and I just love it! I still have to bind the edges. When I get the Christmas tree out of the living room...today....and the edges bound I will stretch it out and get better photos...I hope! I haven't named this quilt and just tend to think of it as "Batik Beauty". Guess I just named it. Here it is stretched on our bed to give some idea of how it looks. I posted the top in an earlier post back in December.
The quilting doesn't show as well on the front as on the back, but in the lighter areas you can see the lovely free hand leaves that Linda made all over it. Click on any photo to bring it up larger.

I love every fabric in this quilt....so nice and "nature" looking. Can't wait to sleep under it. I made it square....about 96" if I remember right. A very simple pattern that is really just an uneven "Rail Fence" block. I got the idea from the quilt book "Happy Hour".

More of the front. I think if you blow this one up larger you can see one of the butterflies she quilted on the left side.

For the back of the quilt I put together a giant 9-patch out of 3 different green fabrics. I wish now I had just used the light green that really shows off the quilting!

This is not accurate color-wise, but it gives you a better look at the quilted leaves.

More of the leaves and more accurate color.

Started in fall 2008, finished in January 2009.