During lunch break from class on that Friday, Jan and I went down to the show floor to see the quilts, and what ribbons I might have won …… teeeheee!   I got lucky this year, and received two first place blue ribbons and, drum roll please, my first ever Judges’ Choice from (usually traditional-loving) Lisa Erlandson (you’ll have to read to the bottom for more!)!  The first of my quilts that I ran across was Nourish; when I walked up all sorts of folks were looking at it closely (way cool!).

Here’s me doing the “Vanna White pose” and explaining to some viewers how I did it….

The next aisle had a wonderful exhibit called A Sense of Place, the annual Art Quilts Maine challenge for the year.  This year there were many entries (some years there are not so many!), and they were all wonderful, and some outstanding.  Of course I loved Kathy and Kate’s!   Kathy’s features her signature bright colors and many beads….as always not one too many, not one too few:

This detail shows more of her fine work:

Kate outdid herself this year.  She went to Italy earlier this year, and was so inspired by Cinque Terra.  She took her time with this quilt (as an overextended mom, we all tend to rush!) and it shows in the quality of design and workmanship.  This may be the best machine quilting she’s done… I totally love the piece:

Anne Walker, the President (aka Queen) of AQM, made this stunning aerial view…. her work is always tops—I wouldn’t mind owning a piece like this one!  The blue binding on the bottom is inspired!:

Across the aisle, the Coastal Quilters challenge hung on the ugly burgundy drapes.  Inspired by the Frayed Edges 5×5 grid (seen here in an older blogpost, and here and here), the chapter chose a photo by Jan’s husband and photographer Dwight P. called Ropes and Buoys.  The challenge was to make a 10x 10 inch quilt using any technique.   Many went for realistic colors….weathered wood and rope and a bright buoy, but some of us went hog wild!

Mine are the two close-ups….last one on the 4th row, first one on the 5th row.

I LOVED that some went traditional in their interpretation, and that others went totally wild.  What is astonishing is that some of the most traditional quilters who had never EVER made an art quilt did some of the most AMAZING piece….major kudos to Karen Martin and Leigh Smith for not only attempting the challenge, but excelling!

This quilt was a round robin made by Roxanne Wells, Rebeccah Hokkanen, Susan Barry and Gail Galloway-Nicholson.   Despite serious medical challenges to them and / or their spouses for at least three of them, they did a wonderful job.  Alas, I somehow only got the picture of this one (not all four) of their challenge quilts.  Of course they are, all 4 of them, part of my awesome local Coastal Quilters chapter.  I’m so glad I’m here! What luck to find so many kindred souls.

As promised, here is Rana O’Connor’s tiger….he is totally, completely amazing.  The tiger himself is ALL THREAD….and then appliqued onto the surface, which is a single batik. Everything else you see is thread–the snake, the tree, everything.  Can you tell she loves thread as much as I do?  Not surprisingly, he took a well-earned blue ribbon!  The quilt is fairly small, maybe 14 inches tall?

Here are several quilts (and sorry, I’m too lazy and rushed to run upstairs and find the show brochure to add who made them… if you know tell me and I’ll update the post, which I’ll try to do later anyway) that I really liked…. first this awesome green NY Beauty:

And this very Maine-ish quilt, complete with loose-flapping flags:

No blog about the show would be complete without one of Jeanne-Marie Robinson’s quilts (she’s also in Coastal Quilters…grin!).  Almost always her quilts feature animals, and most often are brightly colored.  This one is softer, yet is one of my favorites….the handwork (all hand applique and quilting, and lots of embroidery) is stunning:

This charming little quilt was made of one of those fabrics you’d think would turn out, well, a bit tacky, but it SO works, and the beading is just perfect.  I want to track down the maker (I have the info in my notes somewhere) and ask her if I may use it in my lecture on beading on quilts:

Last but not least, here I am doing another “Vanna” showing off my Judges’ choice ribbon for Naiads:

You may have noticed (or not, but I sure have) a dearth of quilty posts here the past many months. I really miss my studio and making art! Between family, exhaustion and a little working on my manuscript, I haven’t been able to create much. And the two pieces I’m working on now are for the Journal Quilt Exhibit this coming year, and can’t be shared (unless they don’t get juried in, or if they do get in, not until the show opens in Houston in late October–the hotlink is to the 2007 journal quilts… you can see mine on my website and on page 9 at the hotlink). BUT, I think I can share a little bit of the book samples I’ve been slaving over for my manuscript for Unraveling Threadwork (tentative title).

(Earlier blogposts about the book, in reverse chronological order, are here and here and here.)

Anyway, the book is about using thread on the surface of a quilt, so that covers applique, decorative stitching, free-motion stitching (at the quilt top stage) and quilting. Here I’m making samples of various ways to applique, including illustrating the need to reverse somethings …here’s the “reversed” S shape:

Here’s a mock up of the photo I’d like in the book on how to dampen the stitching to make removing freezer paper easier:

One thing I didn’t realize, but which makes sense, is that if you want the book to come out the way YOU want, you need to give the publishing company real guidance on the photos by doing mock ups. Of course, this is a LOT of work… you don’t just make the sample, but in my case put the camera on the tripod, set up the photography lighting, take several shots , select the worst and delete the extras, re-size the photos, then (when inserting into manuscript) relabeling all the dang things, and making sure the labels and numbers and whatnot correspond! Talk about time consuming…. so I’m only nearly a year late due to life etc.

Another pretty photo is to illustrate visual texture in cloth, from plain (nearly solid) on the far right, to LOTS of visual texture (on the far left…larger designs, lots of contrast in both line and value).

And on that note, I’m gonna sign off, do some reading, and hopefully get back to work!

Say what you ask? PLA batting? It is being sold as an EcoCraft Eco-Friendly batting (made by the folks who created Mountain Mist…here) . More on that in a sec…

Last summer when Joshua was hurt, Sue Franck (whom I have met only over the internet) organized a thing for folks to send Joshua blocks, which I would make into a quilt. Well, at long, long, LOOOONNNGGGGG last, I have assembled the tops. Yes, two. We had over 70, since some folks sent extras, or an extra for Eli, who also had to pay a price (and was awesome about it). I asked Joshua if he wanted borders, or sashing, to whatever, and he said (bless his sweet soul) that he just wanted as many of the blocks as possible. That meant a quilt 6×8 blocks, which is 72 by 96 inches! Eli’s quilt is a generous 5 x 5 blocks or 60 inches square (he still hasn’t decided what he wants for a backing! it’s on the design wall in the background). We used every single block!

My heartfelt thanks and hugs to Sue and every sweet soul who sent a block…we have them from all over the US, Australia, Singapore, England, Scotland, Canada… totally amazing. I will confess to feeling a whole lot of love and just a little choked up from time to time as I have quilted…..

One very generous soul from the QuiltArt list sent a Queen sized batt instead of a block! WOW! It was this batting that was new on the market as of last summer, and we were both curious. I am so grateful for her generosity, and I don’t want anyone to think that my comments about the batt in any way reflect on the fact that I SO appreciate her kindness.

Anyway, the packaging says it is made from corn fibers and—this should have been my first clue—is a batting similar to your favorite polyester batt. Hmmmm……

Here is what it looked like unrolled for basting. Yuck.

It was thinner and had a bit softer drape than those awful 1970s poly batts we hated and don’t miss, but it is… I must sadly say… just as awful. Where it was folded to fit into the bag and then unrolled, it stretched and creased, and they never came out…see that distortion across the middle of the table?  It still feels kinda lumpy under the quilt. It puffs and looks awful. The edges are wavy, not straight. My hands snag on it. It has thin spots. Yuck. Did I say yuck?

We selected a Polartec 200 for the backing. I have made other quilts with a thin cotton batting (Dream Cotton) and they have been wonderful, quilted up nicely, etc. Well…… using the poly batt on top of the polartec was not a good decision. I kept hoping that as I quilted it would get better. The back does look good however…. the quilting isn’t done so I’ll show it when I’m done. My machine had finally had it and decided it needed a tune-up, tho, so I am at a temporary standstill.

Here’s a picture of how I baste in sections on my worktable:

I did want to share this info tho and say DO NOT BUY THIS BATTING unless you liked the look, feel, and handling of the 1970s polyester batts. I have two Mariner’s compasses blocks someone sent which I will make into pillows (one for each son), and I was going to use the leftovers. I can’t do it…. I just can’t. Sigh. The compass blocks are gorgeous, and deserve an nice cotton batt, and they shall get it!

Only a bit more to quilt on Joshua’s…. Unless I decide it is so hideously puffy that it needs a lot more quilting, which is entirely likely……at least I made a smart decision to do really simple walking-foot quilting, not my usual freemotion. That is helping a lot with the bulk…not only is the quilt large, but with the thick polartec and the PLA batt……..anyway, I may not get it done in time for graduation from 8th grade on Friday, but Joshua understands the machine is away for a tune-up….it just about ground to a slow halt, so I immediately stopped sewing. I think it is just well overdue for a lube job. I hope that’s it….

Late update:  nope… machine in the intensive care ward all week….  hopefully soon it will come home…

One of the members on one of my e-lists is going through a rough year, recently diagnosed with not one but TWO serious illnesses at the same time. So, another group member is going to put together a snuggly quilt for her, and I made this block. The stitching around it reads: fabric, friends, health, hugs, thread, these things I wish for you, fabric, friends, health, hugs:

Then I FINALLY, after five months, got the squares cut from my BlauViolett dyed cottons and silks so I can do some tests for lightfastness (as in, will it fade a lot or not?) for this dye, procion MX-RX-7 known as BlauViolett. You may (dimly, in your distant memory) recall reading this blogpost about my December dyeing adventures. Well, I didn’t want glue to be a factor in any lightfastness testing, so I cut sorta-square pieces about 3 1/2 inches on a side and stitched them to some stabilizer (a sewing product used to prevent fabric from behaving badly when doing dense stitchery). Here is what the fabrics looked like in December up on my work table:

Here are the stitched up groups. There is a VERY wiggly sheer silk at the top, followed by the cotton (the dye is reputed to be very unstable on cotton exposed to light), silk dupioni, a silk jacquard (with a mystery fiber that is clearly neither silk nor cellulose fiber as it stayed white), and the delectable, want to roll naked in it wear it next to my body sandwashed silk . One source has told me that on silk, the dye is stable and retains its GLORIOUS color, but that on cotton it fades horribly. The two vertical strips on the left are going into the dark. The far left one is inside a manila envelope inside a cupboard, the short strip is on top of the envelope in the cupboard (which is opened fairly regularly but not subject to intense light exposure).

The other four strips are dated with the date they went up on the window. I will, I hope

remember to take them down at one-month intervals. This window faces east-southeast, and gets some of the best sunlight / exposure in our house. We don’t have any windows without the sashings, so this is the best testing spot I can find (the only other option would be pinned to the screen on the back porch, subject to the elements…nah!). At the end of summer we’ll compare the six strips side by side!

Phew! I did it! I taught at the AQS Show in Paducah last week, which also happens to have been my first major teaching gig at the national level…what a way to begin! It was exhausting, fun, a learning experience, and I’d do it again…just not every year please! Unlike Festival in Houston, the show is spread out in Paducah’s Expo hall, convention center, and the (icky) attached Executive Inn. The rest of the town joins in, from the MAQS Museum 3-4 blocks away, to Hancock’s of Paducah (a major store and catalog/online quilt store) several miles away via car/shuttle bus, to the many shops in town including Caryl Bryer Fallert’s studio and the new Eleanor Burns emporium. Regular stores all have quilts in the windows… it’s just fun! (Even if the weather can be hot and humid and sticky. Showers please!)

I did get to see the show, and thought I’d seen all of it, but since my return it appears I missed a section of the exhibits…bummers! From my arrival on Tuesday, to my departure for the Nashville airport on Saturday evening (I actually reached home at 9 pm Sunday), I had maybe 4 hours total during open hours to see everything and do just a little shopping! The first thing I saw, above, to my sheer delight was Gloria Hansen‘s quilt with a big ribbon (that’s me doing a stand-in for the much prettier Gloria, who is also my website designer extraordinaire)! (Note! All photos in this post are clickable for larger views.) Across the aisle was my Koi quilt. I totally love its simplicity, but it suffered in comparison to the heavily worked quilts in the show, I think. Still I’m glad that some of the folks in my classes saw it and remembered it!

One of the best parts of going to a big quilt show is meeting folks from online. I’ve also discovered that hanging out with other teachers is a phenomenal experience. Like quilters, they are so sharing, helping newbies like me learn the ropes. Jan Krentz was awesome (I may have to take a piecing class with her just to learn from watching a master teacher at work), and I got to room with Suzanne Marshall, whose quilts have earned spots in the top 100 quilts of the 20th century and the next best 100 quilts of the 20th century… amazing! (Click on their names to open a new window to their websites.)

And such a kind, down-to-earth lady. I’d room with her again any time! Our dinner out after our evening classes on Weds. was the best dinner of the week–we yakked for hours! This is her entry in this year’s show The Beast and The Boy…yes, all hand appliqued, hand quilted, hand stitched…sigh!

Here I am with Caty and Leslie from the Quilt Mavs list (they are sisters, yes their hair is that gorgeous, I want Caty’s!):

I was so busy teaching, that I didn’t get to really see much of the town. Thanks to meeting online friends, Caty and Leslie, for the first time, I DID get a lovely tour of the town (and was so glad to be able to do that sitting down in her comfy car! I was literally hobbling by the time I met them Thursday evening). We saw old homes, beautifully renovated old homes, dogwoods in bloom (the thing I may miss the most about Virginia), and also azaleas and redbuds. And we drove the Lower Town Arts Walk area…what a great idea to revitalize a town.

From the Janome 6500 list, I met Maggie S. and Madge Z. and we got this pic (thanks for taking my classes!):

and from the Pickles list, Michele E. from Alabama — if we look tired it’s because it was the end of my sixth and final class, and I was ELATED–I did it!

I also met and really enjoyed having Ruth Ann W. from the QuiltArt list and her friends in my classes…Ruth Ann, how did we miss taking a photo????? Maybe in Florida!

The hotel was, well,….. ugh. The folks who run AQS have apparently threatened to leave town and find another venue if the owner doesn’t fix it up, but according to the “word on the street” (aka gossip) the owner doesn’t much care and wants to turn it into a casino. If you go to Paducah, try to stay somewhere else then drive or shuttle to the expo center! Over the next few days I’ll be adding more posts….pictures of the show, of students and classes, the Ricky Tims concert… can you tell I had fun (and that I’m now catching up on sleep enough to enjoy it LOL!).