Piece ~ Love ~ Sew

TriCounty Quilt Guild's
Quilt Show

Report

I'd intended to get on this as soon as the show ended (cuz I'd have so much free time, LOL) but I probably need to look up the definition of "free time" first - I obviously don't have a clue. I was one of the three chairs and we put so much time and effort into the show over the past two years, I'm not sure what we'll do now! Ok, I can't speak for them, but I'm going to clean my studio, get caught up on my quilting and watch Game of Thrones from the beginning before the new season starts.

Back to the show!
It was held on February 28th - March 1st at the Berry Center in Cypress, TX - a fabulous venue and our second time there. We booked the next 3 shows there (even numbered years) so we can be sure to have it around the same time. A big thanks to Beth, the Berry Center's venue coordinator, for helping us produce a terrific show, with no hitches! We even gave her a ribbon!

First things first: how about some quilts?!

Here's our Best in Show - machine appliqued and quilted by Valerie Jolly - it also won Viewer's Choice. It's a big-un, so the bottom had to be pinned up so it wouldn't drag on the floor. It was stunning, but you may have to take my word for it as the photo doesn't do it justice.

"Stop Wishing & Start"

So many beautiful and creative quilts were in the show that I can't show them all here. But I do have a couple of ribbon-winners from the Sew-Hos!

Charmaine's quilt, "Charm's Star" won 1st Place, Paper-Pieced, Large. It was quilted by Karen Shively and was in contention for Best of Show right up to the last.

Charm's "Midnight Madness" 2nd Place, Mixed Technique

  And her "Fairyland Delights" won a 3rd Place in the Other Techniques Category.

It was quilted by Shirley Barter

This is Susi's  "Brain Freeze" which won an Honorable Mention in Art Quilts

along with her "Food Bowl" which won 2nd in the Challenge Category.

Speaking of which - the Challenge Category was called "Prints Charming" - along with a size limitation, the challenge was to use only print fabrics (no solids, hand dyes, or batiks) and you could only use each fabric one time. Here's my entry:

"Still Charming" - the backstory: back around the turn of the century (good Lord that sounds old!) I participated in a worldwide swap of 3" charms and sigs. I made HST's out of mine by sandwiching 2 charms together & sewing a seam on each side of the center line. When I cut them apart, I had 2 identical HST's but I could only use one in the quilt, since you weren't supposed to use a fabric more than once. Being optimistic (and cheap) I saved all of those other half-HST's. Wanna see that Y2K quilt just for fun? It hung in a special exhibit at Houston that year. And it's handquilted!

Fast forward 14 years to this year's challenge. I thought, "What a snap! I've got teensy HST's already made! I can knock this baby out in no time!" And guess what? A week before the quilts were to be turned in, my friend Richard pointed out that one of my fabrics was duplicated. 

What? NO!

Yes, dammit! Crap.
You know what that means, don't you?? There's a duplicate in my Y2K quilt! %#&*!!!!
I couldn't bring myself to rip everything out just to replace that one little floral triangle so I appliqued another HST from my Y2K stash over it. I was pretty sure I wouldn't win a ribbon anyway... and I was right.
So am I going to change out the duplicated fabric in my Y2K? Not on your life. I'm not even going to look for it. It's hanging up at the Cabin Too if you want to, though.
One more quilt from the Challenge Category: Sew-Ho Deb's! 

"Logomaniac" features words printed on fabric and won an Honorable Mention and Judge's Choice!

Another of mine that won ZIP was in the 3D, Wearables & Home Dec category. It's a tablerunner made in my Scrap Therapy class. It looks good on my tiled kitchen table with some of my Fiesta ware on it. The 1st place ribbon winner was my friend Tina with this little beauty:

1/4" "Little Hexies" - it's a pincushion! And only about 4" across. Awesome!

Two of my customers won ribbons:

Carole's "Angel in my Cabin" won a 1st Place in Traditional Pieced, Small

and Pat's "Asian Stack n Whack" won an Honorable Mention.
Shelly's was my only other customer quilt done these past 2 years...no time, no desire. Hers didn't win a ribbon but I think it should have! To be fair, it was in a huge category...Personally, I love the background quilting! :wink wink:

Lastly, my third entry won a 1st Place in Applique, Small as well as the other Judge's Choice!

"Strawberry Baskets" That's me with two of my grandkiddos, Zach & Teaghan

I almost forgot the raffle quilt! Guess who scored the big win!

Not me.

CHARMAINE!!!
Go figure.

My favorite quilts were these two. I guess you can tell I'm still into my Brown Period. Like Picasso's Blue Period, but without the $$$.

Let's see...what else?
Oh! We had an educational exhibit! We had samples of all different types of quilts and quilting with a notecard on each explaining what it was. That redwork quilt in the hoop has been in the works for 13 years. Stop laughing. I only have 51 on my UFO spreadsheet. I'm aiming to get this one done by the 2016 show. LOL. maybe...

My favorite quilt in the educational exhibit was this one, by my friend, Debbie. Another Hexie Queen, like Tina. And oh, look. It's brown. Surprise!

I was in charge of the vendors and we had a great bunch this time. My favorite booth was YaYa's Sweet Shoppe - they went all out with their booth decor. So much so that Beth (from the Berry Center) came to me and asked if we had a vendor selling baked goods! We gave them a ribbon for Most Eye-Catching Booth.

Another of my favorite vendors was Nancy with WOWJF-23 - funny name, great pain relief product! So many of our quilters swear by this stuff! Nancy was also awarded a ribbon for Most Cheerful Vendor - I never caught her without a smile on her face! 

And what guild show would be complete without the Scissor Guy?! He shows up at Quilters Crossing in Tomball once a month to sharpen scissors, knives and whatever else you need sharpened.

And this vendor, Vickie Bartlett, of Texas 31 Bags, was a sweetheart! Contact her for your very own catalogue of all types of bags, totes, little zippy things, etc to hold/carry all your sewing/quilting supplies. I did!

Our featured artist was Richard Larson - Quilter Extraordinaire! Don't know what he was doing to get those Mardi Gras beads!

Had a couple of margaritas and gin & tonics with him. Terrific quilter, terrific human being!

He demo'd all kinds of techniques and rulers the whole two days! So generous with his knowledge, talent, and time - we absolutely loved having him!

And last, but not least...all the guild's volunteers that worked tirelessly for the past two years to bring this about. They did a fabulous job and are the reason the show was such an overwhelming success!

Guild Boutique & Emporium

Bargain-hunting quilter's dream come true!!

And Lisa's crib-quilts bed-turning show & tell was very popular!


All in all, it was a great weekend for a quilt show in Texas!

For more photos from the show, go to the Guild's Blog and click on Gallery! Carla has pictures of just about everything!

February Desktop Calendar

Once again, I'm minutes away from midnight, still trying to figure out what to do for this month's calendar. I'm up to my eyeballs trying to finish my three quilts for our guild show. The deadline to turn them in is tomorrow, and though I entered four, I'll only actually be entering three. The largest one never made it to the longarm. It's hanging on my design wall waiting for its turn. Of course, the fact that it's been waiting since 2004 to be quilted, took the urgency out of that one, so it'll sit for another year (or two) til it makes it to the top of the rotation again. The calendar quilt is similar to one of my show entries that's waiting on its binding and label. I put it down so I could run over to the laptop and post this. I'm not going to show you a photo of the quilt til after the show. It's  a large wallhanging (unless it ends up as a baby quilt someday), and the other two entries are even smaller: one's a tablerunner and the other's a 32" entry in our guild challenge. More on those next month. For now, I need to get back to binding if I ever want to get any sleep before I turn these in tomorrow. 

Click to expand the image to full size, right-click and choose Set as Wallpaper or Background.

To really make the calendar "pop" right-click on your background and choose black. Your family and co-workers will be jealous of your awesome wallpaper! Be sure to tell them where you found it!

Circle of Life Raffle Quilt-Appraised: $7500!

My fellow quilters at TriCounty Quilt Guild have just finished the raffle quilt for next year's quilt show. Barbara & Diana headed up the piecing committee and I quilted it. It's called "Circle of Life" and is designed by Jacqueline de Jonge of The Netherlands.70" x 70"




The quilt took over 365 hours to complete, which includes cutting, piecing, quilting and binding, etc.
If you'd like to purchase tickets, they are $1 each or 6 for $5, 12 for $10, and are available from any guild member, including myself. Feel free to contact me if you're interested in purchasing a ticket or twelve.
It'll look terrific in your house - and think of the bragging rights you'll have as the owner of a $7500 quilt!

And MORE Bling!

Today when I went to snoop down at the retreat (I love to check out all the projects and goings-on with my retreaters), I found another gift from beader Royelle: a pair of Christmas tree earrings! The photo doesn't do them justice as they are much more sparkly in person. Thank you, Royelle - you are too much!

Christmas Party Bling

My local guild had our annual Christmas party the other night and I noticed that many of our members went all out in their Christmas attire. Some had jazzy vests, some had cute earrings, and others had some good-looking bling! Harking back to my footwear fotos at Quilt Market, I thought I'd annoy everyone with extreme closeups of their holiday finest. Mostly they didn't mind my leaning in with TSA-inspired intrusiveness, and just smiled and nodded til I went away.








And some pretty snazzy jewelry!




Santa Troll earrings!


And the piece de resistance, a hand-beaded Santa, with free-swinging beard and teensy tiny bells clustered along the bottom. It was unbelievably intricate. I had to fight the urge to mug her in the parking lot. Man, do I regret missing my chance!

But I was rewarded for my self-control when, on my way home, I stopped at the retreat to lock up after the beading group that just left, and I found this:
Royelle left this for me. How exquisite is this?! If I'd stopped at the retreat on my way to the party, I would have had some bling to wear, too! Next year I'll be ready.