Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Into the Woods

It doesn't look like much, does it? I just sent this quilt off this morning. My friend, Pam, is the piecer. She doesn't think much of it either. Her sister selected the central fabric, and didn't want it in a pieced design. Sis just wanted the fabric bordered, and quilted.






From the back you can see the quilting. I had so much fun quilting this oak tree! Well, my quilty version of an oak tree. Don't ask any botonists to critique my interpretation of the mighty oak tree.












I still don't have the photography part of quilting down. I think there is an online course in quilt photography. I must track it down. Right after I get caught up on my quilting.



Friday, May 27, 2011

Judge's Comments

This afternoon the UPS man brought me my MQS quilt. I nervously opened the judges comments. Pat Harrison and Linda McCuean were the judges.

I should mention that I was able to work in the judging room one afternoon when I was in Kansas. I was so impressed with their work. They were so respectful of everyone's work. I can't say much more, because one of the requirements for working in the room is signing a confidentiality statement. They had judged my category the day before I volunteered, or I wouldn't have been able to stay in the room when they were judging.

Well, I did gather myself and read the comments. They were really pretty good. Mostly satisfactory with pluses, minuses, and plain. I had one "needs improvement" comment, my stops and starts. I've been working on them, but there is still substantial room for improvement.

YLI sponsored a new thing for the comments. The judges recorded comments as they were looking at the quilts, and then they were transferred to a flash drive that was given to all of us entrants. I was able to listen to Linda comment on my quilt as she was looking at it. It was very cool.

Monday, May 23, 2011

Guild Fun Day

Mountain Top Quilt Guild had a fun day last Tuesday. It was fun! The committee had purchased the color coordinated fabric, and they had precut the 10" squares and border pieces.

In addition to the precutting, the ladies did all our pressing during the day. We just had to wave our pieces in the air and call, " Presser!" someone would come running and soon a neatly pressed piece would be returned to us. Needless to say, things went much faster than they would have at home.



This is what I had finished by the time we ate our yummy potluck lunch. After lunch we used a special ruler by Country Schoolhouse Designs.
Then we sewed it back together and got this.



I need to put some finishing borders on it before I'll consider it finished. It was a wonderful day. It's been quite awhile since I've been able to sit and piece. I hope they have a Fun Day next year.


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Sunday, May 22, 2011

MQS

Well,I thought that I had uploaded posts while I was attending MQS. However, when I checked up on things I found that they never posted. They also didn't get saved.

Here are a couple of pictures of Twinkle Stars from the show. I forgot to take my camera down to the show, so these were taken with my phone. Hence, the poor picture quality.









There were no ribbons, as I predicted. The background quilting is too similar in texture to the quilting in the stars. So, instead of setting the stars off, it competes with the stars.

I wasn't completely embarrassed by my work, but I could see how I just didn't measure up to the ribbon winners.

These are some detail pictures of a couple of the winning quilts.



This one was quilted by Marilyn Badger. Her detail is amazing!




This was the blue ribbon winner in the wall quilts category. "Red Letter Daze" by Janet Stone.

l an epiphany while looking at all the quilts. I realized that I just don't want to quilt at the custom ribbon winner's level. If I enter more big shows I'll enter into the everyday quilt or bread and butter category. All this time I thought that I had to quilt at that level to be "good." I finally realize I can be a good quilter without reaching that level of detail. Took me long enough, huh? Sometimes I'm just a bit dense.


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Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Mistakes

I just shipped off "Twinkle Stars" to the Machine Quilter's Showcase. I did have to send it overnight. Pricey, very pricey.

When I took that quilt off the frame after spending 40 hours, or so quilting it, I realized the quilting did nothing to enhance the top. It was stitching for the sake of stitching. What a mistake! Now, I never had any expectation of winning a ribbon at this show, but now I feel that I might also be a bit embarrassed at my quilting. Really, my work as a longarm quilter should always play up the quilt top.

Alas, it is too late to do anything about it. I'll take a picture next week when I'm at the show. You'll see what I mean.



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