Your Houston Correspondent Reports....

well I have been here in Houston for a few days now and have spent a little bit of time over at market.  For the past two daysI have Started both mornings by looking at show quilts. 

  I did take an amazing video which shows you the vast areas it shows cover and the startling emptiness of the Aisles. however I don't seem able to embed that in this post. You'll just have to take my word for it.

fortunately I have lots of photos of beautiful quilts to show.  descriptions of the quilt and who made it will be in an accompanying photograph of the information posted with the quilt. 

I first wanderedby some Japanese quilts, and was taken by the lovely quilting on some of the pieces, 

the hexagon piece above, had an interesting fill on the top and bottom edges, 

there was a great show by the Modern Quilt Guild, 

here are some closeups of some of them...

I really loved this one, and the more I looked at it, the more details stood out, 

the quilting, 

the quilting, 

and the quilting ! 

also, those black and white parts were pieced and very cool.

as you might have noticed, I am very focussed on the quilting part of quilts right now! 

 Having our longarm Lucey around has really opened up a world of possibilities to explore.

but here is something pretty cool, a life sized crocodile! 

In the next post I will report on the Carolyn Friedlander exhibit,

(by the way, I apologize if some of the photos are blurry) 

Mini Quilt Challenge!

yup, that's me there with the mini quilt! 

This October has been unexpectedly drab here in Saskatchewan, so I thought it would be fun to liven it up with a fun challenge! 

A Mini Quilt Challenge!

(Mini quilts are always so adorable.)

The Details:
Bring in a mini that you have made in the past 2 or 3 years to display until the end of November.   It will be eligible for a viewer’s choice award or you can designate it for “display only”.   
Voting will begin by the end of October, so the sooner you bring it in, the sooner it will start to garner votes!
The prizes!    🏆 

 Each entry will receive a fat quarter or a Periwinkle pattern .🏅🏅🏅🏅🏅🏅

 The Viewer’s choice winner will be able to pick out 25 fat quarters of their choice.🎖  

The first and second  runner ups will pick out 10 Fat quarters.  🎖🎖

Size: the mini should be smaller than 24 inches per side, so total perimeter not to exceed 96 inches.   

Ready Set Go! 🏇🚴🏇
                   

Quilt show this Sunday

The Saskatoon Modern Quilt Guild is having a quilt show this Sunday in Saskatoon, so if you are looking for something colorful and fun, why not go???

I know that the members have been working hard to complete many new projects to show,

For our part, we will be sponsoring the category of mini quilts again!   Minis have been quite popular for the past couple of years. I like to see them on instagram,   this is an example --- see how cute they can be? 

  I think they are fun to try out new techniques, or when you need some instant gratification of a finished project. 

Maybe I should turn some of my ufos into minis 😉,   

 Oh yes, I will have a quilt in the show too!  Remember my epic english paper piecing project from last year, the New Hexagon Millifiore Quilt?   It is indeed finished, and will be there.  I had to buy a longarm machine in order to quilt it!  (joke!😃),  well, sorta,...  

It was a lot of fun to quilt, to plan the quilting I ended up using vinyl placed over the blocks and a dry erase marker to try out patterns, 

truly, I had such a good time making this quilt, from start to finish...

Recap of the Retreat

Many of us were fortunate to spend a few days at arretreat this weekend.  It is the kind of retreat where everyone brings their own projects to work on and the only scheduled times are for the meals, (which were fabulous)

this is what the sewing area looked like just before we unpacked, 

Then we all found a place to sew and began to work on a wide variety of projects...

I can always learn from other quilters. Jennifer brought baggies that each contain all the precut pieces for four blocks each. What a great way to stay organized.

this is Arlene's Christmas tree skirt in progress, it is paper pieced

deb was working on a hand appliqué project

Some of us had a lot of pieces to press!

I loved the little table centers that Linda was working on.  Woulnt they be great in afull sized quilt? Linda? 

Bev was doing a lot of buttonhole stitch on these appliqués

here,  Florence is measuring her quilt for borders

and Loretta always has interesting projects. Here she's doing a twister with some gorgeous oranges.

and here are just a few projects from the show And tell evening

I loved Heathers rainbow flying geese

this qult top of Val's is in rich Jo Morton fabrics, and below, Elizabeth has a riot of Kaffe Fassett flowers

such a range of styles and colors

Janet sewed this bench cushion from the little gift pack of fabrics from last years retreat!

this is Gina's "Bargelly" quilt.   Betty had one too, which was also gorgeous!

Jaclyn is always productive, and got this lovely one quilted and bound, and a lot of other projects as well

I could have spent a lot of time studying this gorgeous wool appliqued one by Bonnie

this beautiful little face is Michelle's daughter

Betty has embarked on another five year hand quilting project

and this one by Nicole, above, is not only very prett, but when you see it close up, you can see that she did a whole variety of free motion quilting designs!

wendy sewed up this batik quilt amazingly fast.  I dont know if the pattern was easy or if she is a really fast sewer

Kelly did a couple of paper pieced Fractal blocks.  She had precut a big pile of pieced from her stash-- all different, so this will be a real charm quilt

And this is Nancy's beautiful paper pieced quilt from batiks.  I am looking forward to seeing it quilted.

so that was just a sampling of what people did.  Personally, I got a whole "bullseye" quilt top pieced, except for the borders, and put the binding in a queen size quilt.  I also started another project from some purple fabrics,....

It was a productive weekend, but for me the best part is getting to spend time with some amazing people and getting to know some new friends!

Quilting on the Millifiore Quilt

I just linked up to a couple of wip wednesdays, the Canadian TN & TN, (the Needle and Thread Network),   and Freshly Pieced, http://www.freshlypieced.com/2015/11/wip-wednesday-spin-cycle.html,   so if you landed here from those links, Welcome!  

pulled out my millefiori quilt a week or two ago, intending to finish it by the end of the month. I had started this quilt earlier this year and had completed the top sometime this spring. It was quite an engrossing project.  

I had been wondering about how to quilt this type of project and my first thoughts were to just do a simple meander over the whole thing. It is a pretty complex design so I don't know how much the quilting will show up on it.

but  I added borders to it the other day, and now it measures up to be 96" x 114" and that seems like a lot of meandering to do. Meandering  can become a bit tedious on a large project.

so I have just decided to have a little more fun with the quilting and do something different in each of the blocks. There is still a bit of stippling in the little white and blue hexagons that form the background.

I think all so after having done one Rosette that I will switch out the white top thread for different colors as I go.

today I am trying to think of different patterns to put into each rosette. I'm trying this technique where you place vinyl over the quilt itself and use a dry erase marker to plan out your designs. This seems to be working pretty well. 

you can erase the pattern later and reuse the vinyl over and over

I still have quite a bit of planning to do.