Memory quilt for her daughter....

Quilts today are a far cry from the utilitarian objects they used to be. Quilters were great recyclers out of necessity. Other than the occasional feed sack they would use pieces of clothing to make the tops, unless they were from a wealthy family. Everyday quilters would use old blankets as batting or crudely carded cotton, which still contained pieces of of the hull. If you hold some older quilts up to the light, like looking at the inside of an egg, you can see some of those bits of cotton hull. Other than crazy quilts of the late 1880's, quilts, for the most part were bits and pieces of memories where were hardly all the special, but they were using every bit of commodity they had available and such was the quilt in the old days.

Of course today, quilts are still used on beds, but most quilters will visit their local quilt shop with pattern or book in hand or found at the quilt shop. Careful time and planning usually goes in a quilt, still just as lovingly pieced, but more as a matter of pride and accomplishment than necessity. I said most people do that. We have in our guild, one such quilter that is the most economical of quilters. Here is Joan, our queen of the recycling of fabric.Nothing goes to waste. I've even seen her replace a stain glass binding on a jacket she made years ago, cause, it's still a very nice jacket.

This a memory quilt she made for her daughter, from a lot of the dresses she made for her grown daughter, when she was young.

Lucky daughter!

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It's Almost Quilt Show Festival Time

My husband and I have a notebook on our bedside table. In this notebook we write our list of places to travel. On our list we've included a quilt show that I've always wanted to attend, the Road to California quilt show. It's seems to always be talked about in blogs, etc. After checking the dates today, it's next week and that might be too soon to plan a trip to California. Ah well, there's always next year.

My recommendation for anyone that wants to attend a quilt show is the huge AQS quilt show in Paducah, Kentucky. This show is in the Spring when the dogwoods are blooming. This show is unique in that the whole town appreciates the economic boost the show gives to the local economy and quilts are everywhere in the town. The local rotary club has a show of antique crazy quilts and Elenore Burns puts on an educational and entertaining show in a circus tent. You have to have at least 3 days there and you still won't see it all. You've heard of a whole cloth quilt, well this is a whole town quilt show.

I think a lot of credit must go to Hancocks of Paducah. This is a world famous fabric store, that gives a great award,$20,000. for the winner, or it may have changed, that's what it used to be. I've had one quilt entered in this show but, did not win anything. It's a juried show, so I felt like just getting accepted was pretty good.

Another great little quilt show is the Indiana Heritage quilt show in Bloomington. This is another large prize for the winner show, so it brings in some really great quilts to compete. I've entered quilts in this show, but, have never won. They also have some very interesting displays in the surrounding museums. You can see this quilt show in one day. There's a house nearby that has some original quilts that were beautifully preserved and are only brought out for display on antique beds once a year. I can't remember what it is called. This show also brings in some pretty fantastic teachers. I'm taking a class from Bonnie Mcaffrey for painting faces on fabric. I've always tried other crafts, and I really like painting. My mom is an oil painting artist.

These are just a few suggestions of quilt shows in my area, Louisville, Kentucky. Does anyone know of any others near me or if you have any suggestions, I'd like to hear it.

START PLANNING FOR YOUR QUILT SHOWS NOW AND INVITE A NONQUILTER TO A SHOW IF YOU CAN. Or, then again, if not a quilting friend or by yourself, cause you can find your best friend or your worst enemy in yourself.

Happy Quilting!

Great new (to me) quilting magazine

While perusing the isles at Barnes and Noble and spending my Christmas gift card, already, I ran across this magazine. What an nice new take on our beloved craft, Quilter's Home magazine. Almost all the patterns are free, you get them on line. You don't really need the magazine, but there is a lot more information about the patterns in the magazine. There are polls taken of quilters. One such poll is asking if you spend most of the money on fabric you purchased from an independent quilt store or other. The results are interesting. Personally, I am an independent quilt store supporter. I know we don't have this wonderful hobby without them. Mark Lapinsky has brought us into the current times. Yes, quilters in 2008, with computers and all. It is very refreshing to read. The current issues talks about all kinds of things, like the best vacuum for your quilt studio. Also interesting is the article on Mean Girls of Quilting, what I call the Quilt Police. Ladies that feel the need to look down on methods and quilts that are less than perfect. He makes a point, it's just a quilt, a blanket for goodness sakes! Yeah Mark-you go girl!

Read a great book: Special Topics in Calamity Physics, by Marisha Pessl.

Ding dong the clutter is gone...smile

Yep, it's my closet the one in the previous post that was overflowing with fabric and notions and sewing machines and just about any gadget or item you might use in quilting or sewing. It's amazing all the things you find when you prepare to move. We are not preparing to move, but, it felt like all the packing and organizing is what we will do if you get a chance to move. I think I'm ready for a new how and of course, a quilting/sewing studio. It is a part of my life. I've tried various other hobbies, making cards, scrap booking, you name it, but, I always come back to fabric. Creating anything can be good for the soul. You are able to expand your self confidence in creative expression. When you make something practical and useful, like a quilt, that is an added bonus in this hobby that we are passionate about. Now I have all the projects I'm going to work on in boxes and labeled. Has everyone done a Dear Jane quilt? This is the Next one in a series, I guess, it's the Nearly insane quilt. I forgot all about it and can't wait to dig into it. I'm doing it in civil war reproduction fabrics. This is the fabric types in the boxes. Woohoo!! Now I can feel good about getting back to making quilts.

Third part Quilting...everything is getting back to somewhat normal...whew!

Oh my goodness, my husband is so happy like the proverbial snug as a bug in a rug. Men especially like routine, at least mine does. Which is good, cause you know we marry what we need, and myself, like so many quilters are a bit all over da plaze....smile.

This is a very good thing. It makes me happy to stay busy with variety to indulge in.


While cleaning out my closet, I've found so many quilts and tops I thought I'd lost to the sock thief, I suppose. You know, the one in the dryer that makes making all matched sets from a load an impossibility. It's terrible when you know you've made something and you want to work on it and you can't find it. That's a testimony for finishing, finishing, finishing. If I say it enough times, maybe it'll stick and I will do that. When the deck dries off I'll bring my quilts outside and take pictures of the ones I have here. I don't give that many away. I find the work and time make them quite like my children and so, hard to hand over to anyone. But, my pile of quilts grows steadily and I really must give in to, if nothing else, space constraints! I have several quilt racks and a stair rail that currently hold a lot of my babies, but, now I must start to move them on. My wonderful quilt group gave me a nice gift certificate and I also had another one from a friend, so I just had to spend it and add to my growing collection of fabric. While cleaning out my fabric closet, boy was I surprised to see all the fabric!!! I hate to think I'm going to give up some of my volunteer efforts, but, it seems I've been doing way too much of that lately. It's always a good thing to give of your time to worthwhile endeavors. My public radio station gets a lot of my time, especially in the summer when I help out with Waterfront Wednesdays. Then there is the church, I lead our quilt group, Northeast Quilting Friends, every Tuesday from 10:00 to 1:00. We have a pretty special group of ladies that quilt and share their talent as well as their lives. But, I've just returned from Target, where I purchased a multitude of sizes of bins to color sort and store my fabrics in.

My family...smile

And so it was back to dreary, poetic, Oklahoma. Okay, so it's dreary almost everywhere in the USA, this wintery time of year. Unless you have a white Christmas, it usually looks like this, sans the broken tree limbs. Everywhere there was WW3 looking devastation. The area was struck by an unusually big ice storm. The branches were over burdened and could not hold the heavy ice for very long and it was the oldest and most beautiful trees that seemed to sustain the most damage. My folks live in Claremore, Oklahoma and my hubby's folks live in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. Don't ya just love that we took their land and their chief's names?

Ah well, on to my family. This is Rian and the newest member, Tucker Dean, to the Blanchard Clan. Pure entertainment at this age, 10 months. Tucker Dean loves my dad. I made acamouflage baby quilt for him. You can see it in the slide to the right with the Quilt's I've Made title. Here is my MIL that received the Diamond in the Rough quilt. She really hates anyone taking pictures of her, so I won't show her more than this. This is my mom with her baby, schnauzer, Daphne who is a reincarnated soul of Mother Teresa. Like MT, she goes where she is needed. Anyone in the family that needs her-mainly my mom, who just survived breast cancer and a mastectomy. If anything happened to her it would be bad. I'm sure if they had the money they'd buy a big RV to drive around with her in the windshield, surveying all that is hers to have. Some animals are like that, they are there for us to forget what ails us.

This is my dad, who is semiretired and lives to play online poker. Nothing makes him happier than to win 3.00 in a 10 cent game. This is Margie, my grandmother. People wonder why I call her Margie, when we were young, they all thought it was cute when we said Margie girl and Teddy Boy, so it stuck. She is the one I have made a few quilts with.

Last but not least here's my immediate clan, the Brunners. My hubby, Bob and a painting of my 2 girls, Chelsea and Jennifer, that my mom painted.

This is Chelsea with her score of an Ipod and Jennifer, who begs often for a moppy little dog. This is the only kind we will get for her-it's a bar of soap.

So there you have it, dos in the series of tres stages or parts, if you will of my one long and hopefully, less boring filled blog update.

It's quilting tomorrow.