Des Moines Area Quilter's Guild Show 2012

As you know if you read my last post, the Des Moines Guild is at the same time in the same building during the AQS Show. We usually show about 450-500 quilts. It is an outstanding show! Here are some highlights for you to see.

 

This quilt was made by my friend Mary Martin. Mary is in two small groups with me. She made this quilt showing all of her family's pets. They look so real when you look up close! She did an awesome job! All of the animals names are written on the quilt. If you notice the black lab's name...he was a rowdy pup and Mary's husband cursed at him enough that became his name! She said all the neighbor kids loved to come play with this dog because they could curse! What a story! LOL She received a second place ribbon.

 

Bragging time for me...this is my daughter Katie's quilt! She made this last summer in about two weeks. I showed her one triangle to demonstrate foundation paper piecing and she needed no more help! The blocks cover the top of her bed and the borders hang down to cover her thick mattress. She got a BLUE ribbon in the Junior Division.

 

This was made by my friend Julee Prose. She started this quilt in the 80's and finished it recently. It won Best Hand Quilting and a second place in it's category! Very pretty! She loves large appliquéd blocks with scalloped borders.

 

This quilt was made by Karen Pavlik. It received an Honorable Mention ribbon. I don't know this quilter, but every quilt she entered, I was drawn to. When I was checking out folks at the end of the show, she came to my table. I introduced myself and complimented her quilts. It was nice to meet the person who made them since I liked them so much!

 

Some First Place Winnwers!

 

Half of our Little Quilt Auction. We donate little quilts and the money raised in the silent auction goes towards our programs each month. It's always fun to watch the end of the auction when everyone is trying to outbid the last person! Fun fun!

 

My quilt, In The Orange Grove, Honorable Mention, Pineapple Category

 

A Warm Welcome, first place, Small Quilts

 

Two pretty quilts...the black one is Julee's.

 

 

My Charmed Beginnings in Cotton and Wool, third place, wall hanging.

That's all the pictures I have! I hope you enjoyed the show!!

Take care,

Missie

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AQS Des Moines Show 2012

Well, I am recovered from a week at the AQS Des Moines Show! Once again, it was a great show! Helped set up, worked a few shifts, enjoyed the company of my Aunt Mary and her friend Liz, from NE, shopped and shopped, ate and ate, looked and looked at quilts, and helped take down! Whew!! What fun! Here are a few highlights from the AQS side of the show...

This young lady, Jean Clark, from Mt Horeb, WI, was so PROUD to show her ribbon winning quilt to all who passed. She was so cute and all smiles! Her quilt won 3rd Place and it was in the Hand Quilted Bed Quilt Category. I hope I am still quilting and enjoying it as much as she does when I am her age!

 

This beautiful basket quilt called, A Tisket, A Tasket, A Green and Yellow Basket was made by my friend, Linda Arndt. This quilt was in the Bed Quilt Machine Quilted Category. It is such a pretty combination of colors and lovely backgrounds that give it such movement. I love it! Linda is in two of my small groups. Such a sweet lady who makes such sweet quilts! She had enough baskets left over from this quilt to make another one! I will show it tomorrow...

 

This one was in the Wall Hanging Machine Quilted category. It is called, And Always Affectionately Yours, and was made by Shirley Wyngarden from Marshalltown, IA. I thought the blocks were so pretty. I love sampler quilts and have several in progress. I couldn't pass up a picture of this one!

 

This one was also in the wall hanging machine quilted category and it won a blue ribbon. I thought it was striking with the beautiful colors and simple, but complicated looking design. It was made by Ann Feitelson and is called Basket Weave 2: See Saw. Makes me think a bright quilt is in my future...it's such a beautiful combination of color! The pattern of the baskets makes you think for a moment that this is a log cabin quilt, but then you realize it is baskets. Very interesting design!

 

This one was so bright and cheerful. It was part of a special display of quilts made by Jean Lohmar. She was very talented! This quilt was striking with a wonderful pieced background! It really made your eyes wander around looking at the entire quilt! Stunning! All of her quilts were beautiful show stoppers. Extremely well quilted and large. I would guess there were 20 large quilts in her exhibit!

 

This one was so eye catching! It is called Super Sweet Ambrosia, made by Ruth Ann Reynolds of Raymore, MO. This quilt is so nice and bright...and so interesting. Many parts to look at and explore! Love those brights once again!!

This one is called Miss Emily's Garden, made by Carol Floyd. She is in my applique small group ( which is not so small) and is very talented. This quilt won Honorable Mention!

This quilt was made by my friend, Julee Prose. I believe it is a Barbara Brackman design. Julee is also in the large appliqué group and she is very talented! We have such similar taste in quilts, we have a good time together talking about quilting. She is an excellent hand quilter as well.

 

This is Me with my Life In The Midwest quilt. I was very proud to have it hang in the show. It was in the Bed Quilts Machine Quilted category. It was fun to hear folks talk about it as they looked. I enjoyed telling some about the hidden meanings in the quilt for me...the corn, soybeans, wheat, etc. if you have not read about it, you can do so HERE, HERE and HERE. Do you see the little hidden gems I just mentioned that are a bit hard to find in any of the pictures in those links ? They are on the vines. This quilt is my favorite. I love hexies, I love appliqué and I love my hubs...all things that make this quilt special to me!

 

I end this post with the back ends of these bunnies! I thought the fabric was so perfect for a little bunny butt. The waves of the fabric make him look plump and happy! Again, I have no notes on who made this quilt. My apologies to the quilt maker, but I sure like those bunnies!

I will post a few from the Des Moines Area Quilters Guild portion tomorrow...more pretties to come!

Take care,

Missie

 

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Fastest Finish Ever! Charmed Beginnings

Less than a week and this baby is finished and ready for the show! A week and a half is a record for me!

I am a good last minute worker. Every year I seem to do this to myself...I sign up quilts for our quilt show that are not quite done. Usually they have been started when I enter them...but this one was not even started! I've done so much traveling this summer, it kept getting put on the back burner. It was a thrill to get 'er done so quickly. I felt like I was at a quilting retreat for a few days!

This is the quilt that I designed for Blackberry Primitives using 100% wool fabrics. They got to keep the original, so I needed to make one for me to keep. I used cotton and wool in my version. (The pic above is a horrid picture, but the camera batteries are dead, so iPad pic it is for today!). I used Steam A Seam 2 and did machine appliqué.

Below, you can see the wool version that Blackberry owns.

And this is how my new version looks when it was stuffed in the quilting machine. Small enough to be easy to quilt at 45" square.

This quilt is machine quilted on my Sunshine 16 longarm. It's a great little machine and I was glad to have something to quilt on! This machine fits in my room without taking over my sewing room. It was very economical in price and I'm so glad I made the decision to purchase it! You can find info about it here.

The problem I have is deciding what designs to quilt in the empty areas. I hope to make better decisions as I do more quilting. This one was challenging as there were some areas that were very empty and some that were not so empty, but still needed filling. I didn't want to do very small quilting in these areas because the charm center had not so small quilting. See where my mind goes?!? Around in circles! My goal is to get to the point where I just KNOW what each quilt needs, rather than spend days and days thinking about it! Am I alone with this? Do you have problems deciding what designs to quilt?

Take Care,

Missie

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A Warm Welcome is done!

Here it is...all finished. Quilted and bound! Whew. For a little quilt at 24" square, it sure was a challenge! but it's good to have a challenge now and then.

I hope you can see the quilting if you are able to zoom in on the picture. It is not perfect, but I am learning new things on my quilting machine each time I quilt another quilt. If you have ideas of something else I could have quilted into the border area, I would love to hear about them. I was stumped and all I could think of was feathers...
VOTE FOR THIS QUILT HERE FOR THE SCRAP QUILT CATEGORY IN THE 5th BLOGGERS FESTIVAL!!

This is the backside. Again, not perfect, but if I squint, it looks good! LOL. I may consider no sleeve on this one for displaying both sides.

If you notice, I finished the back side the same as the front for the binding. Since I was using the english paper piecing method, I wanted to bind it as I have seen antique quilts bound with this shape. It was difficult at first, but ended up getting easier as I went around.
I started by sewing on a matching color paper piece (thanks to Mary Helen for that color suggestion). I stitched two sides of the piece. This pic below is from my phone, so it is a bit blurry, but I think you can see the new paper piece I am stitching on to the border. 

Then after an entire side of pieces were sewn on, I flipped them to the backside of the quilt.

The backing fabric was trimmed and folded under so that no raw edges showed at the intersection area that is very narrow. (See that right under my thumb.) Then I pinned the piece in place at the point and the narrow intersection where both sides are touching.

The edges were stitched in place as shown above and I took an extra stitch at the narrow area as seen below.

I used wool batting and it was quite puffy until I gave it a good steamy press. Now that it is completed, I think I like the look. It's a different way to bind and I do have great appreciation for our grandmothers of the past who used this method to finish their quilts. This was a common way to finish a Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt. Many times they would just fold the backing under instead of adding the colored piece like I did.
This quilt will hang in the Des Moines show the first weekend in October. I just got started on another quilt for the show! Yes, I am doing this at the last minute, but I do this every year to myself! I have posted Charmed Beginnings that I designed as a pattern for Blackberry Primitives. It looks quite different in cotton fabric this time around! The stems and grass are wool.

Now I am trying to decide on the border color...have to think on it for a while. Not too long though! It needs to be completed by Sept 21st!!
Thanks for stopping by today, take care,
Missie

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Des Moines Area Quilt Guild Show Quilt...stunning!

 

Is this quilt stunning or what?!? This is the show quilt for this year (the raffle quilt). Our quilt show is October 3-6 this year and the theme is...Welcome to the World of Quilting, the Welcoming Pineapple is the theme block. If any of you live anywhere near Des Moines, and you have not been to our show yet, you really should take a few days and come see it for yourself! Our guild teams up with AQS for their show and ours is right along side. So, roughly 400 quilts in our show and about that many in the AQS show. Two shows in one and many, many (200ish usually!) great vendors! You can find info on the Des Moines Area Quilt Guild website about our portion of the show, and the AQS site for their info. Let me know if you plan on being here!

Take care,

Missie

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