More quilts from the NC Quilt Symposium

I am just in awe of the talent and creativity so many of these quilts represent.  Here are a few more of my favorites from the symposium.

Little Red School House 2010 - made by Sally Cascario. 
Each of the school houses is a different red fabric. The border then
uses all of the reds to tie it all together and is just stunning.
First prize winner in Pieced Bed Quilts

Enchanted Forest made by Marilyn Wunsch. Pattern is by Renee Peterson.
I am in awe.  I love the colors and would love to hang this in my house.
Must first learn to paperpiece...  2nd prize, Small Wall Hanging.

Americana made by Carol Robinson.  3rd Prize Wall Hanging Large.
I think this one is stunning in its simplicity.  It reminds me of a Hawaiian Style quilt.

I am fascinated by the miniatures - and the workmanship that goes into them.

Top to bottom - left to right:
Amy's Choice made by Sheila Wright. (3rd prize)
Lilliputian Floral Urns made by Mary Abbott Williams (1st prize & Best Hand Quilting)
1011 Pieces made by Amy Takaoka Losordo started in a workshop with George & Gini Siciliano, Glow in the Dark Pattern. (3rd Prize)
Scrap Happy Repro made by Kary Guinn
Broken Dishes mady by Candy Joehrendt
Mini-Compass made by Jan Struble (2nd Prize)
Hand Pieced Baskets made by Carla Handshaw
Star & Geese made by Joanne Lentz




The detail for the birds is incredible in this lovely quilt.

Favorite Songbirds made by Wanda Thompson, quilted by Kim Zebrowski.
This mother and daughter team appliqued and hand quilted this amazing quilt.
Judge's Choice winner.

A very unusual quilt in the Studio Art category - I'm including the card as I really like her description.

Going Green or Not by made by Lois Griffith

And last but certainly not least - the one I picked as viewer's choice...

Deco Beauties made by Kate George & quilted by Cathy Kirk.  These gorgeous ladies
are dressed in 1930's high fashion.

A trip to the NC Quilt Symposium

The NC Quilt Symposium is held annually during the first week in June.  Last year, I discovered the Symposium too late to register, but did travel to Charlotte to see the quilt show. It was amazing, and the source of lots of quilting inspiration.  This year I had every intention of attending because it was practically next door in Raleigh. Unfortunately the last week of school for Gus combined with tryouts for ice hockey consumed my week. But I did make a point of heading over to the quilt show on Sunday morning.  Here are a few of my favorites from the show.

BEST OF SHOW!  Swamp Hibiscus Made by Judith Heyward

 

Center detail for Swamp Hibiscus

This is one of my favorite quilts. The workmanship is fabulous, as is the detail. Plus I learned about a native flower to NC.  She totally deserved this ribbon. 

In keeping with the flower theme - these two wall hangings are just stunning. Someday, I'd like to learn threadpainting and beadwork.

Patty's Petals made by Linda Black

Detail for Patty's Petals - beautiful thread painting on the Clemantis blooms.

Beadazzling Sunflower made by Marilyn Alexieff.
The method is piecelique, and was started in Sharon Schamber's class.

Detail work from Beadazzling Sunflower - showing the dazzling beadwork.

There is always a selection of fun quilts too...

Chickens on Parade made by Dorothy Karvelis.  The applique work on this is incredible!

Dinosaurs on Parade, made by Joan Byron.  Inspired by the Celestial Circles pattern by Cheryl Phillips.

Hopeful Returns made by Susie Williams

Shadow E. made by Kim Frisk. The quilt was started in David Taylor's 2010 workshop at Symposium.

Purrfect Panel made by Laura Jackson

I really like the quilting detail on this one.

 

I'll stop for now and say that I find these shows so much fun to attend and so very inspiring!

Zebra Quilt meets Sean

While I did manage to finish the quilt before Sean was born, in a comedy of errors trying to get to the airport to meet him, I forgot to pack the quilt.  Sean and family came to visit this week, so I finally made the quilt label last night and sewed it on tonight.

Sean settled right in...

And then Aunt Kirsten learned what happens when something touches Mr. Sean's feet.

The label is white cotton fused to the zebra fabric from the front border with WonderUnder, then zigzag stitched.  I then fused the zebra fabric to the back of the quilt and hand stitched along the edges so that it won't be tempted to peel off.  The pen used is a Sakura Pigma 0.5 in burgundy, heat set.

Hopefully he'll enjoy this quilt for many years.  My first start to finish project is in good hands!

Catching Up - Penguin 9 patch chain

I finished the Penguin 9 patch chain last weekend, but forgot to photograph it until now.  Some corners came out great, others didn't match too well.  I'm tempted to applique a scattering of penguins over the most egregious corners.  The yellow is still a little overpowering compared to the penguins. It will be interesting to see how adding the penguin border changes the character of the quilt.

I am almost finished with the quilts in Volume 1 - and fast approaching the borders class.  Though I have jumped ahead for the Dolphin Signature quilt as I do need to try to get that one done before school lets out in two weeks.

Dolphin Signature quilt - horizontal rows

This is my first quilt using sashing and corner stones. I spent much of Saturday squaring blocks and constructing the rows.  The next step will be to attempt to sew the rows together with matching corners.

For the cornerstones, I chose a teal both for the coordination with the dolphin fabric and also the relation to ovarian cancer.  The borders on this quilt will be first white and then the teal again.  To make the sashing strips, I first sewed 16 8 inch strips onto one long teal strip. Then trimmed each of the teal squares and pressed them.  Those 16 were joined to 8 then to 4 (kind of like sporting tournaments - as an aside, the UNC Women's Lacrosse team made it to the final four this afternoon) and a final white strip was added.

I then pressed the narrow strips and realized that the 9 patch strips, which were not fully pressed, would be pressed to the same direction - so I repressed the strips in order to be able to butt the seams together when I join the entire top.

This particular top is providing a number of learning opportunities.  And while it is not a part of the quilter's academy series, I'm not sure why there weren't any sashed quilts in Volume 1.  I did read ahead to Volume 2 in order to make sure that I'm doing it correctly.

I set up a bolster of blankets behind the ironing board so that I could prop up the various pieces as I was working on them throughout the day.  Miss Monkey tucker herself between Mike's pillow, the blankets and the ironing board and observed my progress between her naps.

Dash kept me company too, but stuck to the floor for the most part. Though thankfully not underneath my chair.

FNSI Results

All 25 9 patch blocks have been completed now - and laid out in order.  The next step was to add sashing.  On Friday night I added the vertical sashing to 20 blocks (the last 5 to be attached on the other side of the sashing.

The blocks were stitched onto strips of sashing by column - but the next trick was to make sure that as I squared and trimmed blocks that I didn't lose the carefully chosen order (well maybe not that careful - but I did have certain ones I needed in each corner for symmetry). 

When I stitched the blocks to the sashing, they ended up in 5,4,3,2,1 order from top to bottom - so I put a pin in the top of each to represent column A,B,C,D or E and this morning started cutting and trimming blocks - the first off the bottom of each set and then stitched the blocks into rows.  To not lose track of the rows, I placed the 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 pins into the leftmost block. While this works for a small quilt, I don't think I'd want to do it with an 10 row quilt (too many pins).

I've pulled out the coordinating fabric for the cornerstones and outer border, so need to get back to cutting and stitching in hopes of getting the horizontal sashing strips ready to go.

Friday Night Sew-In Tonight!

Dolphin Signature Quilt

Tonight I'll be working on a special project.  Our school nurse was recently diagnosed with cancer.  I'll be using some of the 9-patch blocks I made from the challenge last fall to create a signature quilt from the kids at school.  Our school mascot is the dolphin, so I'll be using the dolphin fabric blocks and adding sashing. Next week, I'll take the quilt in to school to get it signed.

Monkey will be at the ready - helping, and probably getting bored by another trek through Pirates of the Caribbean.  She is not nearly as excited as I am by the movie opening tonight. We are planning to see the new one tomorrow at the I-Max.  Dash will likely provide his two cents as well.