woohoo!

I received an email late last week, from M-AQF Mancuso, regarding my quilt, "Sunset Stroll."  woohoo!!  It was awarded Best Handworkmanship at last week's show.  I am thrilled!

The entry deadline for the Best of the Valley Challenge, "Seasons," is March 15.  I've started mine, it features a little bird.  I'm basing the quilt on a picture I took at Asilomar, at least 5 years ago.  I heard this LOUD bird song, and looked around and around.  There was a tiny little thing on a hedge, singing for all he was worth.  He was definitely worthy of a quilt.

This picture doesn't do the blue justice.  It is really spectacular.

Okay, well, this little piece is not quilting itself.  I'd best get back to work.
Happy Quilting!

Another Finish

I just finished my BOTV Challenge, which is due on March 1.  wow.  The theme is "Valley Agriculture."  I'm not sure if anyone grows purple peppers, other than in their backyard, but I had this block in my orphaned block box and it was already 16" x 16".  The finished piece is 18" x 24".

I made the pepper block in a class taught by Ruth McDowell in 2002, at a C&T Teachers Workshop in Santa Clara.  Wow.  That was a LONG time ago!!  The block was finished in the class, and has been in storage ever since.

I'm not sure I'll be getting much quilting done in the next couple of months, but that doesn't mean it won't happen.  This evening, I will be sewing on my last sleeve.  Tomorrow, I'll stitch out the last three labels, and attach them to the quilts.

The rest of my time?  Is either spent babysitting, or working on the upcoming Best of the Valley Quilt Show.  I hope you've marked your calendars and are planning to attend.

 Grandchildren are quite the blessing!!

Miss Me?

Sorry I haven't been blogging lately.  I've been laboring, for months.  And last weekend?  The committee and I gave birth to a quilt show.  And what a show it was!  I think we outdid ourselves this year, as everything ran smoothly, and there were few, if any, neutral or negative responses to the experience.

 The above picture was taken during the first hour of the first day.  I love the sound of happy voices, reverberating around the building.

Remember the 6x6" challenge that my art group did last year?  We had it on display.  Deciding how to display it was a challenge in itself, but when I discovered these leftover slats from my Studio blinds, I thought we had a winner.

 Here is my final selection of six pieces.  I called them "Remnants," as they were made from remnants of various projects.

I had several pieces in the show, though nothing truly remarkable.  One of my favorites, "Tartan Highlands," which is my header for the blog, was chosen for the Celebrate Ag award.  I was quite tickled with that, and need to write my thank you note to Kausen Farms, the award's sponsor.

 My granddaughter made the trip to the quilt show, and had a great time.  She schmoozed all the ladies, and quickly won them over.

 I entered my Charlie quilt in the BOTV Challenge.  I should know better than to make a quilt of one of my cats.  He began failing, and passed away during the quilt show.  I can't think about it much, or my eyes begin leaking.

 And finally, now that the quilt show is over, I have chance to enjoy my garden.  The irises are in full bloom, and the roses are happier than I've seen them in years.

All in all, the show was wonderful.  There are still follow-ups and a pile of paperwork to go through but soon, very soon, I am hopeful that I will once again be making quilts, not just talking about them.

Goals are good!

Where Does the Time Go?

I can't believe it's been so long since I've posted.  I've been sewing up a storm, and haven't had time to blog.  Well, that, and the entry deadline for Best of the Valley Quilt Show was yesterday.  Not only was I trying to finish my own entry, I'm in charge of logging in all of the entries for the show, as they arrive.  So, yeah.  I'm claiming busy life right now.

I've been working on the Charlie quilt, and he's coming right along.

 I even got so far as to be quilting Charlie's whiskers.  He really was a mess, before I buried the threads!

He is not due until March 1, so I put him aside, in the hopes of finishing another quilt for the show.  The quilt I had in mind was Harvest Barns, a quilt top that I thought I'd finished in November.  Unfortunately, when I basted it for quilting, I discovered that it was a full 1/2" wider at the top than at the bottom.  Since it's not a very big quilt, the mismeasurement was blatantly obvious.  Last weekend I spent 5 hours picking it apart, replacing pieces, and stitching it back together again.  It didn't take much longer than that to quilt it.

I quilted it a lot.  I quilted so much, and in so many different directions, that by the time I was done, it didn't know which way to lay.  And so, it lay in waves, instead of flat.  ugh.  I plunged it in a bath and soaked it, then pinned it flat before adding the binding.  While it was drying, I looked for the perfect brown with which to bind it.

 When it dried, I stitched the binding on, using the nifty leather thimble that a friend made for me.  Thank you, Ann!!

 When it was finished, I took pictures to enter the quilt show.  This is a close up of the quilting:

And here is the whole quilt.  I am quite pleased with the way it turned out.  It was totally worth the effort to take apart one of the borders, replace pieces, and sew it back together again.

 

Tomorrow we select the quilts to display in the Featured Artist's booth at the show.  On Monday, we jury the quilts.  The closer we get to April, the closer we get to crunch time.  I can't promise to post much, but when I finish Charlie, I'll try to make a point to check in.

Happy quilting!!

A Finish!

Did I set any goals for February?  I think the only goal I set was to get my quilts entered in Best of the Valley.  Past that?  ohmygoodness!  My days are too full to set goals!  In fact, I'm taking a break from quilt show tasks right now, to post.  shame on me!  ;)

I was very excited about the theme for this year's BOTV Challenge, i.e., "Colors of the Valley."  But make a quilt?  I didn't have time for that.  But when the deadline for the show challenge arrived and there weren't many entries?  The deadline was extended for 5 days, so that those who ran out of time could finish their submissions. 

I looked around at my UFO's, and spotted the top that I'd put together last May in the Jean Wells class up in Sisters, OR.  The challenge quilts were to measure 18 x 24", my top was 20 x 26".  With some heavy quilting, I thought it might just shrink up to 18x24, and surely enough, it did!  (I trimmed off less that 1/4" in each direction.)

Here is my final piece, finished in time for the extended deadline:

 "The Early and Late Rain"  by Suzanne Kistler, March 2017

 "The Early and Late Rain" - detail

I'd been thinking that during this wet wet year, this quilt is the color that rain brings.  I had a working title of "The Color of Rain" as I quilted, but once it was finished?  I tried to recall a Bible verse that mentioned both early and late rain.  I found it through a search on Bible Gateway. 

In trying to keep with the deadline, I decided to "save time" by printing my label, rather than stitching it out on my embroidery machine.  In doing so, I could increase the amount of text.  Here is my final label - I need to play around some more, to figure out how to "pop" the text better - I put the text on a background of a recent photo from my backyard.  I am very pleased with the results.

And that's it.  wow.  I actually quilted for more than 5 minutes in a month, AND I finished something.  Big things are afoot!  woohoo!

P.S.  In other quiltie news, my quilt By The Sea was accepted into the Sacred Threads exhibit this July.  Stay tuned for more details. 

Finished

"Tulare County: Where Money Really Does Grow On Trees"

Suzanne Kistler - 2015

Madly Quilting

I posted this on Facebook, with the caption, "This IS my happy face."

I had no idea I looked such a grump while I'm sewing.  What was I thinking, as I set the camera on a 10 second delay?  I was thinking, "I'm loving this quilt!  It's turning out better than expected!  This is going to be the beginning of a series!"

Thinking that the frowny face was an aberration, I snapped another one. 

oh dear.  I guess that IS my face.  I'm sorry.  I really am having a lovely afternoon.

Today I am going to tack down the last edge of facing, and knock out a sleeve, and hopefully the label.  This is my 2015 "Valley Life" challenge for Best of the Valley.  The deadline is March 2.  (There's a one day extension, since the 1st falls on a Sunday.)

Hopefully I'm not the only one madly stitching.  I can't wait to see this year's entries.  Last year's challenge quilts were spectacular!