BUSY DAYS

First and foremost, I want to say Happy Birthday to my brother.  He is such a delight, and I am very lucky to have him in my life, even though we seldom see each other.  You know how it is with good friends, though -- even if you don't get together often, when you do, you just pick up the thread of conversation and keep going.  My baby brother is like that.  He's the real deal.  What you see is what you get, and I like him that way.  Many more, bro'!

In my quilting world, I am working on a small project, a wool needle keeper, that I started in Sue Spargo's class at Quilt Odyssey.  Above is a sampler that she did for us with wool leaf shapes that were all the same but had different embroidery stitches and embellishments on them.

Here's a closeup of some of the stitching.  Isn't it luscious?  The shapes I have on my needle keeper are just circles, but it's surprising how unique they can be made with just a few cleverly placed stitches.  When I get it finished, I'll post it for you.

Meanwhile, here's a little preview of the larger wall hanging project that Mary started in another of Sue's classes.  This is just one section of the quilt, but Mary is a very fast quilter/stitcher, and she had this part almost finished by the time the show was over.  The background is a gorgeous turquoise raw silk, not shiney at all, and fairly loosely woven, but it has great texture. 

Yesterday a lady called me wanting me to put her granddaughter's name on a laundry bag that she was making for her to take to college this fall.  I don't do embroidery as a business, but the lady's friend, who usually did her embroidery, had injured her arm, so I did it for her.  What a great idea!  I immediately called my DIL to ask if my grandson, who is going to VA Tech this fall, needed a laundry bag.  Turns out he already has one, and it isn't made of any type of fabric that can be embroidered.  Oh well.  I'll save that idea for some other time.

TRADITIONAL BEAUTIES

Isn't this just the loveliest quilt?  It's all appliqued, and then finished with a scalloped border.  Click on this picture to see it better.  I love to see hand piecing and applique, but I find it tedious to do.  Maybe that's why I value quilts that have this kind of work on them so much more than straight pieced ones.  The quilting on this one is by hand, too.  Sorry I didn't get the name of the artist, but this quilt was among the others I have shown that were hanging in the show at Quilt Odyssey.

Talk about quilting!  Take a look at this one.  Again, hand appliqued and hand quilted.  These traditional style quilts are such beautiful presentations.  I think for all their novelty and inventiveness, art quilts can never have the grace and solidity of traditional quilts.

Karen Marchetti created this simple but dynamic example of a pieced quilt and won second prize in the wall quilt category!  She named her work "Clouds in my Latte", which reminds me of a Carly Simon song, "You're So Vain" in which she sings about "I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee, clouds in my coffee...."

This miniature quilt is mind boggling!  The quilting is so very tiny and detailed.  I can't imagine how she accomplished that without going blind!  The name of this quilt is "Secret Garden" by Terri Doyle.

This large quilt was made by the Friendship Star Quilt Guild from Montgomery Village in Maryland and is called "Sunflower Square Dance."

This last one is the creme de la creme.  "Pine Burr" by Judy Elwood is machine pieced, hand appliqued and hand quilted.  For her superlative efforts, Judy won First Place as Best Traditional Quilt in the show!  Click on it to magnify it to see each tiny piece.  It is stunning!

I hope all this has stimulated you just as it has me to reach beyond my present grasp when designing or sewing or quilting your quilts.  The show was everything I've come to expect from it over the years and more.  Missy Molino deserves kudos yet again for another year of perfection.  Great classes, great show, and great vendors' mall!

As I complete the projects from my classes, I'll post them here.  Meanwhile, take a look at Mary's blog. She has information on the classes we took with wool queen, Sue Spargo.

SPECTACULAR STIMULI

Among the many and varied quilts offered for our delight at Quilt Odyssey this year were several from a group of artists who meet monthly to network, share and critique their work.  These women call themselves Fiberistic Journeys, and they have produced truly wonderful quilts that are perfection.  The one above by Denise Havlan is called "Ringmasters."  Be sure to click on it to see it more closely.  The work is beautiful.

Denise also produced this lovely work, "O" (for orchids).  She certainly has an eye for color and form.  There were many more by the other members of the group, but I didn't want to devote my narrative to just the Fiberistic Journeys, even though their body of work is stellar.

This stunning portrait of a lion was fashioned from a photograph taken on a river trip in Africa by artist, Barbara Barrick McKie.  In her work entitled "Eye to Eye," she transferred the image to cloth and then used trapunto and machine embroidery to adorn the photo.  I'm not sure how I feel about using a photo, or even painting on cloth and calling it a quilt.  Somehow, it seems like it's not the same as taking pieces of fabric and cutting and sewing until you come up with the design you want.  This thread painting is interesting fiber art, but I don't think of it as quilting and would prefer that it be assigned a special category all its own that does not have the majority of the quilt pieced or appliqued.  In my not so humble opinion.

I'll leave you with the most intricate and perfectly made quilt (as far as I'm concerned) at the show.  This hand appliqued and home machine quilted scene was made from 123 different fabrics by Kathy McNeil from Tulalip, Washington.  She named her masterpiece "Natural Wonders."  If you look closely, you will see sea life, starfish and the like in various spots on the quilt.  This design was inspired by the San Juan Islands but was not a photograph, springing from the artist's imagination and her gifted skills.  Now THAT'S a quilt!  Her quilting, by the way, is also exceptional.  She won First Place in the Best Pictorial Machine quilting category.

By the way, in case you are wondering what that smoky "X" is in front of some of the quilts, it's nearly clear tape that is put up so that the viewers don't touch the quilts.  There are white gloved ladies who will handle the quilt for you if you want to see the back.

Tomorrow I'll show some more traditional quilts that caught my eye.

QUILT ODYSSEY 2011

I love going to Quilt Odyssey in Hershey, PA each year with my BFF, Mary.  The quilt show itself is international, extremely eclectic, and totally awe inspiring!  This small wall hanging was created by BBD Designs this year especially for Quilt Odyssey.  They also allowed QO to use it on mugs, shirts, totes and to put out a pattern for people to make themselves.  This was in addition to the mugs, etc that had Quilt Odyssey's own design on them.  I bought one of the totes because Mary kept kidding me about dragging around a dilapidated but well-loved book with me in a Food Lion bag.  The book was falling apart, I know, but I really wanted to read it again during this trip.  Apparently we quilters have to dress de rigeur, i.e., if you don't make your own tote, you must have a quiltingly fashionable one -- no plastic bags!  After all, one must keep up appearances...!

The Hershey Lodge is stunning!  Clean, spacious, gracious, well appointed, with cheerful and helpful staff everywhere, it has to be the best hotel I have ever been in. I've been in bigger and more expensive marble filled wonders, but this one, with its two story fireplaces and massive hearths and warmth in their furnishings and color schemes is the best!  This is the upstairs lobby, where the public comes into the massive building for the show.  The downstairs lobby is where the people come in who are staying at the hotel and where one's bags are loaded onto lovely brass trolleys that can carry pretty much your whole travelling sewing room, all the clothes you need and some you don't, your iPad or laptop, extra bags of supplies, food, stuff you bought along the way to the Lodge (because we did just have to stop in Intercourse again this year), stacks of bins with more articles in them -- well, you name it, and we had probably packed it.

This was Viewer's Choice this year.  It's called Fire and Ice, and it was made by Claudia Pfeil from Krefeld, Germany.  Claudia used 55,000 Swarovski crystals.  The least expensive I found these on the internet was 10 gross for $55, which would add up to over $2100 just for the crystals!  What an investment.  The white glove lady tried to tell me that these were all hand sewn on, but they were the flat backs, and those don't have a place on their backs to sew them into anything, whereas the beads do.  So much for that fairy tale. 

 Nonetheless, the appearance was truly amazing, and the quilting was magnificent!  Here's a close up of the ice part, and

here's a close up of the fire part.  Magnify the picture by clicking on it, and you will see not only the swirls, but the tiny, tiny, tiny, less than 1 mm apart lines that have been quilted into this remarkable piece of work.

Just makes you want to run right out and buy some hot glue, doesn't it?  I never think of embellishing my quilts, but it really adds some pizazz!

(W0)MAN'S BEST FRIEND

I like dogs as much as anyone.  Probably more.  Well, there's this one exception:  Kathy.  Kathy gives her dogs Evian.  I don't spoil mine THAT much.

But I do get them excellent veterinary care.  This is Razzy.  Her formal, calling card  name is Razz Ma Tazz.  But we call her Razzy, Razzi-do, Razzle Dazzle,  or just Girlie.  We rescued her as a puppy from a kill shelter in western Virginia 8 years ago.  She's a mix of Australian shepherd and what appears to be Husky, and she has the disposition of an angel.

When we moved down here four years ago, Razzy started losing weight. She wouldn't eat.  She laid around the house.  We thought she was traumatized by the move, or by the loss of all her doggie friends in Maryland.  Yes, she had doggie friends.  In our old neighborhood, if the humans got together, so did their dogs.  It was a given.

So, after several months of this, and her fur turning dull and her gums getting red, I took her to the vet, thinking that she was suffering emotionally.  She wasn't.  She had lost 21 pounds and was nearly dead!  We had her tested for lyme disease.  Negative. We tried an antibiotic.  No help.  We gave her shots to increase her appetite.  No go.  We switched to another antibiotic.  She began to  respond.  I hand fed and hand watered her for the next three months.  She started gaining weight and then began eating on her own.  Finally she regained her weight and added a few pounds.  Poor thing!  We're pretty sure she had some tick-borne illness, but we never did find out exactly what it was.  But she weighs in at a solid 73.8 pounds these days and is frisky when it's not too hot outside.  She's definitely a cold weather dog.  And the spot that you see her lying in above is her favorite place in the house -- right between two air conditioning floor vents.

This is Jet.  His formal name is Jet Blue, named after the airlines that brought him home with us from California, where we were visiting.  I found him in the parking lot of a Walmart.  A lady was trying to give him away.  He was just a black ball of fur with a pink tongue darting out now and then, and about 5 to 6 weeks old.  She was going to leave him at the pound, so I just HAD to save him, right?

During the time we were in California, we tried several names on him:  Wally, Gizmo, Tazz (for Tasmanian devil), but he didn't particularly care for any of them. 

We knew we'd have to have a carrier for him to go on the plane, so while I was at Walmart, on the very day I got him , I tried to carry him into the store so I could figure out what size carrier to use.  A kindly but firmly disapproving Walmart greeter stopped me by the door and said that no dogs were allowed except for seeing eye dogs.  Even though I tried to tell her that this one was "in training" for that position, she wouldn't buy it. 

My MIL went inside and bought a cat carrier.  After all, Jet was about the size of a guinea pig at the time.   When we got to the airport and were buying his $50 ticket, the lady asked what his name was.  I said we were taking all suggestions and asked what she thought we should name him.  "Why, Jet Blue, of course!"  she replied.

Well,  have you seen the musical "Cats"?  In it there's a delightful song about a cat's REAL name, one that only he knows.  It's his Jellicle name.  Well, "Jet " must have been this puppy's Jellicle name, because he perked up, wagged his tail, and tried to lick the lady's fingers through the grate.  So he became Jet from then on.  His jet black fur went through several moltings until he settled into the present black saddle and silver-tan hair that he has now.  It turns out that he's part Chow and part German Shepherd.  And he believes he's a sled dog.

All of this in preface to their last vet visit yesterday.  All the shots, medications, medicated shampoos, chewable glucosamine, arthritis (Jet has a little) injections (for me to give to him) -- came to something over $852.00!

Yep.  I must love them a lot.

Either that or I didn't want to pay any bills this month anyway.

OTD

I have Old Timer's Disease, bigtime.

I had forgotten to take a picture of the last quilt I had done for Myrt S, so I made arrangements to go to her house to photograph it yesterday after lunch.  Trouble was, I fell asleep on the couch after lunch and woke up around 4 PM  -- ah!  the life of the indolent!

Now, as if that weren't bad enough, when I woke up, I went to get my camera but had completely forgotten that I was supposed to go to Myrt's house.  But I knew I was supposed to do something with my camera.  So I thought it was that I was supposed to take pictures of the things I'm making to show on this blog. 

Well, I did that, and I entered the new post on my blog, but I still had this uneasy feeling that I had forgotten something.  I'm letting the doggies out for their lawn duty (doody?) when it suddenly hits me with a flash!!! (No, THOSE kind have been over for a number of years now.)  Myrt!  OMG!!!

Embarrassed and apologetic, I call her, and between giggles she says to come on over.  How can you say I'm sorry for forgetting you?  It just doesn't wash, no matter how you grovel.  But Myrt is unflappable and even makes the whole thing sound hilarious.

Lordy.  I need a keeper.

ADD

Having had some marathon days of quilting finally come to an end, I am taking a breather.  But, like alot of ADD's, I am having trouble focusing on just one thing to do.  If I don't have four or five irons in the fire at the same time, I'm uncomfortable.  So I started a few things and ended some.  Here is one of the things I ended -- a hostess gift for a friend -- an IN THE HOOP checkbook cover and keychain with pocket in the back.  I have to put the snap on, and then it's finished.  I got the pattern from http://www.embroiderygarden.com/.  Easy and cute!

This project I started years ago.  It's a Fons & Porter magazine pattern that consists of pieced columns alternating with appliqued columns.  I just finally finished machine appliqueing all three columns.  The pieced blocks were made years ago, so now I have to assemble them and then put the whole thing together.  More about that as it evolves.

My niece, Jenna, saw the keychains I had made for myself and my sisty and asked if I could make one with her name on it.  Well, no.  There really wasn't room in the applique area to put her whole name, but I came across this combination coin purse/key chain that is made IN THE HOOP and has a clear vinyl window behind which she can put her business card.  She sells Pampered Chef on the side.  And this can clip right on her purse if she doesn't want it to be a key chain.  It can hold lots of her cards in the zippered area instead!

I'll finish that cute little project today, and then I'll have QDD (Quilting Deficit Disorder)  and will have to go fire up my IQ and pet some quilts again.