Road2CA 2019

My sister and I headed down to Ontario over the weekend for a few hours to gaze at quilts and shop the vendors at the Road to California Quilt Show.  The layout was different this year and it seems we started at the end and made our way to the beginning of the exhibit spaces!  Kathy was trying out every longarm machine she could find and absorbing hints and problem solving techniques.  Meanwhile, I took pictures. 

This very cool portrait of a wolf named OR-7 caught my eye. 

An interesting story about the wolf in the portrait.

 I had to take a photo of this quilt, so realistic it looks like it belongs in my mom's art studio!

Next was a large quilt with a smile-inducing division..

...and description :)

I love this quilt made of all solids, very artfully combined in this design.  I have loved Lone Star quilts for decades and plan to make one someday. 

Nancy Rink is a quilt designer and a quick search of her website reveals kits for this quilt. We also loved the Cherrywood Fabric Prince challenge display, and were amazed at the dozens of quilts entered.  There was a good mix of modern and traditional quilts at the show, and so many vendors that were new to us.  We stayed until closing at 5:30.  Kathy commented that we had not seen a single person who knew us, so different from the QuiltCon show in Pasadena where many fellow guild members were attending!

My haul for the day included the Handsful of Scraps book by Edyta Sitar, who was vending at the show and I told her that we are residents of the same city.  She was very gracious and told us to keep in touch.  Unfortunately I did not get her to sign my book as she was just heading off with her very cute teen-aged son.   Her book also has a gorgeous Lone Star quilt pattern, very scrappy. 

I stocked up on plenty of green fat quarters and some 1/2 yard pieces, picked up the Jelly Roll Rug pattern and Latifah Saffir's Clammy template, some Aurifil thread, and a couple of Quilts of Valor block kits.  Biggest ticket item was the new walking foot with interchangeable feet for my Husqvarna Sapphire machine.   

I was curious about the QOV block instructions, a floating Ohio Star, and got into the kits.  Unfortunately the first kit's fabric strip was so badly curved as to make it impossible to cut the number of squares needed. Another kit's strip was short by 2" of the length for the number of background squares.   I pulled from stash and made up some extra block kits to stitch up. 

These are big blocks and fun to sew up.  I will make up a few more and get them mailed in.

Things are Perking

It was a busy weekend and week so far, two family birthdays and a trip to a quilt show, then evening appointments two nights this week.  While it seems I have suspended my Three for September project, actually I am still working on several at once. 

My sister, sister-in-law and I snuck off on Sunday to attend the Santa Barbara  Coastal Quilter's Guild show. It was very well organized, with many volunteers and good vendors.  We had lots of fun shopping and signed up for some of the prizes.  My sister played on a new longarm machine and is contemplating upgrading.  I didn't take too many photos, but loved this quilt.

Yes, this is a quilt of a reflection.  The Santa Barbara Mission is a beautiful active mission and the site of many events through the year.  I loved this smallish quilt, measuring maybe 24x30.  We had a fun couple of hours seeing everything and bumping into guild members.  I found some bargains and a possible contender for one of the Three for September WIPs.  And my sister Kathy later received a call saying she had won the Singer Featherweight drawing prize!  How about that?  She is so excited.  I hope to get my hands on it occasionally too. 

For the Go Four It quilt I bought this Jan Patek fabric from The Rusty Crow.  She packages up yard size cuts and discounts them, $8 each.  My layout calls for 3.5" setting squares and also outer setting triangles so I bought three packages.  I did not want to have too small of a print in the background, but also not one too distracting that would overshadow the pieced blocks. 

I think this subtle colored print will work.  Opinions welcome.  Have I mentioned quilt MATH in awhile?  I have counted and recounted and recalculated the numbers for the square in squares yet again, to find that I have over a dozen extra of the colored sort, and am short by about a dozen of the neutral.  Jeez.  I'm very pleased to have found a background fabric at last, though, so this WIP will move along.  

Sunbonnet Sue Goes to the Orient got more attention too. I found this quilt facing tutorial on Terry Aske Art Quilt Studio site (terryaskeartquilts.com).  I cut the facing strips two inches wider for the top and bottom, and two inches shorter for the sides as suggested.  The tutorial included cutting out a very small piece of ONLY the batting from the corners, this is about a 5/8" square (I forgot to get a picture before I sewed on the facings so it is laying on top)

The pieces are stay-stitched to aid in rolling the quilt front to the back a smidge.  The top facing will overlap the side piece when  folded to the back (this pic shows the top piece on the right).

Look how sharp that corner turned out.  I cut my facings wide and will trim them down a bit before handstitching to the back. Getting close to calling this a finish!

I spent a couple of hours today sewing a binding on another Thomas  Fire Quilt.  We still have people requesting quilts.  At work we had a patient today who lost their house in the fire.  He was very excited that their house plans have been approved by the City and soon they may start new construction.  Grant and I took a drive up into one of the worst hit neighborhoods the other day, and while there were lots cleared not much new construction has been going on.  We saw dozens of lots, many of which are for sale; most of the neighborhood went up in the 60s and original owners now in their 80s are not rebuilding.  I'm sure it will be years before the hundreds of homes lost are replaced and insurance settlements satisfied.  We will keep giving out quilts until no more requests come through.

Ventura County Fair--Home Arts Review

As promised, I'm sharing more from the Home Arts department of the Ventura County Fair.  Lots of different crafts are displayed every year.  Our guild had a good number of entries and wins, which was nice to see. 

Sarah designs all her quilts in a CAD program and her piecing is very precise.  She is good at turning out finished quilts rapid fire.  This may be because she isn't married and doesn't have kids :)

This modern quilt by Cathy is very pleasing to the eye, I think, with the limited palette of colors and repeated shapes.  That very close straight line quilting is not easy to do.

This entrant is from the far border of the County but I love this mid-century colorway and the fun shapes likely made with the Quick Curve Ruler (same as I used for my Metro Twist baby quilt). 

On the more traditional side, this darling pieced quilt rightfully earned a 1st place ribbon.  I don't know if this was from a book (Farmer's Wife, maybe?) or self-designed, but I love all the different pieced blocks. with a little applique here and there. 

This beautifully pieced quilt is from another frequent Fair entrant, always with amazing work.

Wonderful scrappy hummingbirds and hand quilting. It may have been hand-pieced, as well.

Another terrific scrappy pieced quilt.  I am not usually drawn to blue quilts but really love this block.  This quilter is also very talented and I have seen her work at many local shows.  

Sweepstakes winner was this HUGE intricate pieced quilt with lots of great colors and a million sharp points.  I can only imagine how many hundreds of hours went into this.  It was hung high on the wall so I could not see or photograph the quilting well.  Not to mention the terrible lighting in this barn of a building. 

A pieced and appliqued beauty won the Special Fair Award.  I wish they had not stacked a bunch of other items in front of it so I could see the whole thing, but it was beautifully made.  The outer checkerboard border was kind of a surprise, but nice and scrappy.  

I loved this tomato pincushion quilt!  I don't know what style to call this, there was a pieced background almost colorwash type, and appliqued pieces and shapes scattered over it.  The pins sure look 3D.  I plan to take another look at this when I return to the Fair on Friday. 

Non-quilted items that caught my eye included this adorable hooked rug of a cat holding a mouse.  A lot of hours were devoted to this project!  

And how about this fun crocheted blanket with dimensional animals.  The walrus kills me.

Weaving and spinning were represented.  These are just a few of the entries in that category.

Again with the bad lighting and reflections, but this was a very well done portrait, in charcoal I think, or maybe pastel?

I also liked this landscape that garnered a first place.  I'll share more pictures from the Fair in  the next post.  

QuiltCon 2018--Part 3

More quilts to share! In another gallery across the courtyard were many more quilts, including a special display of Carolyn Friedlander quilts.  While I have bought her fabrics before, I haven't made any of her patterns.  She uses lots of curves and many prints--I'm always a fan of prints!

Her favorite technique is needle turn applique--which is probably the reason I haven't attempted her patterns yet as my curves are not likely to turn out the best.

Look at hers!  I liked the variety of machine quilting and the addition of hand stitching.

 Next Carolyn Friedlander quilt is called Everglade.

 

 Same pattern in different colors and scale, so interesting.

 More exquisite needle turn technique. 

 

The last pic I took of the CF collection, remember I was in a hurry as the exhibit closed in minutes! This one is called Wainwright. 

I'm sorry I didn't get any closeups.  this was hand appliqued and quilted with big stitch quilting and I just loved the shapes and colors.  The blocks were probably 6"

 Another well-known modern quilter, Victoria Findlay-Wolfe, won a ribbon for this quilt.

 

Her latest twist on traditional quilts, all solids in this braid, done in partial seams. 

 

 I found the choice of bright yellow thread fun!

Blogger is being a butt and not letting me load photos in the way I want, so this closeup insisted on going first.

 These are Alison Glass Sun Prints.  I love the intense dye and simple shapes in her Sun Prints.

 As the maker noted, a repeated simple shape has many possibilities.

Sorry for the light bleeding in from an upper window in this pic.  The quilting was varied and imaginative. 

Here's another set in the unintended order....Closeup first.  Loved the colors and mini stripe detail. 

 Hand quilting again.  This is my favorite category, one I feel I belong to!

And the whole quilt: 

The placement of the darks and lights made it look improv, but each HST was the same size.

This final quilt I could have studied much longer.  I loved the offset setting and creative quilting.  Closeup first...

 The quilting must have taken an extraordinary amount of time as this is a large quilt.

 It must have been hard to arrange all the quilted Ohio Star blocks just so. 

I have a GO cutter for the Snowball block and hope to made one someday.  After the huge Winding Ways quilt I made, a break from curves was necessary, but this is a great block I'd like to play with.  

So ends QuiltCon 2018.  The next two are out of state, I think Austin, TX next year and Nashville, TN the year after.  I don't thiink I'll make those but we'll see what my sister talks me into.  She took a bias tape class from Latifa Saafir one night, and a block printing class from another instructor the next day, an all day class, so barely got to see any of the quilts displayed.  I hope QuiltCon returns to CA again!