10/11/13

Peaceful Easy Feeling and some Eye Candy

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Last night, I went to bed ready to push the panic button about everything I have to do today.



I need to make lunch to celebrate Erik's birthday on Saturday, which consists of two salads, pulled chicken filling for sandwiches, and baking a cake. Also, my monthly pedicure was rescheduled for today, and I have to go to physical therapy. I need to leave this morning at about 11:15 and I won't get home again until around 3:30. I was tallying up the hours I need against the hours I have (which is never a good idea), and I found myself feeling a little overwhelmed.

But now, it's 8:30 a.m. as I sit down to write this. My chicken filling is in the crockpot. I'll deal with that when I get home this afternoon. My potato salad is finished and in the refrigerator. I fried bacon and hard boiled some eggs for my 7-Layer Salad that I'll finish this afternoon, and I still have all morning tomorrow to bake the cake. (Polishes fingernails on shirt.) So now I'm feeling pretty darned spunky and ready to face the next two days with a big smile. (Heaves heavy sigh of relief.)

All of that to say that I haven't had any time to sew, and I probably won't have any time before Sunday. That's okay though because I got a megadose of quilting at the MQX Quilt show yesterday, and I have some pictures for you. I'll start by saying that I'm pretty exasperated with my camera. I left home with a full charge on the battery, but it went dead after taking about 20 pictures. That was pretty disappointing, not to mention disconcerting. Mike thinks the battery may have a short and that it is discharging just sitting in the camera. Fortunately, I have other batteries, but I didn't have any spares with me yesterday. That means I was taking pictures with my iPhone, and I really dislike the quality of the images. In any case, I'll show you what I have.

These were a few of my favorite quilts. I don't have a lot to say about them, but I'll add in little comments if I just can't keep my mouth shut. This first quilt won best of show, and it's easy to see why. The quilting was amazing. For most of these I'll put the card before the quilt so you can read what the quilter had to say about it.






Before I go on, I just want to say that the quilting in this show was over-represented with feathering, in my humble opinion. So many of the quilts were in traditional designs and quilted with lots of feathers. While the quilting and the piecing was fabulous, I found myself feeling as if I was seeing the same quilt over and over again. After a while, I was on the lookout for quilts that were unique and different. I think you'll see that reflected in these images.


Pay attention to the red tie in this quilt. It ties itself as it moves from left to right.




I liked this next quilt because it was different, but also because I was interested in how she had handled the reflection in the sunglasses. She printed the image on what I'm assuming is something like Printed Treasures.



This next image is the next door I want to make for my Doors of Ireland quilt. If you look in the window to the right, you can see my reflection in the glass. I've been considering how to capture that when I make the quilt block, and the quilt above gave me an idea how to do it. What I don't know now is how to make it the right size without wasting lots and lots of those fabric sheets.


I thought the next quilt was just too cute.








I love how this quilter quilted the wrinkles in the elephant's skin.


This next one is truly unique. It's all thread painted. How many miles of thread do you think it took to do this?



The gears were actual gears from watches.



The next quilt was quited by an 11-year-old! (Gasp!) I'd love to see what she's doing 30-40 years from now.



This gave me some ideas for how to quilt my Vintage Miniature Sewing Machines quilt.


I forgot to take a picture of the card associated with this next quilt, but I loved the details. It was inspired by bears in Yellowstone National Park.



I love how she quilted Ursa Major into the sky. Very clever.


These next several images are of quilting designs I liked. The pictures of the whole quilt were simply too poor to bother posting, but you can enjoy the quilting anyway.


I included this one because I have this quilt on my to-do list, and I liked how it was quilted.


I'm working up the nerve to quilt the white trees quilt next week. I wanted to quilt some snowflakes, and I had in mind a way to do it, but then I saw this, and I really liked it. I might incorporate a similar design.


I liked this "hounds tooth" pattern.


Another idea for my white trees quilt.



And that's all I have from the quilt show.

And now...I'm continuing on with my NP4 protest, which I really hope will be coming to a close soon. It seems those nuts in Washington were cracking yesterday evening. Something about opinion polls that were the worst in history. Not a bit surprising. Anyway...this image is from the Painted Hills unit of John Day Fossil Beds National Monument in my home state of Oregon.


And with that, I'm off to get on with the rest of my busy day. Enjoy your Friday!

17 comments:

Vroomans' Quilts said...

Lovely - what inspiration. I don't like a lot of feathers either.

Sher S. said...

Oh my gosh!!! those quilts are amazing!!!! I could never do that in my lifetime. I have a sewing machine and quilt frame that could do that if I wasn't so afraid of it. Love you sharing the quilts you see, they are inspiring.
Hope your PT goes well today. Have a great day!!

Lee said...

Thanks for the quilt show :)
I too have the "Over the River..." quilt on my to-do list having picked up the pattern a couple summers ago. Have a great day celebrating with your family tomorrow.

Lyndsey said...

Thanks for sharing those beautiful quilts. Some of the quilting is amazing. I like the snowflakes and may try that myself on my holiday quilt.I agree that sometimes feathers can be overdone and there are lots of other amazing designs that can be used.

gpc said...

wow, I've never heard of the Painted Hills in Oregon -- thank goodness for the government freaking stupid shutdown so that I could learn about them from you. :) The lunch sounds amazing, and the quilts are nice, too. I spend more time than I would ever admit just staring in panic at my To Do list. In fact, I look at Blogs just to slow my breathing again . . .

WoolenSails said...

Those are amazing quilts and I love how she used the fabric in the glasses, neat idea.

Debbie

Anonymous said...

Those are.....well, words truly escape me!!!! I am one of those "feather people" and I so agree that of late, I am noticing that some of the finishes are beginning to have too many strong similarities. I have been trying to challenge myself to stay clear of the more traditional motifs and think "outside the box". Feathers have become "too easy"....yup...I just did say that! Numbness/"same old" is dangerously close! Thank you for waking us up with such glorious creations!!!! Hugs......

quiltzyx said...

Yay for finding a way that all the foods for Eric's birthday could be finished without the panic button!

I agree with you on the feathers in quilting lately. Feathers and very VERY tight/close quilting - seems like the quilts would be very stiff too. Thanks for the trip to MQX! My feet & knees don't bother me at all after all that walking.... ;^)
The quilts you picked are amazing!

Power to the people!

Teresa in Music City said...

Wow - those are some AMAZING quilts!!! It's so intimidating - but fascinating at the same time :*) I love the idea of adding the small reflection of you in the doors block with the Printed Treasures technique - that blew me away with the ingenuity of it!! I love quilted feathers, but not for every quilt. And I agree - enough is enough!

Brown Family said...

Awesome! We are very impressed. I sent your link to my husband and he was amazed.

Tami C said...

Glad you didn't have to press the panic button. I get like that when I've got too many things I have to get done. It sure sounds like you got everything taken care of and had time to breath. Thanks for taking us along to the quilt show! Those were some really special quilts! I sure hope those nuts in Washington get all this stuff straightened out soon! Power to the People!

Dana Gaffney said...

Wow, that first quilt is amazing! Art quilts sometimes make me want to hang my head and pack up my fabric, they are so beautiful.

Dar said...

Fabulous quilt show. Thanks for taking such great pictures. I'm hoping that the love affair with feathers that everyone has will soon die down. I think they are overdone too. It's nice they put what kind of machine was used. I always wonder that when looking at a quilt at major shows. I also love that these were done by 1 person totally. Those are the true winners in my book.

Kate said...

Absolutely gorgeous quilting on all of those! Wow!

Hope the rest of your weekend goes off without a hitch.

LJ said...

The MQX Quilt show you went to was in Portland, OR, is that right?

Patti said...

Instead of baking a cake why don't you run to JaCiva's and get one of their beauties? (Have you ever been there? Our birthday cakes for quilt group almost always come from there.) I imagine it is "tradition" for you to bake a particular cake. It seems you have a good handle on things, however, so you should have no trouble getting it done. (I know, it is now Sunday and the birthday is past. I'm behind on my reading.)

Beautiful quilts! I would have gone to the show except this bug keeps hanging on.

Let us hope they are cracking! It embarasses me no end that the rep from our district hates Obama's medical plan. We went into mourning when she was elected. Unfortunately the Democrats can't seem to find someone qualified to run against her that can actually win.

Beth Camp said...

Thank you for posting this gorgeous online 'quilt show'. Very impressive. We're on the last day of our quilt show over here in Spokane. I wish some of these quilts could travel over here so we could see them up-close-and-personal!