Two Finishes

Today I'm showing you two finishes: the finished quilting on Shoot for the Moon and the finish of the Stitches in Bloom quilt show. I'll start with Shoot for the Moon.

This quilt fought me every step of the way. I made the mistake of using two very different weight threads on top and bobbin, and it caused me no end of grief where my tension was concerned. I think at least 50% of it was picked out and quilted again. Toward the end, I reached my frustration tolerance and switched to a different bobbin thread. My problems vanished. Oy. I was hesitant to make a switch half way through my quilt, but I reasoned it couldn't be any worse than continuing the way it was going. Anyway...it still needs binding, but there you go:

Here's how it looks from the back:

And don't you know that black fabric picks up all the cat fuzz from anywhere in the house, including that from two floors down. I've noticed it just whooshing through the door of any room where the quilt happens to be at any given time. It's a veritable fuzz magnet. You might also guess that it is the favorite of all the quilts in the house for cat napping. I swear I've seen Smitty and Gracie looking at it and discussing its merits as a place for lying about.

This morning I've read all my email, checked in on Facebook, done my embroidery allotment for the day, and now I've finished quilting my quilt. I'm telling you, there are no flies on me today.

With that in mind, I finished sorting through the pictures from the quilt show. Here is the last batch. Today's quilts have some fabulous art quilts included, so here goes:

My friend Sue was the first to notice these were pencils. This quilt is called Pencil Box, and it was so much more delightful upon that realization.

This next one was instantly recognizable as the garb worn by the female inmates at the Oregon Department of Corrections. When I was considering volunteering for the Coffee Creek Quilters, I grew familiar with the uniforms the women wore. As I recall, this quilt was called "I'm Never Wearing Blue Again."

The title of the next one was "Who Is She?" It came along with a note that said, "What do we really know about these women wearing burqas? Not much." 

This one was inspired by a photograph of a Great Blue Heron.

This next one was interesting for its name. Quilt show etiquette meant that I couldn't really lift up the covers to read the notes. Still, I enjoyed it for its color and dimension.

Nothing to say about this one...I just liked it.

Mike and I being stargazers, this one was one of my favorites of the show.

This next one was fabulously elaborate in its embellishment and dimension. It was almost like looking at a sculpture in cloth.

I loved this next one.

Here's an interesting way to do raw-edge applique.

I loved the quilting in this next one. I have in mind to do something similar on my Aspen Tree wallhanging.

The curved piecing on this next one was very impressive.

This one called "Just Dance" was just plain fun.

The next one was called Menopausal Trees. I don't know about the "menopause", but I loved this quilt.

These next quilts were in a separate building marked "Special Exhibits". The quilts all seemed to be about reclaimed and repurposed "junk". By this time, my eyes were getting full and I was getting tired of looking, and so I only photographed a couple of them.

Here's one more, including a couple of shots of the detail.

So those are all the pictures I wanted to share from the quilt show. I was curious about the large number of quilts submitted by a group calling themselves "High Fiber Diet", and so I looked them up online. They appear to be a very active group of quilters associated with the Columbia Fiber Arts Guild of Portland. You can see their blog and some more of their quilts on exhibit at the Portland Airport and one of the municipal buildings in Canby, Oregon if you click right here.

Today is a swimming day. I kind of fell off the swimming wagon, and so I'm going to try to get myself going again. I'm hoping also to get the binding sewn on the Shoot for the Moon quilt today so that I can finish it off.