A Quilt Show, a Walk, and a Peek

Okay, so I've been promising to tell you about the Quilts by the Sea quilt show we attended last week, and I'm just about to do it. We were getting ready to leave for the Neskowin Ghost Forest when this article came across my Google alerts. Realizing it was just down the road from where we would be, I convinced the Resident Engineer that his life would improve significantly if he agreed to go with me. He did. He's very smart about those kinds of things. And so we drove just a little out of our way getting home to see it.

Mainly, I'm just going to show you pictures of some of my favorites from the show, and I might make a few comments. So let's just get going, shall we? In the hall just outside where the quilts for the show were hanging were dozens of blocks, I'd say about 20 x 20 inches, that were a part of a challenge. I only took a picture of this one. I'm a great fan of the Statue of Liberty.

Each entry was accompanied by this ribbon, and so I have a feeling these were associated with the Quilts of Valor effort. (We didn't take the offered quilt show program because we didn't really want to carry it around.)

Right away inside the door, we both fell in love with this one. The quilter happened to be standing nearby and offered up some of the explanations I'm just about to share with you. In all cases, I'll show the tag with the name of the quilter and any accompanying commentary. So here's the first quilt:

I'm sorry I didn't get a very good picture of the comments by Carol Nelson, the talented quiltmaker, and so I'll type it out below this next image to make it more readable.

The name of the quilt is "Remembering Mama - Farm Girl at Heart." Maybe I was touched by this quilt because my own mother was also a farm girl. The pattern is Farm Girl Vintage by Lori Holt. Her comments read:

This quilt is made to honor and remember my mother . . . . My mom was raised on a farm in Minnesota and so many of these squares remind me of the stories she told me about her time on the farm. I am compiling a booklet of these stories to accompany this quilt.

 The animals were precious.

The quiltmaker shared with us that there was no pig on the front of the quilt, and she remembered pigs on her mother's farm. With that in mind, she added a pig block to the quilt back.

Of course, the cats are always included when I'm taking the pictures.

I loved this next one. Saguaro cacti are some of my favorite living things.

It's always fun to find a quilt I've made at a quilt show. It's interesting to see another's interpretation of the same pattern. Here's the quilt from the show.

You might remember my version. When I finished, it was my oldest UFO, but it's been toppled from that perch by the Hobo quilt, still unfinished.

Next from the show, we loved this one. So pretty.

Beautiful thread work.

Same here. Beautiful thread work from the same quiltmaker.

Here's another quilt I've made. This quiltmaker took a little bit of liberty with the printed pattern.

This is my version of the same quilt, made for the granddaughter of a dear friend.

I loved this next one. All scrappy, and so clever.

 Can you see this next one hanging in your sewing room?

If you follow Melissa Hollenbeck's blog at Sea Breeze Snippets, you might have seen her working on this next award-winning quilt. It was so beautiful in person, with crystals filling in the stars. You'd swear you were looking into the night sky.

I loved the use of scraps in this next one.

And you might know I'm a fan of aboriginal prints. This quilt was made up of those pretty prints.

Here's another cutie.

And there were so many more quilts at the show. It was a nice way to end our beach trip.

Back on the home front, Sue and I went for our usual Friday morning walk. We haven't walked the Fanno Creek Trail for a couple of months. In the meantime, the side of this building received a pretty mural paint job.

Even this late in the year, there are still blooming things along the trail. These were some little lupine.

I don't know this next one, but the little trumpet-shaped flowers were about the size of a thimble. Sorry I didn't get better focus on this.

We've had some rain the past couple of days, and it showed on these wide blades of grass.

It's been a good year for Sweet Peas. They are blooming in abundance all over the area.

I had a little time for sewing yesterday, and I spent it working on my Teal Mini Swap. Sadie was an excellent helper.

She helpfully covered the quilt with her paw so I could give you just a peek.

I just need to finish off the binding on this, and then I'm going to get to work on my light and bright blue blocks for the August Rainbow Scrap challenge. Hopefully, I'll have some finished blocks to show you tomorrow.