The past three days were spent at Grand Rapids, Michigan at the AQS Quilt Show. I enjoyed myself very much. One highlight was a visit to the Grand Rapids Public Museum on Thursday night to see some very old quilts. Here is some eye candy from that museum visit:
I stayed with my friend Joan, and took two classes. One was a 2.5 hour class on Drunkard's Path machine piecing. Here's a vintage small piece that Joan had at her house, and she let me take it with me to class, for show and tell.
Here's the sample I worked on in class (it's about 10 inches square):
I found the machine piecing of the curves very easy, and with no pins. It went very well, and I'd like to make more.
There wasn't a miniature quilt category at the Grand Rapids show - or else I missed it completely! I was surprised.
Hope you have had a good week, and were able to look at some quilts too, or work on some of your own.
We are having a great time at the lake - even the dogs are chillin'.
I started working on the quilt below this January, and the name of it is "Third Weekend in October". I hope to have it finished by then. It is so big that I didn't see it all laid out at once until now. I have about one-third of the rows to sew together yet. It's designed by Ruth Powers and the pattern is manufactured by Innovations.
I took a picture of it from the upstairs balcony as it lays on the floor below:
I noticed one yellow leaf (at about 8:00) seemed to have too many points, and it's because the partial leaf next to it is so similar in color. So, I decided to re-do that portion. I took out this:
And replaced it with a red checked fabric, and the yellow leaf now has a better look, with the similar yellow pebble fabric gone:
This pattern is fun, and very simple if you take it a little at a time. I sectioned it off and did five rows each month. It would be fun to make a small quilt with what I learned doing this one.
What are you working on this week?
No small quilts right now.....But today I'm showing you pictures of two large quilts I'm working on.
The first is one of Bonnie Hunter's mystery quilts - Roll, Roll, Cotton Boll. It was the online mystery quilt in 2010. I changed it up a little with the red strips in the center of alternating squares, so it looks a little bit different than most of them I see on the internet. The borders have just been added, as I debated for a long time about whether to put the borders on, or leave them off. But finally I decided to put them on, and I like the results. Besides what was I going to do with all those little pink and green squares if I didn't put them here? It will look great on the bed at Christmas time, with all it's red and green.
It feels good to have the top finished, and I'm going to send it out to be quilted.
The next one is a kit I bought from Moda's Collections for a Cause series. This one is to raise money for Alzheimers Association, and is a copy of an old Ohio star cheddar quilt from Pennsylvania. I have all the Ohio stars finished, and am working on the cheddar strips to join them together.
Here is the picture of my progress (the bed is my "design wall" at the cabin):
We are having lovely weather here, and today we visited the North Breakwater Lighthouse at Stearns Park, Ludington, MI. I enjoyed the summer breeze where I sat at the base of this lighthouse, where I looked up and snapped this picture.
Our recent excitement has been two squirrels (or possibly the same one twice) have been in the cabin. My 14 year old grandson and I got the first one to jump out a window last night at about midnight, so we could peacefully go to bed, and at breakfast, while everyone was eating blueberry pancakes, we were telling the ones who slept through the whole thing about the exciting process of how we got him out of the house .....when.....one of the children said: "Look!" "There's a squirrel in the middle of the kitchen floor!" And indeed there was!
With four boys there, aged 10 through 14, and four adults, we had a merry chase with lots of laughter, and finally got him to run out the front door.......after he lead us downstairs, then upstairs, then back to the main floor. Always there is fun at the cabin, and never a dull moment! There were fireplace tools, a tennis racket, and a quilt involved in the chase!
