Beth Polidan's Trunk Show at Our Guild

Beth Polidan is a member of our guild here in Manistee, Michigan, and she also attends a guild in Florida during the winter months.  She is a hand quilter and has beautiful small even stitches.  This past week, she brought some of her collection of quilts in for us to see.  She gave me permission to share them with you.  Enjoy!

Old top - taken apart and put back together by Beth.

Back of quilt - showing the hand quilting.

Purchased top, mended and hand quilted by Beth

A Crib Quilt of Hexies - This was my favorite one!

The piecing and quilting were so tiny.

Love it, love it, love it!

Love the border she put on this basket quilt.

Simplicity of an old Irish Chair well quilted.

Beth's choices on hand quilting this one were spot on!

See what I mean?

Well, that's enough eye candy for today.  I will continue Beth's Trunk Show on the next post.

Today is Monday, and I'm linking up with Patchwork Times to see what other quilters have on their design walls.  (Here)

What am I working on?  I'm sewing the last two rows together to complete a quilt top.  It's almost complete!

Fair Blue Ribbon Winners - 2015 Western Michigan Fair

On the last post, Tina W. asked to see my blue ribbon quilts from the Western Michigan Fair, so here they are:

Section:  Bed-Sized Quilts
Class:  "Any Other"
I entered it in this class because it was a combination of classes (appliqued, and hand embroidered)  The blocks are 16 inches square and there are 20 of them. The pieces are appliqued down with edges turned under, and then also buttonhole stitched around the edge because I liked the look of buttonhole stitching, but didn't want any frayed edges later anywhere.  The long arm machine quilter was Joyce Brenner of Manistee.  

16 INCHES BY 16 INCHES

Picture of the whole quilt, which is 68" by 85".  

The Day Lily quilt was the winner of the building - "Best of Fine Arts".   They liked all the hand embroidery work on it.

Section:  Bed-Sized Quilts
Class:  Machine Quilted

The other large quilt entered was my Flag House Quilt, named God Bless America.  This is the first quilt I ever finished, and I learned a lot while making it.  It's a Fons and Porter pattern.

The quilt measures 79" by 84".  I had fun selecting fabrics for the blocks.  Here's a close-up of a block where there are fireworks in the sky, and a door with a flag and a "doorknob" on it.  I machine pieced and quilted it on my home sewing machine, and hand quilted stars in the cornerstones.  The binding is fabric with the pledge of allegiance on it.   Lots of details because at the time, I didn't know if I would be a quilter or not, and thought - this may be my only quilt, so let's pull out all the stops!

This patriotic quilt won the "Best of Sewn Goods" category.

7 INCH BY 8 INCH BLOCK

GOD BLESS AMERICA

THE EDGE WITH THE PLEDGE

QUILT LABEL FOR GOD BLESS AMERICA 

Section: Holiday Creations
Class:  Wall Hangings

This little wall hanging is 12.25" by 12.25" and the hsts are 1" square.

CHRISTMAS WALL HANGING

Section:  Baby Quilts
Class:  Any Other

I didn't see any other place where a doll quilt would be entered, so I entered it under baby quilts.  The bear claw blocks are paper pieced and are 2" by 2".  The little hsts are about 5/8" square.

AUTUMN LEAF DOLL QUILT

Section:  Baby Quilts
Class:  Hand Embroidered

This was on the blog earlier and is 29.5 " by 35.5 ", with squares around the edge that are 1.5 inch square.  I hand embroidered it with red pearl cotton thread, machine pieced and machine quilted it.

CHILDREN'S PARADE BABY QUILT

Today is Design Wall Monday, so I'm signing off, and going over to Judy Laquidara's blog to see what other quilters are doing today.  (Here)

Meet Me At The Fair

We went to the fair last week!  Our daughter and I entered 12 items in the Western Michigan Fair, and we won 12 blue ribbons.  There are very few items entered in each category and we decided to enter a few things because we really enjoy looking at all the entries each year.  Here is a picture of Christa's items, all crocheted.  She can crochet anything, and often makes special order items for friends.

I entered five quilts, two bed sized, and three small ones.  Besides the blue ribbons, I won "Best of Sewn Goods" with my patriotic house quilt, and the appliqued quilt with hand embroidery (in the picture) won "Best of Fine Arts", which is the category that covered all the items in the building!  It was a complete surprise, and my picture was in the local paper.   Here's the picture, with me holding the two ribbons and trophies,  Woot!  Woot!

On the Monarch butterfly progress at the cabin, we have six pupas.  There are five on the porch, and one on a plant out by the shed.  One emerged from it's pupa and is gone.  It left right after we took everyone to the airport.  We will try next year to coax one to emerge while the grandkids are here.

The pupa are a beautiful green color, with a line of tiny gold beads near the top. It blends into the plants well, and here is one in the center of this picture.  This is the only one that is not on the porch.

How the little caterpillars are smart enough to crawl up on the porch, out of the rain, to attach to something is a mystery to me.  Five of the six are up on the porch, out of the elements, while they morph into butterflies.  One pupa is attached to a rocking chair, and we put a sign on the chair...."Please do not use this rocking chair because there is a butterfly in progress".  The pupa stage lasts 7 to 10 days.  One is attached to a plastic bag that was filled with corn husks, so maybe they aren't so smart after all.  We removed the husks, but propped the bag up as best we could, and left him there.

I am eagerly awaiting our next cabin visitor - my friend Dee, from St. Louis, MO!  She arrives tomorrow, and we will be quilting up a storm for the next four days. We are so ready to work on some projects together.

Hope your week is filled with family, friends, and nature.  

Summer Days are Flitting Away

There hasn't been much quilting here lately.  The weather has been superb, and we have had lots of company.  I am working on some projects, but have none finished to show to you.  But I am happy with my starts, and there will be new quilts later.  

Meanwhile, here is a butterfly story, and a little butterfly quilt.  At the lake, we have lots of milkweed plants, so the Monarch butterfly caterpillars can eat them.  This year I didn't see any caterpillars at all......until this last week.  DH told me my bouquet of wildflowers in the house was beyond dead, and I took it outside to throw it away.  There....on the almost dead bouquet that was in the house....was a fat caterpillar, happily munching away in the bouquet!  I took him outside, put him on a milkweed plant, and have been watching him every day since then.  But yesterday he disappeared.....and some Robins were in the yard.  I fear he got eaten by a Robin.  The milkweeds have a wonderful smell and the yard is so cheerful with Monarch butterflies flitting about.  I hope to see more caterpillars soon.

Here's a little butterfly doll quilt, made for me by my friend Dee:




It is one of my favorite doll quilts.  I'm linking up with Design Wall Mondays to look at other quilter's progress on their quilt projects.  (Here)

If you are curious, here are three projects that are in the works here (spread out on the bed - no design wall at the cabin).  Left side is bed sized quilt and right side is the same quilt design but doll sized.  In the middle is a third quilt in progress that will have 600+ hsts when completed.  Just the sort of project to pull me off the first two projects.  

Wildflowers and ferns from the yard: