Indiana Heritage Quilt Show 2023

 How long has it been since you last attended a quilt show?  For me it has been about 10 years.  So I was super excited when my neighbor and quilting buddy Judy suggested we needed a girls day out at the Indiana Heritage Quilt Show.  

There was nothing going to stop these two ole gals from getting out and enjoying the day.  Not even the torrential down pour of rain.  I haven't seen an all day rain like that in a long time.  Well I should say I haven't been out in a rain like that in a long time.   But we were determined and pressed onward.  By the time we made it through the parking lot and in the building we were soaked.  The umbrellas were pretty much useless in 50 mile an hour wind gusts.  I thought for sure the horrible weather would keep most quilters at home and we would basically have the whole show to ourselves.  Wrong!  They all thought the same and wasn't going to let a little wind and rain keep them away.  It was worth it. 

 There was so much to see but I'm only sharing a few of my favorites.  If you would like to see all the winners you can find them by clicking here

Please forgive me for not being able to give credit to the makers of these quilts.  I forgot to take pictures of the piece of paper attached to the quilts.

Each quilt shared with you today is hand quilted with lots of other handwork.   

This one is called The Crossing.

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Take a look at this trapunto.   I've never seen little stuffed balls that look like marbles.  Impressive!  Now tell me, will these flatten if the quilt is folded?  How would they hold up to washing?

Next is Joy in the Journey.  100% handwork.  So many tiny pieces.  

The last quilt is Let Freedom Ring.  My favorite from the show.  Again, all handwork.  The detail isn't as impressive as the other two quilts but it's patriotic and that's the reason I love it so much.

Until next time...

I hope you find time to stitch up something sweet!

🍀🍀Never iron a four leaf clover because you don't want to press your luck!🤣🤣💚💚

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Border Quilting and a Throwback Cutie

Hi Quilty Friends!  It's happening!  I'm finally quilting my Scrap Buster Baskets quilt.  YeeHaw!  In my previous post about this quilt I said I was going to give my quilty brain until last Friday to come up with a quilting plan or she would go back into storage.  That didn't happen and here's why.

It's as simple as the argumentative me, myself and I had a problem with this decision.  The arguments were valid so WE had to take them into consideration. The top three arguments from me, myself and I were...

Argument 1:  It's not going in a quilt show, this quilt will be for ME, just get it done.

Argument 2:  I MYSELF am the only one imposing a deadline date, take as much time as needed.

Argument 3: This is how quilts become UFO's, I couldn't decided on a quilting plan.

Of course it didn't help matters when I purchased the wrong batting.  As you all know I can't use cotton batting due to allergies.  So my go-to batting is the cheap high loft 100% polyester batting at Walmart.  I can't stress this enough....READ the packaging.  It's there in large letters...LOW LOFT.  I was focused on the size of the batting in the tiny font and totally overlooked huge letters right above the size.  

 If it were left up to me this super thin batting would be going back to the store but WE decided to use it anyway.  The quilting won't be as defined but it will be okay.  More than likely the quilt will only be used in the spare bedroom set up for the grandkids when they come to visit.  And I'm pretty sure they won't care about the quilting design or the loft of the batting.

The dueling trio has always caused problems in the Studio.  Sometimes they agree and sometimes they don't.  This time they all ganged up and made it quite clear that finished is better than perfect.  

What to do when the argumentative trio is talking so loud?  Taking a walk down memory lane here on the blog sounded like a good idea.  It's fun to see the old projects that have long been forgotten.    Here's a little teapot pin cushion made back in 2013. The original post can be found here.  She still sits on a shelf  in the studio but it's way too dusty to share a current photo.

Until next time...

I hope you find time to stitch up something sweet!

Linking up this post with Wednesday Wait Loss over at The Inquiring Quilter.

and over at Alycia Quilts for Finished or Not Friday.

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Throwback Thursday ~ Mom's Embroidered UFO Quilt

How many of you remember the Cross Stitch Quilt Block kits from way back in the day?  Did you make one?  Or did you start one and never finish it like me?  Mine is stored away somewhere deep within the sewing room, I think.  I might have tossed it or given it away.  If its here I haven't seen it in years.  This one was made by my mom.  She finished the embroidery way back in the 80's but never got around to piecing the blocks or quilting.  In 2013 she asked me to finish piecing and quilting it for her.

Mom was not a quilter but she had made a couple quilt panel quilts. The quilting bug never bitten her like it has me.  She was more of a seamstress, crochet fanatic and she loved to embroidery.   Before she passed I finished a few of her UFO's because she lost interest long before her battle with cancer.  I had only been frame quilter for about 2 yrs when I took on this project.  To be honest I was scared.  What if I ruined her beautiful handwork?  So I took my time and it came out beautiful.  My thought was to keep the quilting fairly light and simple because non quilters typically don't care for my quilt it death style.  We were both very pleased with the finish, that is until it was washed. The instructions to finish the quilt called for a larger seam allowance that was preprinted on the blocks.  Mom had assured me the preprinted lines would wash out so if I wanted to use the standard quarter inch seam it would be fine.  They did not!  The lines didn't even fade in the slightest.  I washed it several times and used many different tricks to try to remove the lines but they are still there today.  Oh well.  Maybe time will work it's magic. 

 

 One must find the positive and for this quilt it is that the back looks pretty cute and could it could be used as whole cloth quilt.  Of course the other positive is that mom made the blocks and I finished it with quilting.  It sure to be loved by one of the grandkids long after I'm gone.

In my eyes it's beautiful even with the dark lines.  Mom started teaching me to sew at a young age.  By the time I got into high school and was taking Home Ec classes I knew almost everything taught in the classes.  Ms. Coyle would often ask for help teaching the new skills.  She would be on one side of the class room with a circle of girls and I would be on the other side with my circle of girls.  The only thing I didn't know how to do was make quilts.  I hand pieced one fan quilt block in a class and swore I'd never make another. I took that thing apart three times and it was still wonky. However I did make a chicken scratch baby quilt for my final project that year.  When I turned in my quilt at the end of the semester I told her this is the first and the last time I'll ever make a quilt.  And here I am today totally obsessed with quilting.  

Until next time...

I hope you find time to stitch up something sweet!

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Quilting Plan ~ Scrap Buster Baskets ~ UFO

 For the last couple of weeks my Scrap Buster Basket quilt has been hanging on the design wall patiently waiting for me to decide on a quilting plan.

She's such a cute, happy little quilt and is eager to strut her stuff as a completed quilt.

Many hours have been spent on Google, Pinterest and Facebook quilting groups looking for the perfect new quilting design.  The time finally has arrived, she's off the wall and on the table, covered with plastic so I can test out the new quilting plan using a RED dry erase marker on the plastic.  Oh well, work with what you have.  I have a partial plan for the body of the quilt.  The free motion scallops idea came from a Natalia Bonner YouTube video.  

Keeping things quick and easy for me means doing as little ruler work as possible.  But there's almost always a little ruler work required in order to make the quilting pop.  The markings below are the plan for the basket but since I only have one dry erase marker that works and it's red, I pulled it off to the side so you could see the plan.

More free motion for the flower in the basket.  Of course there will be some ruler work around the basket.  The quilting for the alternate block of crossing flowers is still up in the air.  I played with several ideas but they don't seem to play well with the basket block. 

So I move onto the quilts final border.  Maybe when designing the border quilting I'll get inspired.  The border has it's issues, well I have issues with the border.  The first issue is the print.  I like the print but it's bold and I feel speaks for itself.  What quilting design can be seen when the print is so loud?  Feathers, piano key or arcs?  I'm drawing a blank.  I really don't know.  The second issue is no matter what design I choose for the border can I make it look symmetrical.  This is my design flaw.  I should have adjusted the borders to make them easily divisible... but here we are.  The work around is to use register tape cut to the length of the top and bottom, then another one for the sides. 

Fold the each in half three times.  Each fold line is the spacing for whatever symmetrical design I choose.  This works most of the time.  The difference in the size of the spacing is a little larger than I expected.  Can I come up with a border quilting design that isn't noticeably out of proportion?

As I cut and folded the tape I was thinking about something similar to the border you see below.  But now I'm not sure this will work.  Sigh....once again I'm walking away and giving my mind time to work it's magic...hopefully.  

There's other things that can be done as I mull over new ideas.  The backing is ready and waiting.  NOPE....once again I forgot to make and put a label on the back before adding my backing to the frame.  As you all know I like for my labels to be quilted onto the back so they can never be removed without taking out the quilting.  So the backing will need to be removed but not today.  

That's okay too.  My binding is cut and ready to be pieced and I pulled some scraps for the label.  

I'm going to give my brain until Friday night to come up with a plan.  If she can't come up with a plan by then I'm going to put the quilt top back in the UFO pile and pick another quilt top to finish.  There was progress made on this one and that's a good thing.  I'll have a backing with the label already attached and the binding will also be ready as well.  I really don't want to put her back in the pile so if you have any suggestions leave me a comment...PLEASE!

Until next time...

I hope you find time to stitch up something sweet!

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