She likes it!

Great niece Tori graduates from high school this year and will be going off to college, majoring in communications.  Her mom told me that blue was her favorite color, so I dipped deep into my stash for this log cabin star.  I did use a variety of shirtings for the lighter strips.  It's amazing how much fabric goes into one of these.  It was long armed over the winter and just recently bound and mailed to Michigan.  I love it and am glad she does, too.

The orange challenge

This year I resolved to use more orange in my quilts, and, by golly, I have been!  I am doing Pat Sloan's "Vacation Time" mystery BOM, and I also just finished a modified "Sarah's Sampler" (from Jennifer Chiaverini's The Quilter's Apprentice) in oranges and grays.

I love the way it turned out as the grays all have a blue tone to them.  Quilting each block differently made it more of a sampler, too.  This quilt is going to the Parkinsons Comfort Quilt Project.

Two ribbons!

It's been a while since I blogged.  First there was the run up to our local quilt show, then there was the show, then the recovery period.  I think I'm finally back to "normal" although with the spring weather comes lots of busy-ness.  Since winter is so long here, we have to really pack in our good weather activities before it gets too hot.  Of course, temperatures over 80 degrees spell "hot" to us Vermonters.

The show went very well, and I think we all ended up still being friends.  We had more quilts this time and lots more visitors (377 in two days, plus the entrants and volunteers, for a total of at least 400).  I think we're going to end up in the black slightly, but I haven't paid all the bills yet.  Some of the committee members have been slow to send them along.
My Oceans of Scraps quilt received a Celebrity's Choice ribbon from the owner of our Ace Hardware store who is also president of the downtown business owners' association.  I love this year's ribbons, made by Geri!  The other ribbon came from one of the Vendors who owns a quilt shop in Brandon.  What an honor, to receive two ribbons.  I was also happy that my Nearly Insane Civil War Sampler was the subject of lots of looking during the show.  There's a lot to see in those 6" blocks.

Now that the banking's almost done, I need to update the show website in preparation for the two year dormant period.  That will take some time as I load photos of all the winning quilts and a few crowd shots.  Samantha gave me a great DVD to copy from.

This past week was a busy one, with trips to Hanover, NH, to visit Polly in her new home, and to Waitsfield to pick up an order at Mad River Quilting which is going out of business.  While there, I loaded up on mostly neutral fabrics at 30% off.  While I'm sad Lisa is selling out, she will still be doing longarm quilting and will still belong to the state quilters guild.  Tuesday and this coming Tuesday I'll be over at Tracy's working on fairy dolls to give out May 16 at the fairy house building event in the town forest.  It's fiddly work but goes much faster with a buddy.  

Busy, sunny days

This morning was sunny, the perfect time for picture taking.  Paul is finishing up work on a new book, so we went to the Green Mount Cemetery in Montpelier so I could take an author picture of him sitting on a bench by one of his subjects' graves.  I took a few photos with my phone along with the new digital camera, but photos from the latter were much clearer. 

On the way home, we stopped at the hardware store for new loppers, and I went to town on one of our burning bushes.  Ever since I learned that they are an invasive species, I have been lopping away at these two bushes.  According to Wikipedia, it is illegal for nurseries to sell them anymore in NH and MA.  Apparently, they spread by their roots as well as via tiny seeds the birds carry and drop, and they crowd out native habitats.  Unfortunately for us, the bushes were here long before we moved in, and have become real sources of privacy on our back porch.  They need to stay, but they do need to be under a bit more control. 

I have the smaller bush in hand with fairly regular pruning each spring.  Last year, I started working on the bigger bush, taking out dead branches and cutting back here and there at the center.  Today I was a bit more drastic and hope that will help encourage growth all over. 

My Fitbit is smiling after this morning's exercise, so I guess that allows me to go sew!  Yesterday, I put the binding on the second quilt I got back from the quilter.  I need to make a label for it and then I'm going to put together Sarah's Sampler in oranges and grays.  That will be about 36" x 36" - just right for another Parkinsons comfort quilt.  Hope you are enjoying a lovely Sunday, too.

Franklin Co. quilt show

Pauline met me in front of the City Hall in St. Albans yesterday, and we spent a nice hour or so looking at all the quilts.  This was my absolute favorite.

Guess I am just drawn to center medallion quilts with many borders.  The colors in this quilt were great, and really popped on the nearly gray/black lines on white background.  It was termed a "lap quilt," and I found their categories interesting - bed, lap, crib, wallhanging, mini.  There was a red and white challenge that was quite nice, too.  There were only a few hand-quilted quilts, and my favorite of these was a map of Boston.  The red quilting represented the streets, and some landmarks, notably Fenway Park, were drawn on with Pigma pen.  There was a lovely bed-sized quilt with applique and hand quilting, but the maker didn't erase the blue quilting lines.  I wonder if she was afraid to, due to the possibility of colors running?

After the show, we walked down the street to a restaurant, passing a number of store windows with quilts in them.  Very cute!  After lunch (Caesar salads), she went to a birthday party, and I headed home with a slight detour at Kohl's.  The weather has been beautifully warm the last few days, and the snow if melting rapidly.  Spring seems finally here!

Blocks made

I am working on several projects at a time lately - a Pat Sloan "Vacation Time" block of the month, "Sarah's Sampler" as a quilt along for an online group, and the "Rainbow Scrap Challenge" quilt along for another group.  I also have a mystery quilt that I'm about to put together with the final clues for my guild.  First on my agenda, though, is binding two quilts that I picked up from the quilter on Sunday.  This is my least favorite part of the quilt making process, but it is nice to get something finished.

These are a few blocks I made over the last few days.  Sister's Choice is the last block for my 9 block Sarah's Sampler, which I will put together soon for the Parkinsons Comfort Quilt project.  The purple blocks are the eight Rainbow blocks for April.  What a nice way to dip into the stash and use up a few pieces of my favorite color!

Today I'm hoping to pick up my newly cleaned and serviced Husqvarna Rose so I can put those bindings on.  My old Husqvarna 100 doesn't have a walking foot that works.  Yesterday, having pieced as much as I felt I wanted to, I hand sewed the hanging sleeve on my second quilt to go to the Central Vermont Quilt Show (April 24 & 25). 

Monday, I signed up for a class with Deb Tucker at the Vermont Quilt Festival at the end of June.  I'm excited to learn about alternating flying geese, a technique I've been wondering about for a while.  I ordered her "Atlantic Flyway" pattern, too, since it looks like just my style.  Thinking of more purple scraps!

Freezing fun for Easter

Not sure how many people turned out today for the annual city/town Easter Egg Hunt, but it was C-O-L-D!  We had plenty of eggs to spread at 8:30 am while it was spitting snow and quite windy.  I helped with the 5-7 year olds' area and questioned whether it was a "hunt" or a "grab."  Despite how thickly things were sown, within ten minutes after the horn sounded at 10, there was nothing left on the ground except a few pieces of plastic egg.  I went home and had a hot cup of coffee!

Happy Easter, everyone!