Jean's Pine Burr

MANY of us were blown away by this entry in our quilt show last week.

It's a Pine Burr quilt recently acquired by KVQG member Jean Ayres. One the back of one corner it says "Bea Birthday from Lou 1982". Jean found some research done by Cuesta Benberry - Cuesta noted this type of quilt was commonly made by African American Quilters in the South - and that it is also the Alabama state quilt.

 

A true potpourri of fabrics were used. Lots of clothing scraps, some shiny fabrics too.

11-11-11 finished

I finished my corduroy appreciation day quilt for the show. You will remember my being a fan of CBS’ Sunday Morning led to this quilt. They featured a Corduroy Appreciation Club in New York City, getting revved up to celebrate the ultimate Corduroy Appreciation Day on 11-11-11 (November 11, 2011). I blogged about it and a challenge was on. Many of my internet friends made corduroy quilts and showed them that day. This is my version. It was inspired by a quilt by Anna Williams. I cleaned out my closet and snipped apart many of my thrift shop corduroy shirts to make this. It measures 31” x 43” - I quilted it in the ditch mostly. The last time you saw it it didn't have the borders. I thought it needed those.

Tomorrow's the Quilt Show

We close with Carmen Rinehart's Star Spangled Santa. It is a thrifty block, Carmen said: "The Santa was a collaborative effort because I got the initial block free at our guild meeting and the beard is a curtain that shredded in the wash which Karen Hansen gave me. (Guess what? I love this because that was a block I made, back in the 90s - and parted with in my year of cleaning out.....)

Come see our minis at the quilt show. There will be 120 mini quilts available for sale. Saturday 10-5, Sunday noon-5. Bidding closes at 4:30 Sunday!

Benefiting Organizations

• Douglas County CASA utilizes community volunteers to act as advocates for children who have been abused or neglected and are under the protection of the juvenile court.

• Douglas County AIDS Project provides supportive and responsive care for those affected by HIV/AIDS as well as education and advocacy to raise awareness and reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS.

• GaDuGi Safe Center provides 24-hour comprehensive advocacy and support services for child and adult victim-survivors of sexual violence.
• Lawrence Habitat for Humanity builds homes for deserving families in Douglas and Jefferson Counties.
• The Social Service League serves low income residents of Lawrence.  Auction proceeds go to the League’s program to provide eye exams and glasses for Lawrence school children and eye glasses for adults.
• The Spencer Museum of Art, on the KU campus, has an outstanding collection of quilts and quilt blocks. Auction proceeds go to quilt preservation and exhibition activities.

Mini Quilt Show #4

There is a common theme for these minis - nature.

Spring Flowers by Sue Thomsen. Sue said, "This quilt was made from the triangles tails left over from making a larger quilt. My granddaughter was playing with them on my design wall when she came up with the overall design. She put hers together then later I did the same only added the flower faces. I saw the faces in a book of some kind I was thumbing through.



Lori Kukuk made these Sunny Sunflowers. She wrote: "This was a new technique I tried on the long arm.....made the background, basted it with the machine, then sprayed with a sticky stuff to just lay the applique fabric on, it is all rough edge or what ever you call that!  It didn't take long and there was no pattern!  Loved the process:)."

Summer by Karen Hansen. Karen does remarkable machine quilting. She made one of these for each season.

Mini Quilt Show #3

Ah! There are several freely pieced minis.

Squared String by Betty Wright

Not at all Amish by Carol Jones

Lines by Janet Perkins

Mini Quilt Show #2

This group of quilts features fabric from another of Sarah's challenges. The fabric she challenged us to use is from Moda's Calico Craze line by Barbara Brackman. It was clear that many of our quilters remembered the 1960s well.

 

Karen Hansen's amazing Flower Power mini features anatomically correct marijuana leaves. Karen said she got the shape from the Internet.....

 

Carmen Rinehart's  Yellow Submarine quilt is a crowd favorite. The porthole in the middle is the view from the Yellow Submarine - and look at the submarine at the bottom right - you can see the 4 Beatles faces in the portholes there. When she showed it at a guild meeting, people sang along. The words written on the quilt are "Sky of blue and sea of green in our yellow submarine......"

Linda Frost called this mini Buttons, Beads & Yoyos. The background was pieced to suggest leaves or trees and then the rest was added to suggest flowers or berries. The green fabrics are true vintage fabrics from way back when. The yellow and red fabrics are Barbara's.

Remember, for more information about the quilt show, see the Kaw Valley Quilters Guild website.

Mini Quilt Show #1

Our guild's quilt show is next weekend. Every year we challenge each other to make mini-quilts that are auctioned off at the show, with all proceeds going to local charities. We have a plethora of minis this year - 110 - with a week to go, so there could be more. I thought I'd show you some of my favorites this week, although it was hard to show just a few, there are so many great quilts. 

If you can come to the show, you can enter a bid for the mini-quilts. Each one also has a buy-it-now price so you make it yours and not wait for the auction to end at the end of the show (at 4:30 Sunday, a half hour before the show closes).

Sarah of Sarah's Fabrics issued several challenges this year. She gave away fat eighths to spur our creativity. These quilts used a very unique fabric from one of her challenges, a Free Spirit fabric by Terry Mangat. Some of the entries using that fabric include:

Groovy Tubes by Liz Campbell, who said: "I think it was great idea of Sarah to offer this challenge and to provide the fabrics."

Sheryl Lux stitched this Pitcher of Flowers. She said, "The only thing I could say is that I love to applique and when I saw the fabric, I pictured a vase of flowers. Since the fabric line was called Bees Knees I thought it needed two little bees to fly around. I think it really did turn out cute.

Ruth Powers stitched this magnificent Butterfly. Ruth is an award-winning quilter, this one is magnificent.

Seen downtown

I noticed a boarded up window door in downtown Lawrence. Isn't it great?

 



It reminds me of this wonderful quilt on the Kentucky Quilt Project book, don't you think? Only part of the quilt shows, but if you have seen it, you know how wonderful it is.....

The other day, I wandered into Urban Outfitters, I always like to see what they have going on. They had this!

Black & White & Red all over

I saw a quilt in January that inspired me. It was made by Mike "Mac" McNamara and friends in California. They stitched together blocks of postage size pieces of red, white and blue. The final result was wonderful but I didn't take a picture of it. I wanted to make my own.

I've been thinking about it and decided mine would Black & White & Red all over, a tribute to newspapers. Mine won't be postage size pieces, many will be larger. But all will be scraps and it will be a  big quilt, like Mac's.

I've been pulling scraps from my stash for it. I pawed through the fabric donation pile at the last quilt meeting. Sewists* Fellow quiltmakers there probably thought I was nuts, they all know I've been downsizing. I only took pieces for this new quilt.

I got a bit started on it last week, as I was holed up in the hotel room again. Editing, sewing, editing, sewing. It's a good life!!

 *By the way, sewist is NOT a word. Really.

Mini Madness

You might read that our town is in the throes of March Madness and that is quite true. KU plays UK tonight for the NCAA championship game. (Palindrome alert: KU-UK)

What you might not know is that we are also in the throes of Mini Quilt Madness. Yes! The ingenuity of our Georgann Eglinski has minis on display all over Lawrence. She scored some space in a gallery for First Friday last week. Seven of our quilts sold that evening, with proceeds of $280 going to local groups: Douglas County CASA, the Douglas County AIDS Project, GaDuGi Safecenter, Habitat for Humanity, the Social Service League, and the Spencer Museum of Art.

Other quilts are on display in the window of Sarah's Fabrics. Sarah challenged guild members to use certain fabrics (she gave us fat eighths). Look what was created as a result.

All is good publicity for our upcoming Quilt Show on April 21-22. Don't worry, there will still be more than 100 mini-quilts available to auction bidders there (and each will have a buy-it-now price so you don't have to wait to take it home with you).