Sunday, November 20, 2011

Quilt Show, Act 2

Participating in the Guild Challenge for our Quilt Show was one of my favorite parts of the show. We were each given a fat eighth of fabric (the brown and gold stripe...see pictures below) to use in a small quilt with circles as the theme. Because one of the days of our show was 11/11/11, we had to incorporate the number eleven in some way. Here is a picture of all of the challenge quilts that were entered in the show.




My challenge quilt is called Australian Love Beads. I used the challenge fabric on the bias for the "string" and 11 appliqued circles of Australian fabrics for the "beads." I did echo quilting by hand with perle cotton in three different colors. To my surprise, my quilt got Honorable Mention in the small appliqued quilt category.




Barb's "Bird in a Berry Tree" had branches of the challenge fabric on the bias, and a wonderful red background. Look at the concentric circles of hand quilting.....perfection! As you can see, the judges liked it, too: second place for small appliqued quilt, and a Judge's Choice award.




Margaret's challenge quilt featured rotary cutter flowers and a free floating miniature quilt hanging on the line.




Renata's little pot of flowers had 33 berries (11/11/11) and a pot made from the challenge fabric. I love the embroidered pine needles.



Here are a few more of my show favorites:


Norma's Stack 'n Whack....I love the colors and the asymmetrical border.




Jan's President's quilt, made by Pauline with blocks contributed by Guild members. The Guild logo is in the center. I love the spikey border.







Pauline also made this beauty. Look at that diamond border and the piping....just wonderful.





Susan put four patch posy blocks in circular frames; the red cornerstones make the blocks look like they are floating.






Maureen's red and green applique quilt makes me determined to do one of these some day.




I loved everything about this folk art quilt of Barb's: the design, the colors, the hand quilting, and, of course, the sentiment. It's a quilt that grabs your attention and then stays in your memory.





And finally, my Amish Trip Around the World, for which I won a Blue Ribbon! What a surprise that was! As the show was getting closer, I resurrected this quilt from my UFO pile and finished the hand quilting. Although I was working with a deadline looming, it reminded me of how much I enjoy hand sewing and particularly hand quilting.



Here's a close-up of my hand quilting.


Our Guild has many more activities to look forward to in the coming months: a holiday party, service meetings, speakers and workshops and a retreat. I am looking forward to them all. But I will also be thinking about what to make for our next show in 2013!

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for posting the close-up of your blue ribbon quilt. The stitching is perfection; it's easy to see why it won!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love your quilt. Very original and very well executed -- Blue Robbon in my book! Are you sure you didn't use a machine on the Trip Around the World? Such tiny, even stitches!! Just lovely.

    ReplyDelete