Catching Up: November Visits to the Bronx and to Pittsburgh

I have been absent for far too long, so the next two posts will bring you up-to-date on our "adventures" in the last two months.

Before Thanksgiving, we paid a visit to the New York Botanical Garden to see the Annual Train Show. While we waited for our timed entry to see the trains, we strolled around the gardens. Although I did not get the gardening gene, I still like to see and admire the work of those who did! We were struck by the amount of color still evident in the gardens.

I love ornamental cabbages!

I confess to limited knowledge of plants and shrubs, but I loved the contrast of
the bright yellow leaves to the usual green ones on this bush.

Red branches brightened the look of a leafless tree (shrub?)


The train show is much more than a train layout on big tables like we all had in our basements or under the Christmas tree. No, this is a display of trains that travel around small-scale New York landmarks made entirely from plant materials of all sorts. There are hundreds of structures, including the George Washington Bridge and the Brooklyn Bridge, both of which tower over the heads of the visitors.

Here are a few of our favorites:

The facade of Saint Patrick's Cathedral

The Statue of Liberty

Yankee Stadium

The Brooklyn Bridge

There was also a display of a "work in progress," a miniature Kykuit (the Rockefeller estate in Pocantico Hills) that showed the kinds of materials used in the construction of the buildings.



We spent Thanksgiving in Pittsburgh, visiting my sister and brother-in-law in their home there for the last time. In late October, they had sold their house, so this was our last opportunity to celebrate a holiday there.


My sister is a vegetarian, so I was on turkey duty, and we collaborated on the veggies and sides.


We left them the next Monday to finish packing to get ready for their December departure.

Marce and Jack on their porch

Izzy will miss her neighborhood--she loved to be outside on patrol!

We returned home to begin Christmas preparations which mostly involve combining butter and sugar and flour. Stay tuned!

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!

There's no business like show business! A quilt show, that is....

I know a promised a post explaining why I think Turkey is a paradise for quilters, but my guild quilt show was this weekend, and I couldn't wait to write about it and show you some pictures of the magnificent quilts in the show. We had lots of visitors oohing and ahing over the quilts. And well they might. The variety of styles and colors was amazing, and the workmanship was certainly impressive. interestingly enough, many of these quilts did not appear at our monthly meeting show-and-tell. A lot of talented quilters are keeping their work under wraps until showtime.

Here are some of my favorites.

Pauline's blue ribbon applique quilt. Believe it or not, all those squares are appliqued! I think they are 1" square. Wonderful.





Miriam captured the colors of the African sunrise in her quilt made with African fabrics. I love the way some of the circles form the edge of the quilt.





Clare used the colors--and the birds-- of the southwest in her quilt. And look at all those triangles!



Susan's quilt with blue and cheddar sparkles with the addition of a dash of pink. Stunning!





Elizabeth used Asian fabrics in her blue ribbon pieced quilt, added an applique border, and then hand quilted it, incorporating Sashiko (look at the lower right.) And look at those wonderful cranes at the top.
Just beautiful!




Only one fabric was used for all the blocks and the border in Diane's four patch posey quilt. I love the colors!



Susan's wonderful applique quilt has it all: great design and color, and exquisite hand applique and quilting. If I had been a judge, this quilt would be wearing a different color ribbon for sure!




Barb's Abe Lincoln quilt is such a wonderful example of a medallion quilt. I think the different sized star borders and the variety of fabrics make this a winner, and the judges thought so, too. I need to practice my photography skills because as you can see, I lopped off the outer border and that important Blue Ribbon!

There are lots more to show you, so I'll save some for another post! I hope these quilts inspired you to get busy and quilt!