Wednesday, April 2, 2014

A little Eye Candy

Drove most of the day today. Took a brief stop at quilt shop just down the road from where we had lunch. I have been looking for 3/4" Thangkes for quite some time with no luck. Today I decided to go a different route. I purchased a software program called Triangulations. That way I can print my own in any size. 1/2 square triangles, 1/4 square triangles, flying geese. I am thinking this is the best way to go for me. Not having acess to a quilt shop at a moments notice makes things difficult sometimes and this will probably be a handy tool in my studio.


When you spend all day on the road there is not much to blog about. We listened to an audio book while driving.  A Year Of Pleasures by Elizabeth Berg. I love how this author can write with such feeling and description. It is a well written story of a woman learning to live and deal with life after the death of her husband. This book would pull at my heart any day but today would have been my Mom's birthday. We lost her over 2 years ago and I still miss her terribly. I want to call and tell her about my day, about our travels, see how she is feeling, play Scrabble with her on-line, scold her for not looking after her health. Just to hear her voice. I always called her on her birthday and sang Happy Birthday on the phone to her and it just doesnt seem right not to do it. Happy Birthday Mom. I love you and miss you so much.


                           Happy Birthday Mom, I miss you.

Sorry if I made anybody uncomfortable or sad, but Mom was on my mind today and somehow I had to express a little of what I was feeling.

Lets take a peek at a few of the quilts from the Arizona Quilt Show this past weekend.

This quilter definitely had a lot of patience, time, skill and sense of humour. I love what she named her quilt....







As you may have noticed all of these quilts had a pineapple theme. The next few were all part of a scrappy challenge. The picture below is of a small quilt; probably 30x50. The pieces were extremely small as you can see by the photo of my thumb against some of the pieces. It was hand pieced and hand quilted. The judges gave it an honorable mention. I apparently do not judge the way they did because in my mind it deserved a 1st place ribbon. Several of us commented about it, but went on our way shaking our heads. We were so pleased at the end of the day when the announcement came that this quilt won Viewers Choice from all the hundreds of pieces there at the show. Inmy mind this quilter was recognized by her peers and that was what counted.












In case you are curious to see which quilt had taken 1st place in the scraps category, it is the grey/beige tree quilt above. For the life of me I could not see why the judges thought this one so much more worthy, but I'm sure they must have known what they were doing.




This Forest Aglow was truly amazing. Size was about 12x20. The colours literally glowed and the workmanship was stunning!




This quilt was very attractive and the quilter knew that a traditional binding would have detracted from the clean strait bands of colour that ran off the edge of the quilt. She still used a traditional binding, but applied it in a non traditional way. The binding matched the backing fabric and was sewn with a 1/4" seam on the front but ALL the binding was brought to the back was folded to the back and stitched with an invisible stitch, therefore leaving no framing to cross the clean linear look of the front. Very clever!



Some quilters are pure genius with colour and shading!








These last pictures show how a simple quilt comes alive when a quilter does her magic with the right thread and stitching.
This was a great quilt show. I wish I had felt better, and I also wish I had had more time to spend looking at the quilts, shopping the vendors, and listening to the lectures. Barb and I did manage to attend one lecture with machine quilter and author and Craftsy teacher, Angela Walters. She was a bundle of energy, very talented and fun to listen and talk to.
The Arizona Quilt Show is definitely on my list again next year!
Oh, didn't I tell you. We have booked our accommodations for next year too...December to April. I know, I know, that means I miss out on all the snow and cold again, and it was a tough decision, but we'll deal with it.


























2 comments:

  1. What a sweet tribute to your mom.
    You're right about the viewers choice quilt. It's amazing!

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  2. Your tribute to your mom was very thoughtful. I've read that book before, as well. I really like Elizabeth Berg. The quilts are amazing! I love the two scrap ones with the tiny pieces!! Have a safe journey!

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