Vermont Quilt Festival, Part 3!

I'll try and get all the remaining pics on this post!

And......the maker of that beautiful quilt 'Zen Garden" in the first posting has a blog!  Check it out.....Margaret at Quilts of Love  has beautiful pics of the show (quilts I didn't get pics of, including Best of Show!!), and her work is gorgeous!

Enjoy!

 "Mind Your Own Beeswax" by Hope Johnson, Shelbourne, VT

Hexie piecing with wonderful appliqued bees and accents!  Fun!

"Birds in the Hand" by Mandie Burrell, King George, VA

"Cheddar Feathers" by Ruth Ohol, Lockport, NY
Sorry so blurry.....and people just wouldn't move!  But the quilting (below) is so beautiful on this!

"Arizona Sky" by Ginny Radloff, Oxford, MA

 "Mother's Garden" by Barb Vedder, Ridgewood, NJ

I'd seen Barb's quilt on her blog before, but it's so lovely to see it up close!  Beautiful work!

 "The Tsar's Decree" by Megan Farkas, Sanbornton, NH
Lovely hand quilting on this.  Based on a 1905 fairytale illustration by Ivan Bilibin, the waves are responding to the pleas of the tsar's wife and son (in the barrel) to come safely ashore.

"Last One In" by Audrey Germer, Brewster, MA

"Romanced by Stars" by Robyn Zamora, Londonderry, NH
This is a 'reduced by half' sized quilt of the same pattern as in my first posting!  Tiny piecing!

"Celestial Forest" by Judy Logsdon, Mt. Sterling, IL

 "Peterborough Album" by Susan MacDuff, Peterborough, VT
Really lovely handwork!

"Waiting for the Mail" by Mary Wilber Wirchansky, Schenevus, NY

 "Patience" by Audrey Germer, Brewster, MA
This was a miniature, all done by hand!  Lovely!

 "Sweet Memories" by Dominique Ehrmann, Ste. Sophie, QC
This was 3 dimensional, with leaves and frame candy shop sticking out at least 4 inches!  So much detail, with something different to see every inch!  Amazing!

 "Illusion" by Susan C. Sherman, Westport, NY
All done in silks and silk threads.

 "Roses for Petunia" by Susan Irene Sharp, Waterford, NY
I just loved the beautiful fabrics she used in this!

 "Superstar" by Marilyn Badger, St. George, UT
The machine quilting on this was wonderful!

 "Sea Urchin" by Patricia Craig, Durham, NH

 "Favorite Feathers" by Janet Block, Rutland, VT
Very brave machine quilting of dark thread on white fabric!  Gorgeous!

 This was hanging in the Janome vendor booth, and the gal allowed pictures of it!  Yay!  Of all the quilts in the show, this is probably my favorite!  It was truly stunning, 1800's vintage, with glorious fabrics and I just loved the pieced pattern!  I'll be reproducing this one, definitely!  Thank you, Bittersweet Fabric Shop/Janome of America, Boscawen, NH for sharing it with us!  What a beauty!

And look who we managed to kidnap for dinner on Friday night!!!!  Bonnie Hunter (center) with my two great pals, Pat and Suzanne.  We had such a great time at this quilt show, and we are planning a longer stay next year!  Woohoo.....can't wait!

Well......that's all I have from the show.......BUT......I finished the Triangles quilt top!  Woohoo!  I loved every minute of making it, and I can't wait to quilt it up, and get it on a bed!  I still don't know what I'm going to do for the back or the quiilting......I'm still thinking on it!

Hope you are surviving this heat wave that seems to have crossed the entire country now.  Maine just isn't supposed to be in the 90's!  :o(

Have a great weekend!

regan

Vermont Quilt Festival - Part 2!

More pics from the Vermont Quilt Festival this past weekend.  Enjoy!

 "Indian Summer" by Alexandra Nickerson, Colchester, VT

"My Secret Garden" by Beth Giard, Essex Junction, VT

Made by Pat Delaney, one of the instructors at the show.

 "Oh My Stars" by Sue Freeland, Hainesport, NJ
The hand quilting on this was wonderful!

 "Blue Baskets (All by Hand III)" by Jane Crutchfield, Belchertown, MA

 "Dear Lucille" by Lucille LaPorte, Ste. Adele, QC

 "30's Remembrance" by Adele Patch, Lebanon, NH

"Simple Elegance" by Margaret Ferfuson, Glace Bay, NS
Beautiful hand quilting on this one......really lovely!

 "Wild Goose Chase in Quebec" by Grace Collot, Montreal North, QC

"Starry Night" by Lynn Wheatley, South Royalton, VT

I have enough pics for 2 more posts.....coming soon!

Today I finished piecing my triangles top, and I am still working at getting all the paper piecing off of the back!  My fingers are a bit sore from that!  Sheesh!  Who knew THAT was going to be such a chore!  I'll show the top as soon as I'm done.

Hope everyone has a great 4th of July!  We'll be kite flying down in Portland.....maybe I'll get some pics of that, too!  :o)

regan

Vermont Quilt Festival, 2012!

We just spent the last 2 days in Vermont at the Quilt Festival!

IT WAS AWESOME!

I have tons of pics, so I'll post the pics over several posts.  There was an amazing selection of 66 antique quilts from Gerald Roy's collection.....truly amazing quilts, but no pics were allowed of those.....dang!

And, of course, the place was packed with people, so a lot of the pics have bodies in them, or they are taken from a weird angle!  No way around it, people just didn't want to move!  I tried to get close up shots of details, and hopefully they are clear enough to really see the amazing free motion quilting and hand quilting that these quilters did!  Really beautiful work!  The theme this year was 'My Fantasy Garden' and there were some really great interpretations of that theme!

Enjoy!

 "Sunflower Sutra" by Helena Scheffer and Marion Perrault, Beaconsfield, QC.

Close up of the sunflower.....3 dimensional fabric and tons of thread play!  Fabulous!

 "Gilding the Arbor" by Bethanne Nemesh, Allentown, PA

Amazing free motion quilting on this!

 "Not Your Grandmother's Nine Patch" by Sherry Pryor, West Islip, NY

This was really wonderful......9 separate quilted pieces floating and then connected by the leaf pieces; the black background is not part of the quilt, that's the wall.

 "Zen Garden" by Margaret Solomon Gunn, Gorham, Maine

 "Cornucopia of Leaves" by Tricia Coulson, Le Claire, IA

 "Duffer" by Patty Williams, Plessis, NY

Great thread play on this miniature.

 "Pineapple Intensity" by Rose Orr, Colchester, VT            This miniature just glowed!

 "Glacier Star" by Janet Stone, Salem, MA

 "Stars 101" by Betty Chouinard, Londerderry, NH


I'll have more pics in a bit!

Have a great day!

regan

Triangles!

I can't believe it but I have finished piecing all of the triangle blocks for my quilt!  All 196 of them!  And the 18 side half-blocks.....AND last night I cut out all of the background pieces!  I'm ready to put it all together!  Woohoo!  And I just looked back, and realized that I started all of this just 2 weeks ago!  Holy cow!  I sure do love being retired!  Cuz it is ALL about the quilts now!  Yay!

Here are the stacks of blocks ready to be put on the design wall for placement!

Here are about half of the blocks laid out on the floor a few night ago.  I realized I needed more light-on-light blocks, since that is what really speaks to me in the antique original.  So I spent the last few days just making those, until I had all the blocks I needed.  The finished quilt will measure about 72 x 86.

And today I'm supposed to have a golf lesson (my short game sucks!), but it's also supposed to get to 92 degrees today......so I think I'm cancelling the lesson......and I'm going to start piecing these together!

Hope you all have a great day!

regan

Visit with a friend and triangle progress!

Last Friday, I headed down to the Boston area to visit with my dear friend, Rita.  And we had a wonderful visit! I was mistaken, in that she is 86, not 91!  (She's my dad's age, not my mom's!  Brain cramp!)

I met Rita when I first moved to the Boston area, back in 1996.  I had been quilting a little previous to that, but thought if I joined a guild, I would get into it more.  So I found the local guild, Crosstown Quilters, and showed up at a meeting.  I was early, of course, and the few gals there said to sit anywhere, so I plunked myself down at the middle table, so I could hear and see everything!  Turns out......I picked the best table, because Rita came and sat next to me.  She told me years later that she thought I had spunk, plunking myself in the middle of everything!  Ha!  We became fast friends, and she invited me to the local senior center, where they met every Thursday for quilting and every Monday for rug braiding!  I had always wanted to learn to braid, so of course, I started going with her!  What a great group of ladies at both meetings, with the quilters from the guild's center table making up most of the group at the senior center!  Nice......I already knew them!

I learned so much at these groups, where all the ladies were well into their 60's, and some in their 90's!  Amazing talent, and they were all willing to share ideas and techniques with this 'spunky' 34 year old!  I was very lucky to be there!  What's more, is that the senior center was an old victorian house in town, and I just loved being in those surroundings!  Sadly to say, the upkeep of the old home was too much for the town to manage, so the meetings were moved to the town municipal building, and the old victorian 'Hersey House' has gone to disrepair.

But back to my visit with Rita.  She does all sorts of crafts......quilting, rug braiding, counted cross stitch, crewel work......and it's all lovely!  Here are some of the things she's kept, because she gives most of it to her daughters and grands.

I just love her rugs.  The one in her dining room is over 30 years old!

Gorgeous crewel work!

This little hexie wall hanging was fabric salvaged from an antique quilt top that the neighbor found in a dumpster!  It was terribly torn up.....rags, really......but Rita salvaged what she could and made this beauty!  The hexies are 1/2" sides!

Here's Rita with her latest piece of crewel work.......it's really lovely!  She's such a sweetie!

And here's Rita with our good friend, Dottie, who conspired with me to set up this get-together.  We had to keep my visit a secret, because Rita will fret herself into a tizzie worrying about me visiting!  So it's much better to surprise her!  And she sure was!  We had a lovely day of just talking about quilts, and stitching, and did a little show and tell with our past projects!  Dottie brought lunch, and we had a perfect day of it!  Fun!

Now, of course, since I got back from Boston, all I can think about is my Triangle quilt!  And if you happened to read the comments from my last post, you'd see that Linda C from Quilts in the Barn blog actually owns that inspiration quilt!  Holy cow!  What are the chances of that!?!  She bought it on Ebay, and I'm so glad that wonderful quilt went to a good home!  Upon further inspection of my pic, I realize that the 'matching' fabric I have for the offset triangles is just slightly different.  It's the same print, but the original has a bit of red on those little black marks!  But that's ok......I'm loving it 100%!

Here's my progress in the last couple of days!  I just can't leave it alone!  lol

I'm going to have to refigure the setting for this quilt.  Because we have a footboard on our bed, I always make quilts to fit the bed so it doesn't get tucked at the end; the binding just rests next to the footboard.  So when I do a quilt, I have to make the long sides the top and bottom!  It usually doesn't matter much, because blocks are blocks......but I just realized that I am preferring the triangles not to 'sit' at the bottom.  Here's a pic of the original again, and I really like looking at it from this angle.  What do you think?

And......a big 'Thank You!' goes out to Rachael at Blue Mountain Daisy for reminding me to take a pic of my peonies!  This one is nearly gone, and I didn't even think about it!  Thanks, sweetie!

Ok......I'm heading back to the sewing room.......triangles are calling me!

Have a great week!

regan