Maine Quilts 2010 redux

J301. Swirling Leaves by Lynn Jourdan, Cape Porpoise. (41 x 41) This quilt was made as part of a year-long round robin. We started out with a center block of our choice and each month received instructions from another member of the group on what kind of border to add to our own quilt. It was a fun challenge! I liked the fact that in this round robin we each worked on our own quilt. Original design. Machine pieced, hand appliquéd, hand quilted.

Did you know you can look at all the quilts from Maine Quilts 2010 online? Yes, you can! All the quilts are grouped in categories-art quilts, display quilts, judged quilts, etc. Have fun!

Show and Tell

At Maine Quilts this year a vendor from Lancaster, PA had this wonderful little lady holding a mass of holly branches. There were several other designs taken from old lithographs, I think. One was a little girl and a bear done in green which was lovely, too. The red border print came from the same vendor. It was packaged as a 3 inch wide strip and so many yards long, wrapped in cellophane. The vendor had numerous pre-cut squares of fabric all wrapped in cellophane. It was a very appealing display and the fabrics did not get frayed like you usually see.

I designed this quilt using EQ7. My first design with Electric Quilt. I really wanted to make that brown frame around the lady and it worked like a charm with the program. I only had to fudge a little when I actually sewed it together. The fudging part is the border between the red strip and the outer border, just had to make sure it was the right width for everything to fit.

This was a practice piece for machine quilting. It is all very well and good to practice on bits and pieces, but best way to practice is to quilt a real piece and finish it off. Don't you find that when you actually finish a piece it looks so much better than you had expected? Sometimes a ho-hum piece looks terrific once it is quilted and the binding is on.

I free motion quilted around the oval flowers in the red strip and then doodled around so that the ovals really pop up. I like the cross-hatching around my lady, but think it might look better if I had used off-white thread instead of the darker color. Still, it's good to try and see how it looks. If I had used neutral maybe I would be saying I should have tried a darker thread. There's always the NEXT quilt, isn't there?

Overall, I really like this piece. It kind of looks like "instant ancestors". I have it in my sewing room.


I'm thinking of calling this piece "Morris Mountain" because I used William Morris fabrics and there is "Morse Mountain" near Popham Beach where we like to hike.

Back Road Quilters had Jo Diggs come to a recent meeting. She did a lecture/slide show/trunk show with many of her wonderful landscapes. I was inspired to make this piece. It measures 16x26 inches. Hand appliqued. Machine quilted.


Here's a view to show the quilting. I used matching thread for each section; that's a lot of thread changing.


On the needles:
or rather off the needles!

Blackberry Mittens from Blackberry Ridge in Wisconsin. Pattern by Anne Bosch. These are made with fingering weight yarn which is quite finer than the usual worsted I use for most mittens. I really like the braided cuff. These are going into a mitten show at Merrymeeting Art Gallery in Bowdoinham in November. I'm making another pair and will show you those when I finish.

That's all for now! Get out and vote!

A litle eye candy

So much beautiful quilting! I'll have to remember the squares on the petunia quilt.

Another free slideshow design by Smilebox

Quilt Show

Here's the news, straight from their webpage.......

Bowdoinham Historical Society Quilt Show

Sat, 11/06/2010 - 10:00am - 3:00pm

BOWDOINHAM – Quilts are not just household linens. They are historical documents marking weddings, births, anniversaries and other major events that touch a family and community. They are also works of art employing a centuries-old craft that continues to evolve with each generation of quilters.

In celebration of that tradition, the Bowdoinham Historical Society is hosting a show of new and antique quilts, including several from its own collection. The show will run from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 6, and Sunday, Nov. 7, at the Town Hall. Volunteers from the Pine Tree Quilters Guild will be on hand from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 7, to document quilts for a statewide database that so far holds photographs and information on more than 2,600 quilts. Maine’s quilts will then be added to a national database.

“We wanted to preserve the original history of quilting,” said Cyndi Black, co-chair of the Pine Tree Quilters Guild’s Maine Quilt Heritage Committee, which is in charge of the database.

Quilters and collectors are invited to exhibit their work by dropping off quilts at the Bowdoinham Public Library from Wednesday, Oct. 27, to Nov. 3 during library hours. (Tuesdays from 10 a.m. to noon, 2-5 p.m. and 7-8 p.m.; Wednesdays 2-6 p.m.; Fridays 2-5 p.m. and Saturdays 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.) Exhibitors may also drop off quilts in the Town Hall during voting hours on Nov. 2. Registration forms are available wherever you drop off your quilt, or can be downloaded here.

Anyone with a quilt made before 1960 who would like it documented as part of the Maine Quilt Heritage project may bring it to the show on Sunday between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. No appointment is necessary.

Admission to the show is $4; exhibitors get in free. Raffle tickets will be on sale to win a quilt donated by a Bowdoinham quilter Sandy Hickey. The winning ticket will be drawn at the Christmas Tree lighting and Caroling on Friday, Dec. 3, at 5:30 p.m. Proceeds from the raffle will benefit restoration of the Jellerson School.

Placemats

I've had fun making these placemats. The first one is for my husband. I machine quilted around the trails and so on.

I really like feathers so this one is for me. This was the first placemat I made. The nature block and the nest block are from a panel I bought at the quilt show. The dark green is part of the panel, the light green strips I added. Just using odds and ends in my stash. The eggs really stand out because I free motion quilted around them and then did the stippling.

Butterflies for my daughter. I free motion quilted around each butterfly and then filled in. These placemats have been washed several times and the quilting always pops up beautifully.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian friends!

A bolt of "Ocean", please