What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

A wonderful, quilting-filled long weekend—despite the monsoon rains.

I visited Katrina this past weekend for some good girlfriend time—and the bonuses included (1) a guild meeting where Katrina was the program speaker and both of us won door prizes, (2) attending the Q.U.I.L.T. Guild of Northwest Arkansas’s biannual show, and (3) quilting the Tattoo quilt! 

Katrina belongs to a longarm quilting guild, and she presented a topic near and dear to me—organization. I loved hearing her ideas as well as ideas from the other guild members. 

After the meeting, we slogged our ...

 How wonderful to have a quilt show in Hastings to check out during my weekend trip away, put on by Wine Country Quilts.  I had a free day on Saturday before the family birthday, put the address into the Sat Nav, and after a little hiccough, finally saw the sign.  Did you know I'm somewhat navigationally challenged while driving? 

This must be the right place

After paying my $8 entry fee, and buying raffle tickets, I entered the door.  Wow, it all looked wonderful.  I love seeing big bed quilts, and there were plenty of those on display.

Where ...

 I made it to another quilt show! So much inspiration! I went into Portland to help my daughter with some paperwork/errands/chores and because the show opened on Thursday and I was still in town I thought I may as well go! Quilts were good, vendors, not so much.

I hope you are inspired! I loved seeing more wool applique quilts again.

 Last Saturday my schedule opened up and I decided to meet a friend in Salem for the Oregon Quilt Festival. It was a really beautiful day and the drive was lovely. 

Here are some terrific quilts from the show!

 Happy March! 

Here are a few things coming up on Humble Quilts:

Fundraiser book sale! Lots of goodies, mostly donated from you all for a cause! I will be going to Guatemala later this year and I'm fundraising for Faith Seeds. You can read more about that HERE. I'm waiting for more books to arrive. 

Thank you all for being so supportive. A few have asked about the t shirt dresses. Because these families are in the mountains(7500'+) it is quite cold and I may be trying to take some ...

—they hit every January. 

Wonderland, Miriam Schapiro, 1983

 Over the years, I've written posts ranting about how nobody gets what we really do.  I'm mean sure people might understand what a quilt is.  What they don't get is the blood, sweat and tears that goes into a quilt.  Okay, so that's a little dramatic...but really have you met me?  Realistically though, it's that extra "something" that makes quilt making much more than a simple craft.  It's definitely an art form no matter if you do

detail, The Bitter Nest, Part II

You wouldn't think that living outside of Erie, Pennsylvania would be a center of culture. And it kinda isn't.  But it kinda is.  Really, we're within an hour or two of Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Buffalo.  Plus 3 hrs out of Toronto. As well as 2.5 hrs out of central Ohio.  Yes, you read that right ....central Ohio.   Central Ohio, for you not in the know, is a hot bed of quilting.  Not only is there a plethora of quilt stores, quilt groups, retreat spots but also there is The Dairy Barn Art Center (home to Quilt ...

I have artists' statements for most of these if you'd like to know more.  

The theme for this year's Explorations in Fiber was "Inspiration."  Here are some of the selections. 

We went into one of the greenhouses.  Upper right:  cacao pods.

Outside:  roses are still in bloom. 

Work crews were setting up for Lightscape, the holiday light show that opens ...

I was finishing up some quilts today and I want to highlight a couple of my favorite tools that I use when making quilt binding.

First, I LOVE my June Tailor Shape Cut Pro ruler. It is a monster-sized ruler at 20″ x 23″ and allows me to efficiently cut 8 – 16 (probably more) 2 1/2″ strips for binding at one time from my yardage without needing to continually adjust a ruler. It is also great for crosscutting squares of any size with 2 1/2″ increment measurements. I am so sad that it has been discontinued! I have ...

This is the last part of the Prairie Star Quilt show from last Friday.  

The quilting is great on this quilt.

I've always liked Feathered Stars and Double Wedding Ring quilts.

This was a great Disney themed I-Spy quilt.

I'd never seen this style of temperature quilt before. It's all hand appliqued circles.

A few more quilts...

I love paper pieced quilts like these.  

More quilts...

hand appliqued and hand quilted

This quilt was inspired by a traditional Grandmother's Fan quilt. It's fans are in an infinite loop, and were paper pieced.  She said that ...

I took lots of photos at the Prairie Star Quilt Show today.  There are well over 200 members of this quilt guild, so they have LOTS of talented quilters.  I'll split this quilt show into more than one blog post.

I started with the Bee challenge/exchange quilts.  I'm in a brand new Bee, so I was interested in what kinds of challenges or exchanges we might want to try.

It will be easier to show the description of this Bee Round Robin with a photo of the description (I'm too lazy to type all that up ...

I know, I've been missing for months.  Once you get behind, it's hard to figure out where to start blogging again.  I decided that I'd start with the quilt show I went to last weekend.  It's the Morris (IL) Quilt Guild's show.  It's a small show, but always a good show.

This cute lady greeted us as we arrived.

I've been wanting to make a duffle bag for a couple of years now.  This lady made 2 matching duffle bags in 2 different sizes.

The guild had a challenge.  People were supposed to ...