What Are Quilters Blogging About Today?

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 ...

We've slipped back into our routine with afternoon outings most days.  The weather has been very warm and sunny though severely dry.  

The caregiver took Stevens out last week, too.  Here's a photo from the beach.  

We really like Swiss Gourmet and Winter Banana (mid-season).

# # # # # #

 The Anderson ...

Bucky Badger and the University of Wisconsin Pep Band rallied the quilters.  

I like to do the exhibits first and save the shopping for ...

Our quilt show was really fabulous, and a huge success judging by the number of people who came and the complements we were getting as guests left. I have just a few more quilts to show of ones that caught my eye, but not nearly the number I wanted to photograph. I just ran out of time. This view is from the balcony at the back of the hall looking toward the entrance. The quilts hanging from the railing above the floor are all Quilts of Valor in a special display.

The Best in Show award went to Susan Marra ...

It's only one week until our exhibition!!!

It's going to be great because we have some very talented members at Capital Quilters.  I've entered seven quilts.  Yes, SEVEN. 

One is a 12" x 16" challenge, so that hardly counts.

Two you've possibly seen finished here on my blog or in person.

Two others you would have seen progress photos of, but not seen them finished.

And the final two are total surprises!! These are quilts that I've completed without showing them on social media at all.  Not even my friends know about them.  And I ...

A Fantasy Garden, Christine Weise/Shelley Cassatta

You know when you go to a Sewing & Quilting Expo, you are overwhelmed by the amount of things to buy and classes to take.  Well at least that was how it was for me during the recent Cleveland Expo.  It was a lot!  But tucked in the back of the Expo were rows of black curtains, filled with the most gorgeous quilts!  SAQA had shared a few exhibitions and there were also some from the North Texas Quilt Festival.  The exhibit was so stunning, I ended up going through it 3 times during ...

There will be loads of inspiration for quilters and other fiber artists of all ages. Everything is available for sale and supports the Kent Art Association. 

I'm so excited that they chose one of my African Wax Print quilts for the border of this poster. Come see eight more quilts in my African series. One is a selvage quilt!

The ride to Kent from any direction is lovely. There are many nice restaurants to choose from for lunch, including my ...

Waiting for the vendors to open!

Okay am I the only one who has never been to a Sewing Expo?  This year I finally got to attend since it was returning to the I-X Center on the westside of Cleveland...and let me tell ya....most of the women I talk to have been going for years.  After spending the day, now I understand why.

Reason 1 - the Expo encompasses all that is sewing and quilting - If it has to do with those two things, then you will find it there.  There were vendors for EVERYTHING which includes but not ...