Summer in Maine!

Doesn’t that sound wonderful? Cyndi (Busy Thimble) and I invite you to join us this summer for a wonderful exhibition of antique quilts and their “smaller” reproductions. A year ago, we sent out an invitation for quilters to pick an antique quilt of their choice and reproduce it in a smaller size. The participants are as follows (in alphabetical order):

Cyndi Black

Suzanne Bruno

Pat Burns

Dawn Cook-Ronningen

Nena Cunningham

Diane Dixon

Bonnie Dwyer

Laurie LaBar

Karen Keeler

Florence McConnell

Emma Morin

Ann Reed

Wendy Caton Reed

Mary Reynolds

Sue Clark Rivers

 If you are anywhere near New England this summer, we hope you will stop by the show at the Augusta Civic Center, 76 Community Dr. Augusta Maine, July 28-31. For more information on the show go to www.mainequilts.org . 

Sharing the joy!

I know I have ranted about expressed this before in a post, but I think it bears repeating. Why do we enter quilt shows? I know it is nice to be recognized with a shiny new ribbon, but I can truly say that I enter my quilts to share my joy with other people. I love to stand by a quilt and its maker and listen to the stories.

It makes me so sad when I hear a friend say “oh I would never enter my quilt, it isn’t good enough”. I go to shows to see all kinds of quilts. The good, the bad and – the funny!

I’m reminding you all of this in the wake of the fabulous Vermont Quilt Festival (that I SADLY missed) because for the second year in a row, I missed a blue ribbon by 1 point. Now if I entered my quilts to win ribbons, I might have been discouraged by this – wink!

Please check out other blogging friends who entered their quilts to share the joy and came home with ribbons anyway!

Cynthia (Wabi-Sabi Quilts) won a third place for her FIRST entry in VT. Woohoo! Barb (Fun With Barb) won a blue ribbon and Best Hand Quilted award! Gladi (GladiQuilts) won a red ribbon and Judges Choice from Gerald Roy. I wish I had seen them all in person!

Thanks to all my blogging buddies for sharing the joy!!!!!!!!!!

John Lennon was right!

Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans! I was to leave for the Vermont Quilt Festival tonight to be there for tomorrow, but… life got in the way. So, my friend Sarah Ann Smith took this photo and put it on her Facebook page. Second place for my potholder quilt, “Burning Leaves”. Woohoo! I was working on the applique of this quilt while riding the bus to VT last year.

And another friend, Sharon Waddell, posted this photo of Gladi Porsche’s fabulous “Stella Nova” quilt that she made with some of her Stars in a Time Warp blocks. It won a second place ribbon as well as a Judge’s Choice, although I do not yet know which judge it was. Congratulations Gladi!! 

Quilty 365 - Yikes!

I don’t know how it happened but, for some reason I forgot to link up my Quilty 365 progress on the 1^st.

I promise, I have been faithfully stitching my little circles each morning, I just forgot to post. I started on November 8 and I now have 12 rows of 18 circles stitched together and rolled onto these tubes. Such fun!

I wouldn’t feel so badly if I didn’t realize how much energy it took Audrey (Quilty Folk) to make the linky party. She has the “summer stress blues” and I feel like I need to support any quilter who has a temporary loss of their quilting mojo. I hope you all get some pieceful (and peaceful) time this summer!

By the way, I will be at the Vermont Quilt Festival on Saturday and I hope to get to say hi to a few of my blogging friends!

Houston we have NO problem!

Wpphoo! I just found out that my “No Bake Applique” quilt will be heading to Houston this Fall to be part of the second annual Primitive Quilt Exhibit sponsored by Primitive Quilts and Projects Magazine. I entered it quite a while ago and forgot all about it. 

Not only that but it won 3^rd place in their “original design” category. Gretchen said they hadn’t determined the prize yet, but she would let me know. I wish for an entire year off to quilt full time! But seriously, the biggest prize is just having my baby there.

If any of my wonderful blogging friends are scheduled to go, I would love a photo of you next to my quilt! 

SVBAQ Sunflower block

The Shenandoah Valley Botanical Album block this month is the sunflower. I had fun with this one after I saw Doreen’s (Aunt Reen’s Place) block and realized that I did not have to make all those little petals individually. Duh!

It went together rather quickly after that discovery. Why do I always feel I have to complicate matters? My new motto is "simplify". 

Do check out the Shenandoah Valley Botanical Album Blog to enjoy all the wonderful blocks. 

Sweet Retreat!

The Seven Sisters were only five at this year’s retreat, but we somehow managed to have a good time anyway! We also had a change in venue this year because of the conflicting schedules, but again, we managed quite nicely in our new surroundings. In fact, the facility, “The Dominican Sisters Retreat House” in Litchfield, Maine met our needs quite nicely.

The view was fantastic. There was plenty of room for us to spread out and we each had our own room (so no late night chatting after lights out!).

We started out at our annual pot luck dinner on Thursday night. Kathy revealed a little surprise she had been working on. Can you believe this?! What a hoot. She took our pictures at last year’s retreat and made us into paperdolls. She is so talented! Needless to say, it was a big hit!

As for my “list”: I started each day with my Quilty 365 circle.

I finished the binding on my SVBAQ Sunflower block before I left that morning, I managed to get quite a bit done on my mini repro for the show and I quilted and bound the center for my Gwennie Medallion Round Robin. (I’m making it in the potholder method so I needed to finish this part before I go on the next round).

We revealed our annual challenge - mini 4-patch quilts that we all decided we would donate to our annual auction to benefit domestic violence prevention.

Kathy had made us all a super mat to put under our machines and hold our essential tools, unfortunately I did not get a picture of them. In fact, I took only two pictures! These are all Tina's pictures which is why she is absent from all of them! Charlotte made us cute little mouse pin cushions from a pattern that she and Tina bought when they were in Germany. So cute!

We had a wonderful visit to the Busy Thimble quilt shop for some retail therapy and then Cyndi stopped by after she closed to the shop for a nice visit. It was warm enough to sit outside for a little stitching. I worked a bit on putting my Stars in a Time Warp blocks together – drawing a crowd!

 These hexies weren’t even on my list, but I worked on them for a bit outside.

Of course there is never enough food at our retreats. Charlotte had even brought champagne for Saturday breakfast! I don’t know how we managed to work after that!

 

Lots of fun with super friends! We all missed the Karen’s but we are looking forward to next year with a full house!

Gwennie Inspired Medallion Sew-a-long

The big reveal…

If you are new to my blog you can read about this Gwennie (Gwen Marston) inspired sew-a-long (here).

Lori (Humble Quilts) chose baskets as the center theme. I have to say I have had a ball with this one. I usually work from a drawing first. I made 3 different drawings before I realized that to honor what Gwen Marston is most famous for, I needed to me more liberated! SO I took my trusty Karen K. Buckley scissors and started cutting shapes. This is what I came up with.

I love the striped background fabric. It is part of the Moda Collection for a Cause “Warmth” line. I look forward to seeing what you all come up with! 

If you are following along (or if you just want to see what everyone is doing) it is time to link up to Lori's blog (here). I am amazed at all the great centers I have seen so far.

Cynthia (Wabi-Sabi Quilts) has chosen our next round. "Childhood Memories" as our next theme. Check our her blog (here) for all the details. What a wonderful choice. The wheels are turning, now let's see if I can transform my ideas into fabric. Hope you are all enjoying the journey with the 5 of us!

Link up the Inspiration!

Sarah at Confessions of a Fabric Addict has invited everyone to tell her what you plan to accomplish this month. I know none of you do this, but I tend to set unreasonable goals for my daily accomplishments. However, I do have my annual “Seven Sister” retreat coming up next week and I plan to get everything on my list finished before I get home (wink).

I’d like to start and finish this before the end of the month, but since that might be too high an expectation…

Here’s my list:

1)    Finish the mini 4-patch challenge for our quilt retreat next week (yup, I have had an entire year to plan it so it is time to get started and finish before next week!)

2)    Finish hand quilting my “Stripes on a Half Shell” mini reproduction quilt for this summer’s Maine Quilt show.

3)    Finish whipping together my “Stars in a Time Warp” (Now called “Barbara’s Cooking Class”) potholder blocks into a quilt to be donated to AQSG for the auction this fall.

4)    Finish quilting my Shenandoah Valley Botanical Applique (SVBAQ) Bouquet (May) block.

5)    Finish applique my SVBAQ Sunflower (June) block and baste.

6)    Finish the next border of our Gwennie Inspired Medallion round robin quilt (pattern unknown, it will be chosen on June 6).

7)    Keep up with my Quilty 365 circle a day project – this is the one project I know I will do as I have not skipped one day since Thanksgiving and I am thoroughly enjoying every stitch.

8)    And somehow (because I am always so inspired by my quilting buddies) I think I will do a little design work on my next big potholder quilt “Dutch Oven” (lots of Lancaster colors with hex sign designs) and may make a few more blocks for my ongoing potholder quilt “Pot Luck” (a compilation of orphan blocks made in the potholder method).

Photos of all finishes to follow!!

Not possible you say? Me thinks you may be right, but it doesn’t hurt to dream! Hope you get a few things crossed off your list this month too!