Heritage Days Quilt Auction

Saturday, October 2, is the day that Capital Quilters Guild is holding a Quilt Auction and Raffle at the farmhouse at Historic Oak View Park, Carya Drive, Raleigh, (off Poole Road).  Boutique and Auction registration start at 10 am, Auction starts at 2 pm.

Here is our raffle quilt, Lil Orphan Annie.  It is hand-quilted and appliqued.

You can see some of the hand-made donated quilts for sale at the auction on my blog post here.

Our charity partner again this year is Military Missions in Action.  This group is a non-profit that helps wounded veterans and their families in North Carolina.  They are completely funded by donations and the members are all volunteers.  Their services include household improvements and home maintenance that encourage independent living for disabled veterans.

The boutique has over 350 hand-made items for sale.  I turned in a whole bag full of quilted, painted, bejeweled bookmarks.

This group has purple foil on red and blue hand-dyed fabric.

In this group, the blue and copper are painted, foiled batting.

 This group has hand-painted fabric with embellished fibers and Swarovski crystals.

It was fun to work on these colorful projects while North Carolina was being deluged with rain all week.  The weekend is supposed to be very nice, however, and I saw a beautiful rainbow tonight.

Wednesday Work-in-Progress

Here is the beginning of a small art quilt I am making with my needle-felting machine.  It looks kind of abstract right now, but my goal is to make it an autumn creek scene. So far it has no stitching, just layers of cotton and sheer fabrics on a piece of cotton batting.

I haven't worked much on the Zentangle hand, but have added some tiny seed beads to the other side of the background field.  It is hard to see much progress with these small beads.

Remember the white blazing stars quilt that took so long to quilt?  When last seen here, I was going to "quickly unsew" an area on the back where the tension was off.

HAHAHAHAHA!

I have spent at least three nights picking out the quilting from the ever-explanding area where the stitching on the back was too loose.  You would think that with loose tension the picking would be easy, but not when you have micro-stippled. 

So, in the meantime, I put a gorgeous quilt top of Jean's on the machine.  It is a triple Irish chain with flower prints in the large center areas.

                                

I was having a lovely time quilting leaves, vines and flowers with NO PROBLEMS until my on-off switch broke.  Can't turn it on.  Have ordered new switches which I hope arrive soon.  I was about three-fourths done when the machine went Kaput.

Alpha Tangle

Here is the cutest little book I just received from Joggles.com.  It is a Zentangle Alphabet!



Alpha Tangle, by Sandy Steen Bartholomew

I have been doing some doodles and even an art quilt using the Zentangle guides, but did not have a huge library of designs to choose from.  Although this book does not teach you how to draw the doodles step-by-step, it beautifully illustrates them by alphabet letter.





This is such a small book, only four inches square and very thin, that I plan to make a pocket for it on the inside cover of my Zentangle journal.

Here is a photo of some visitors to my front yard this morning:

It's not unusual at all to see Canada geese in our area.  They are everywhere, from parking lots to golf courses to just about anywhere there is a drop of water.  On my side of the street, there are at least six ponds, so they usually are not in my yard.  But it looks like they are making themselves at home.

I think they are enjoying the sunshine after a couple of rainy days.

Just stay off my front porch, please!

Early Fall in the North Carolina Mountains

We had a beautiful weekend in Ashe County in the North Carolina mountains...well, until this morning, that is, when it finally rained to end the moderate drought we had been experiencing.  But on Friday and Saturday, it was all sunshine and mild temperatures.  The woods are mostly still green, but some changes are beginning to occur in the foliage.

                                      

We had three cute baby girls to play with.  This is my nephew, Jason, with little Lacy.

And our friend Big Mike with Shel-Baby  (Shelby).

Little Ragen did not want to get on that tree branch with or without her daddy.

We had a great time watching the N.C.State football win over Georgia Tech, again with the TV in our garage and babies and dogs running around.  Melinda's dog, Haley, sported a new haircut.

It had stopped raining when we left.  The two llamas at the state research farm were close to the road and posed for some pictures.

We were treated to spectacular vistas of clouds huddled below the mountains.

I did fool around with my new Hand Lettering book and one of my journals.  I painted a colorful background, added a house and tree, and then discovered that it was upside down!  So I added some lettering in the "Whimsy" alphabet style.  To add to the directionality problems, Blogger is rotating the picture 90 degrees for some reason.

I used metallic gel pens to color in the wide part of the letters and decorate the house and trees with design elements from the book. 

The rain has continued and looks like it will be here for awhile, so this could be a good week of indoor activities like quilting and stitching.

Hand Lettering book

Last week I had some time between eye and hair appointments in Raleigh, and spent a couple hours shopping.  I got this book, Hand Lettering,  at Joann's with my 40% off coupon.  The retail price is $17.95. 

Hand Lettering, by Marci Donley and DeAnn Singh

This book has lots of different alphabets, tutorials on how to form the letters, and examples used in cards and scrapbook pages.  There are pages devoted to tools and materials, including a guide to the bewildering array of markers and pens available today. 

It is definitely going to be helpful to me in my art quilts, journals, and mixed media projects.  I have not really studied lettering since a required drafting elective in seventh and eighth grade.  This looks like much more fun!  I especially like the pages on decorating techniques, such as decoupage, rubber stamping and embossing, character marks, squiggles and scribbles.

Oh, yes, and a full page on correcting mistakes!

"Moby Quilt" is Done

When you work at home by yourself, it is important to find ways to amuse yourself and keep your brain occupied, yes?  One way I do that is to come up with nicknames for the projects I am working on.

The current customer quilt began as this:

And was not exactly a flat surface to quilt

And during its weeks on the longarm, it earned several monikers including "Moby Quilt", "The White Elephant," and, my personal favorite, "Cussin' Practice."  LOL!

However, it is finally quilted.  I still need to do something with about a thousand thread tails that are dangling.  I butchered squared up the corners and sides.  I was ready to make and sew down the binding, when I noticed this on the back:

                                    

Can you see the little thread blobs?  Something went wrong on the tension on the back.  So, I will quickly "unsew" this small area and put it back on the machine.  I have some clamps made from the cardboard tubes in the center of batting rolls.  If you slit the tubes, you can use them to temporarily hold the quilt on the rollers while you fix the boo-boos.

But the White Elephant is looking so pretty!  Here it is draped over my couch.  I'll get a better picture when I add the binding.



I considered having a contest to see who could correctly guess the number of hanging thread tails, but then I would have to actually count them myself. 

What a relief to get this project off the machine!

Here is a pretty package of hand-dyed fabric that I purchased from Vicki Welsh's Etsy shop:

Yes, it is one of the last days of summer, even though we are still going to be in the 90's all week here in my part of North Carolina, but I love this bright yellow-greens.  Each fat quarter has a slightly different pattern.  I highly recommend Vicki's fabrics and the super-fast service from her Etsy Shop!

Carolina Longarm Quilt Show-Part 3

Okay, the grandkids have gone home...ready to wrap up the Carolina Longarm Association's quilt show, Romance is in the Air, held last weekend in Clemmons, NC.

I will not be posting every quilt or all the winning entries, but here are some more quilts for you.

In Part 1, I showed you Ann Hull's Baskets quilt, which won a third place in the Arts/Quilts/Miniature category.  Today, I found out that she also won the Viewer's Choice in that category, but for a different quilt: Alpine Wonder.  This quilt top was made by Diane Huard and quilted by Ann.

                                        

And just for fun, the same duo entered this whimsical quilt called Bountiful Beauties in the show.

                                 

In addition to two awards in this category, Ann did rather well for herself in this show.  Her quilt, Palette of Red, won first place AND Viewer's Choice in the Overall/Pantograph-Computer Guided category.  Ann has a Gammill with a Statler Stitcher system.  Ann pieced this top at a Mystery Retreat with Dee Dalton in Banner Elk, NC.



And if four awards are not enough, Ann also earned a second place ribbon in the category Custom-Computer Guided for Civil War Quilt.  I am so proud and happy for my friend and fellow Cyberbee and Capital Quilt Guild Member!

My friend Mary Harmon is also in Cyberbee and Capital Quilters Guild, and is the President of the CLA.  She received a second place ribbon for Colorful Flying in the Overall/Pantograph-Non-Computer Guided category.

Other Capital Quilters Guild members winning awards were Angela Hugli Clark for Hopeful Homes, 2nd Place in Custom-2 Years or Less, Non-Computer Guided;

and also Third Place in the same category for Whirlygigs for Mary, for which I do not have a photo.

Another CQG member, Cheryl L. Porter, pretty much owned the Overall/Pantograph-Non-Computer Guided category.  She won First Place for Jade Garden,

Third Place for Watercolor Stained Glass

and Viewer's Choice in the same category for yet another quilt, From Bali to Boston.

Katherine Meranda of CQG had some lovely quilts in the show, including Rhythm & Blues

and Pinwheel Posies Again, a 3-D quilt.



Other CQG participants included Luann Stemler, Leslie Emma, and Donna Sontag.

One of the most talented longarm quilters in the CLA, in my opinion, is Kim Buterbaugh.  If there had been a Best of Show award, I think it may have gone to Kim for Winter Star.  This quilt won First Place in the category Custom Non-Computer Guided.

Here is a detail of some of the exquisite quilting.

I also loved this quilt by one of Kim's customers, that Kim quilted.  She was told that it did not win an award because there were blue marks that the piecer applied seven years ago when she had planned to hand-quilt.  They did not come out, which could be the case if the top had been ironed, left in a hot car, etc.  That is a shame, because this quilting is to DIE for.

I also loved the Sewingly Yours Shop Hop quilt that Kim quilted.  Here is a detail:

Another friend, Jan Struble from Durham, entered this quilt that I adore, called Feathers Around the Block.  The pattern and fabrics are by Karen Combs.

 Beautiful quilting!

One of my favorite CLA members is Theresa DeWalt.  She is a fabulous quilter.  She won several awards, including Viewer's Choice in the Custom Non-Computer Guided category for the delicious Sarah's Street, pieced by Sarah Stephens.

Here is a detail of Theresa's quilting.

Okay, I am about to run out of steam, but here are a couple more.

I loved this quilt by Elaine Brower titled Window Over Taormina.





Winnie McCrary pieced and quilted this colorful quilted called Another Trip Around the Sun, which won a second place Overall/Pantograph-Non-Computer Guided ribbon.

I believe this quilt is also by Theresa DeWalt, Autumn Splendor, Custom Non-Computer Guided.

All right, kids, I'm exhausted!  Hope you enjoyed my CLA quilt show pictures.  I am sorry I could not include all the quilts and winners, and I hope I identified everything correctly.  It was a wonderful display of quilts by some talented longarmers!