Nice Surprise...Two State Fair Ribbons!

We went to our cabin in the North Carolina mountains again this weekend.  Beautiful weather and beautiful foliage, although it was a bit colder this time.  Our son Bryson and two little grandkids were with us- so much fun.

Tonight I was going through all the e-mail that had piled up since Friday, since we do not have Internet up there.  I got some good news from my friend Donna Sontag that she spotted ribbons hanging on both of my N.C. State Fair entries!

Japanese Garden won a blue ribbon in the Other Techniques category.  It is a quilted, painted, and beaded wholecloth quilt made from a piece of Oriental-looking batik.

 I think this is the first time that one of my State Fair quilts has been hung up on the wall surrounding the quilt exhibits.  Here is Japanese Garden in a better picture, and you can read my post about it here.

The other quilt I entered was the recently revised Maggy Trees a Coon.  It appears to be hanging sideways in this display.  Now why would they do that?  Anyway, it got a third place ribbon in Wall Hangings.

 Here it is, right-side up, for those who have not seen it before.  The night before I turned it in at the fair, I decided to paint the tree trunks, branches, and foliage that I had quilted in the background.  I think that made a big difference. You can read about this quilt here and here.

Donna also got recognition at the fair for her entries.  She did not enter any quilts, but got a blue ribbon on a hand-knitted sweater, and a second place for this beautiful Christening gown that she made for her granddaughter.

I have some great mountain photos to share, as well as some pretty customer quilts, which I will get to next time.

Japanese Garden- Finished!

Japanese Garden, 17.5" x 25.5" ,2010

There is nothing like a deadline to encourage me to finish a project!  I finished this piece last night by adding the binding, a hand-dyed fabric by Ricky Tims.

 

The quilt had languished for awhile as I contemplated adding borders to resemble a Japanese window frame.  Finally, I decided I did not really want to do that.  All I had to do was audition a binding fabric.  The hand-dye had all the teals, purples, and greens of the quilted batik.  This is a whole-cloth quilt that I free-motion quilted, painted with Shiva paint sticks, and beaded.

The gold areas were already part of the batik, but I added more shine with the gold paint, and heavily encrusted with beads.

My favorite part reminded me of a water feature, perhaps a cascade.  I added some sparkly beads and a few little fishies.

The reason for the deadline is that I entered this piece into the Carolina Longarm Association's quilt show in September, and need to turn it in by next Saturday. 

This will probably be the weirdest most unusual wholecloth quilt on exhibit, I'm guessing!