MN Quilt Show Photos, 1

Here you go -- some of the very gorgeous and amazing quilts posted at the 2011 Minnesota Quilt Show in Saint Paul, Minnesota -- this year I was particularly amazed at the beautiful, fine piecing, and the tiny and intricate quilting. There was also a lot of 3-D and textural stuff. Very interesting and beautiful!

I'll post more in the next day or two. Sorry I don't have names to go with the quilts. One of these years I'll get organized and record what I'm looking at.

























This one is called something like "Mosquito's Eye View of the City"













This small quilt includes some 3-D and some tiny quilting



This small quilt is a reproduction of a bed-size quilt. It's really small! Can you see the size of the safety pin? That gives you an idea of how small this quilt is.







This is a 3-D portion; I could have put my fingers inside the circular part of the flower, but, of course, touching it is not allowed.

Welcome Home, Me!

I have been out of town for several days, and before that I was so busy that I felt like I wasn't home (i.e., not able to do fun stuff like sewing). I am sooo happy to be back to my own house, and soon I'll have some free time to sleep, read, and sew. Wheeeee!

Actually, I had some good reading time while I was away. I was here:



Isn't it beautiful?? It was cool and rainy most of the time, but one day we were able to sit on the deck and read. Also I knitted baby booties. My friend and I made 15 pairs! They are for Bundles of Love.



I am reading a book that is 647 pages long, and I made it to about 355 which was beyond my goal of reaching page 300. So I have only 292 pages left. I think the book gods should give me credit for two or three books.

I am sort of working backwards. We also went to see the headwaters of the Mississippi River. I have been there many times, and this is the first time I have ever seen the water this high. The "shallow" place where one can wade across the river was thigh deep, so I didn't bother to go all the way across. It was cold and rainy. The rocks area seemed treacherous, but still there were young people running blithely across.



Our lake is higher than I have ever seen it, too. On our last day there I went for a morning swim. Outside air temp was 60 deg F, and there was a soft rain. After a cold spring and 2-3 days of rain just before my swim, that lake was freezing cold. Took my breath away! It's not a very deep lake and often becomes quite warm during the summer. So far it is not even close to warm! Brrr! After cautiously getting wet head to toe, I stayed in for about 45 seconds.

A friend and I visited umpteen quilt shops and a discount fabric store. I bought more than I meant to! (What can I say, it was fabric.) Also hit two bookstores. Two of my favorite kinds of shops... the third would be a chocolate factory, I guess.

In the last week I've eaten out a lot. Had key lime pie at one place (yum) and banana cream pie at another (also yum). Drove over 500 miles this week.



Now I'm pooped!

Soon I'll show you the quilt show pictures, I promise.

Minnesota Quilt Show 2011

I have been super busy with some company at my house, a quilt show to attend, and a home party to host. It has been a lot of fun, so I'm not complaining.

Two friends from California are in town, and the three of us went to the Minnesota Quilt Show on Thursday. The quilts were a.maz.ing!! I took a zillion pictures, and when I get more time next week I'll show you some of them.



For now you get to gaze upon the beautiful visages of some of my guild members. I like to take pictures of the guild members I see while at the quilt show.

















At lunch time we came upon this cool thing. It must have been members of Minnesota Opera. They were acting out some opera scene and singing beautifully in Italian.



Watch for some gorgeous quilt pictures some time next week.

So Many UFOs - Now Done!

We had a fun night at quilt guild Tuesday night. One woman had encouraged us to finish UFOs (unfinished objects). We each signed up with the number of UFOs we thought we could totally finish by our June meeting. If we brought that number and showed them, completely done, we would be entered into a drawing for prizes.

This resulted in quite a Show and Tell of finished quilts that otherwise would still be sitting in closets and drawers, undone forever. Some people were inspired to finish quilts they liked and actually wanted. Some finished projects that they had forgotten even existed until the challenge came along. Some finished patterns that they thought were very ugly, but went along with the challenge just so they'd finally be done. Some were only a year or a few months old, some were as old as 15 years.

I signed up for only one completed quilt, knowing I would be hard pressed to follow through on any more than that. So I showed my quilt and got my name entered in the drawing... and I won a bank made by the challenge originator's father-in-law!

Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of the people who showed up without their quilt! They had not finished, which got them boos and a promise that they would now be on the Wall of Shame... but I forgot to line them up for the photo shoot.

So here are 26 quilts that would have been UFOs for who knows how many more years without the nudge of a certain organized woman...





















the bank I won

when a coin goes into the money slot it plays music

After all that excitement, we also had a show of quilts made by people who participated in a block of the month project. This one was very ambitious, with many different blocks being required each month. The pattern was in Quiltmaker magazine a while back. Here are the quilts, ranging from blocks still in a box (woman in pink) to unquilted tops to completely done with bindings and labels. I love seeing how different they look, even though they were all made from the same pattern.







Apparently in August we are going to have some kind of "ugly" contest... not only quilts, but even outfits. I should start scouting around at Goodwill now even though I don't know the project details yet. Sounds like fun, whatever it will be.

A Full Life

Tonight hubby and I had dinner downtown and then attended a live interview of Bill Moyers, interviewed by Garrison Keillor. I just love Mr. Moyers! He is intelligent, kind, gentle, thoughtful, respectful, realistic, and eloquent. Also, he is optimistic about our future!!! That alone lifts my spirits.

When we entered a parking ramp before the evening began, we saw B. Moyers walking out of the ramp, about ten feet from us. It felt funny being so close to someone so famous, and him just walking around with another guy in my town, like a normal person! Of course, he would tell me that's exactly what he is.

Apparently he was in town to attend a grandson's graduation. I didn't even know he has family living here!

Can you see the cardinal on a tree branch?

Can you see the ladybug? Also, do you believe me when I say that these two dish cloths are knitted from the same skein of yarn? They are both red, not orange, not pink... and hard to photograph!

In other news (do I sound like a journalist? Pretend I just turned to face a different camera)... I have not finished as many quilts as I had hoped to by now. But I have a couple knitting pictures to show you. That'll have to do for now.

And in still other news (back to camera one).. I am feeling happy and content with life. The weather is beautiful, my family is happy, I have fabulous friends, and life is joyous. It is nice to feel this way after going through a long slump.

My son is visiting friends in another state and is feeling GREAT. He feels refreshed and happy and is recovering from his own trauma. I love to hear him sounding so happy.

I am reading Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund. I'm liking it a lot. My only complaint is that I have not had much time to read, so I'm making very little headway in a fat book.

Quilts and Books

Two of my loves: quilts and books. I finished two quilts this week and have continued to race through some good books.

The most recent book I read is The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick. I needed a book by a "q" author, and I chose this from a bookstore at which I had a coupon. It was a super fast read, touching, and captivating. I couldn't put it down! I read it in most of a day and finished it this morning. It's about a young man who has suffered from some serious mental illness and is trying to re-adjust to his life after being hospitalized. Very interesting story, with likeable and believable characters. Gets an A+ from me. I try to keep my Shelfari list up to date (in the sidebar). If you see any books there that you are curious about, just ask, and I will try to give you some useful feedback.

Then I finished two UFOs. UFO #18 is a quilt for my nephew, only one year late (almost exactly). It was promised to him for a high school graduation gift, but took a year to be quilted and bound. My bad. Now that it has been in the 100s outside, his quilt is ready!

I made it really long for my tall nephew.

The next one, UFO #19, has also taken me way longer than it needed to. The blocks were sent to me by Lisa of Central Ohio Binky Patrol. I don't want to even figure out how long I sat on the blocks and then how long I had the top assembled before getting it quilted. This will go to a foster child somewhere in Ohio.

Diane fell in love with these blocks while quilting the top, and says she thinks there are several vintage fabrics here.



My friend, Diane, offered to quilt some charity quilts for me, and this one for Ohio is one that she did for free. She quilts beautifully, and I am grateful that she took on some of my tops that had been overwhelming me. My friends keep me afloat!

Blast Furnace

an even sadder version of melting than I am experiencing

Suddenly it's summer! Whew! Just a couple days ago I used the word "spring" in my post title. Now it's hot, hot, hot summer. Yesterday's high was 97 degrees F. Today, at 2:30 p.m. it is already 101 degrees F, and will probably go higher. I was going to go out today but decided not to. It's too HOT!

I'm thankful for air conditioning. I know plenty of people who are not so lucky. My heart goes out to them today. This includes the school kids still in session, and all my former co-workers who are sweltering in buildings with no a.c. and with a lot of hot bodies squished together. Not pleasant. I remember those days of suffering. Fans just don't cut it in heat like that.

Since I can't go outside, I decided to steel myself for the boring job: quilt bindings! I'm making progress, slowly but surely. I'll post pictures tomorrow. I hope to have more than one done by then. (But it's slow progress; even in air conditioning, a big old quilt across one's lap while sewing on binding is awfully warm.)

Ta-ta! Stay cool!

I am Going to Confess...

I had a very weird day. I am going to confess my total laziness. I didn't realize I was super tired, but I had the longest, laziest sleep-in this morning!



I heard my cell phone receive a text message at 9-something A.M. I woke up enough to read it, and attempted to answer. I could barely hit the letters correctly for my response. It was my friend who works in a school where I might have subbed today, telling me they had two people absent for whom I could have subbed.

"Hmmm...," I said curiously, "they didn't even call me!"

Then I noticed that I had a missed call. They HAD called me, but I was in such a dead sleep that I didn't even hear the phone ring! I keep it on a shelf very close to my head, just a few inches from my ear. Weird that I didn't hear it at all. But I did hear the text message "ching" later in the morning.

So I could have worked today but didn't even hear the call. And after my friend texted me, I went back to sleep. And.... guess what.... I slept until 11:30 A.M.!!! I was shocked when I woke up (finally). I have not slept that deeply and that late into the day in years!

I didn't get much done today because of my late start. I had a bunch of errands to run: go to the bank, return a book to the library, stop at the post office, go to a store to use a coupon that was about to expire. I didn't even finish all my errands, because it was too hot! Our high today was 97 degrees F. When I got home it was almost time to leave again, for a church women's group outing.

That was my day. Now it should be bedtime, but I'm not tired at all. I wonder why??

Hello, World!

I just spent some time looking at the little map that shows where my blog visitors come from. I am amazed at how many people read my blog, and from all over the world! Thank you so much! It humbles me to think people from so far away would find my little blog worth visiting.

In recent days I have had visitors from:
Canada, Brazil, India, Sri Lanka, Australia, New Zealand, Egypt, Czech Republic, Estonia, Romania, Bulgaria, United Kingdom, Israel, United Arab Emirates, and Russia

and from these states in the USA:
Washington, California, Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Florida, Tennessee, Alabama, Pennsylvania, Virginia, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Connecticut! *Whew!* Let me just catch my breath.

I wish I could say I had been to all those places. Of the countries, I've only been to USA and Canada. Of the 28 states, I have been to 21 of them.

This is what I do know about all these places and people: we all want happiness, health, and peace. We all want our children to do well and find happiness in their adult lives. We all struggle with bad weather (tornadoes, floods, hurricanes/cyclones, drought, extreme hot and cold temperatures.) We have to be tough to survive on this earth!

Some of us have man-made challenges such as war, the aftermath of war, the threat of war, unrest, revolution, or neighbors we feel we can't trust. It really all comes down to the same thing: we are all searching for peace and happiness and to survive through the challenging times.

Most of us do what we can to help each other. Many are receiving help right now after devastating tornadoes or floods destroyed your area. And you who are being helped, have helped others after similar catastrophes.

Of the 15 countries in the above list, at least 8 of those countries have received quilts made by me. Also some of those countries have received help indirectly from me, through my church connections, for example (supporting hospitals and sending school supplies and sending people to help and support). In some of the countries and some of the states I have had relatives living (or still do), have had pen pals (or still do), have sent quilts to a handful of the states, I personally visited there to help clean up after a storm, or I am just interested in what happens there because I have visited the state for pleasure, or I think it's interesting, friends live there, or the state is on my list of places I hope to visit some day. Some of the countries and states are familiar to me because I have had students from that place, or in some other way I casually met someone from that place.

It's really just a small world, full of interesting, beautiful, fascinating people and places. Things like blogs and social media have helped connect us in new ways. Isn't it fun?

Tonight I am going to pray for all of my blog visitors, and pray for peace for all of you, wherever you may be. We are all equals in creation! (Thanks again for visiting. I appreciate it.)

Glorious Summer

What a perfect day! Blue skies, a soft breeze, sunshine, temperature around 80 deg F and low humidity! Gorgeous!

Charles mowed the lawn. I planted flowers, trimmed, bushes, swept front patio. Afterwards we sat on the deck in the shade, cooling off and enjoying the perfect weather. I live in Minnesota for days like these!

There was a city celebration going on in the park nearby. My church has always hosted a bouncy house there, and this year we added face painting. I have attended three or four years in a row, to help, and every year it rained and was miserable. This year I told them I didn't want to go. I felt a little guilty not being there; I could hear the festivities from my front yard. ["Time for hula-hoops now! Who wants to hula-hoop?!" fire truck noises, and whatnot.] Hopefully they were all having a good time. With good weather they'd have more kids and need more helpers. But, you know, we shouldn't count on the same old people doing the same duties every year! My fingers are crossed that it all worked out happily.

Blogger is not letting me leave comments again today. So I will make one of my comments right here: I hope and pray that J. finds the kind of home he is hoping for. I am trying not to feel anxious as he leaves a great home and finds potential... what... even greater? I hope so!



The photo above (apologies for the bad quality) is June Lotto blocks I made for Sunshine. I have 4 million bindings to work on, but they're so boring!! I'd rather make blocks and plant flowers.

Beauty of Spring

Spring growth is so beautiful! I love the variations in color, especially in the greens as the leaves come out so delicately. Here are signs of spring (and summer) in my own yard:







Hosta and iris afer a rain:







Soon I'll have a bunch of quilt UFO pictures to show you!!