AQS Paducah Quilt Show

We made a quick trip to the AQS show last weekend.  I totally forgot to bring my camera, so I only got a few phone photos.  Here are some of our favorite quilts from the show:

Dream of Dragons by Pat Delaney of Abington, MA.  My daughter loved this one.

Hardly a Dent in My Stash by Kathleen Erbeck of Green Bay, WI.
I LOVE the name of this quilt.  I'm sure we can all relate!!

Fanfare for the Heroes by Trina Freshour of Lebanon, IL
This was just so striking. 

Ring of Stars by Sharon Hansen of McKeesport, PA

Lei Pua Awapuhi by Fumiyo Sano of Fujinomiya, Shizuoka, Japan
I LOVE this one!

Plumeria by Mineko Momose of Edogawa, Tokyo, Japan
Hawaiian style quilts were big last year and this year too.

Summer Light by Taeko Kozuka of Tokyo, Japan
The quilting on this one was really spectacular.

Wildflowers by Sylvia Gegaregian of Portola Valley, CA
This was really beautiful.  She quilted this on her home machine!

Spirit of Sedona by Mavericks Ladies of Mesa, AZ
Made by six different ladies.  I love how their individual slices all meshed together so well.

Mizumandara by Yoko Ueda
My son loves frogs!

Carpathian Mountain Sunset by Cathy Geier of Waukesha, WI
The color choices in this one are just stunning.

I Believe in Dragons by Eric Drexler of Port Charlotte, FL
Another dragon quilt for my daughter.

It's Not Easy Being Green by Patti Cantu of Columbia, MO
My son's favorite quilt.

I got a kick out of this road sign since Quilt Week is  dominated by females.  The photo is blurry since I took
it through the window while we were driving down the highway.  It says "Husband Rd Paducah".

I got a giggle out of this sign too.  All I could think of was MMMBop!

I kept having this image in my head!  LOL (image borrowed from Hanson's Vevo page).

Of course you have to visit all the vendors while you're at the show.  We bought Leader Grips by Regina's Quilting Studio for the long arm.  I got a few cones of So Fine #50 and some thread nets from the Superior Threads booth.  They were out of several of the colors I wanted.  :(  I bought the 12" Carpenter's Star metal barn quilt from Classic Metal Company, a Steady Betty Bridge, and an LED lightbulb and some mysterious scent absorber (it's white chunks of something and you put it in the sun to refresh it??) for your Featherweight case from the Jean S. Lyle booth.  I got three charm packs and two patterns from Missouri Star and a Bloc Loc ruler from Bloc Loc.  We received three yards of fabric on the house (one each for my kids and husband) and also bought a very generous 1.5 yards of anime fabric from Leo9 Textiles.  They were lovely people with unusual fabrics.

The anime fabrics from Leo9 Textiles.

We also made a stop at Hancock's of Paducah and bought lots of Heather Ross prints, some faux Grumpy Kitty fabric, a pink for my 365 quilt, a replacement blue for the piece I messed up in my Aviatrix kit, and a big chunk of another blue for a future quilt.

Eddycrest was a new vendor this year.  They are young guys out of Canada and make sewing furniture.  The picture is a photo of their postcard.  What I really like about their furniture is that it is all made from plywood, not laminated MDF like some of the other big names.  Their sanding and finish work is just wonderful.  The edges were sooooooo smooth.  Really beautiful.  I was weird and kept petting the edges of the counters.  :P  If you're in the market for nice furniture, check them out. You can see their website in the photo.

I took a bunch of quilt photos at last year's show that I never posted.  Maybe I should revisit those and share?

365 Challenge Week 16

This was an interesting week in the challenge.  We started off making four more 3" blocks.  On the 22nd, we were also instructed to join all those blocks into the first border around the central portion of the quilt.  We then moved on to making 6" blocks.  I'm getting a lot more accurate as we go along, so that is nice.  My pictures below are a bit out of order, but blogger is not cooperating with my photo placement wishes.

April 19, 20, 21, and 22

April 23.  6" block.  Not sure what got onto that upper right.  I think it's just fuzz.

After April 22''s block, we were to assemble the 3" blocks into the first border around the central medallion.  As you can see, I am about half done.  I ended up having four extra blocks, which I was surprised by since I only remember making three extras.  Old age must be setting in!  Ha!

April 24

April 25

Updates for the Week

I feel like I didn't accomplish much in the past week or so.  Here's a few things that I did get done:

I finally finished sewing down the last bit of binding on this mini.  Fabric is Canyon by Kate Spain. This is the almost twin of one I sent in February for the birthday swap.  Only the binding and a bit of the quilting is different.  I will also post this on the 2016 Finishes page.

I quilted my cherries quilt and attached the binding.  Now I just need to sew it down.  This quilt is around 70 x 70 and the fabric is Cherries Jubilee by American Jane for Moda circa 2006.  I love the fabric now just as much as I did back then!

I purchased planner month dividers on Etsy, printed them, and laminated them.  I still need to trim them, punch them, insert them into the planner, and actually print out month and week views.  I had been trying out a school year planner this year, which worked great until I needed to schedule things during the summer and my calendar quits in June.  So I decided to get the Martha Stewart disc bound planner so that I can customize and keep adding months as needed.

I also worked on some printables.  I went crazy laminating things yesterday!  I made my travel list on my own (figured out how to use digital scrapbook paper to print things AND make a custom bullet in Word!), but the others are all things I found on Pinterest.  You can check my boards to find the sources for these.  

Finally, I've been working at my local quilt shop one day/week.  While I'm there I can work on my own projects during down times.  My boss rocks!  I decided to take my Aviatrix fabrics and start cutting out the quilt.  I thought I'd be able to cut out the whole thing and start sewing, but as it turned out, I only got the white and one color group cut out.  It's going to take for-ev-er to cut.

365 Challenge Week 15

Here are this week's blocks.  They are all 3" finished.  Just in case you are wondering how I choose colors, the simple answer is that I don't really.  I pulled out a bunch of fabrics I had that were in the hot pink or aqua range.  Each day I just pick a fabric and grab a few that I think might go with it.  This is sometimes hard for me because I usually like things to be pretty matchy-matchy. Sometimes they work and sometimes not so much, but I leave them.  I'm trying to learn to let things go a bit.

April 12, 13, 14, and 15

April 16, 17, and 18

Funny things #23

Surprising to see this in the paper the other day!

I'm sure this has some perfectly respectable meaning in the quarry world, but for those of us not in the know, it's certainly eyebrow raising.  We especially like how it's right below the dancer listing.

4.17.16 update:  thank you to reader Teresa who let me know what a quarry hooker truly is--the person who hooks all the wires around the slab of stone that is to be lifted out.  We had previously tried googling it and had many questionable results listings.

The Hoe Ram

Someone bought the empty lot across from us.  It's not much of a lot.  We thought no one would buy it when there's a lot of nicer ones still available.  Yeah.   Well. 

We live in an area full of limestone.  Their excavator hit rock about 30" down yesterday.  They started using the hoe ram at 8 this morning.  It's non-stop pounding.  Not sure what a hoe ram is?  Think giant jack hammer.  

I can barely think.

Anyway, in case you didn't notice, I have now updated my 2014 and earlier quilt pages (tab up above) to show all my past quilts, including my very first quilt.  Check them out!  :)

Stop back Friday to see a new funny thing.

365 Challenge Week 14

This week we started off making four 6" blocks that formed the corners of the central medallion. Then we assembled the central medallion and finished off the week with three more 3" blocks.

April 5--6" block

April 6--6" block

April 7--6" block

April 8--6" block 

Completed center medallion, April 8 

3" blocks for April 9, 10, and 11

Funny Things #22

I love fonts!  I downloaded an entire package of 225 fonts one day and thought I'd save time by opening and installing them all at once.  Well, let's just say it didn't work out quite how I expected!

Fig Tree Quilts Mystery Block of the Month 2016--March

I got all of the March Fig Tree blocks finished.  These blocks all look easier than they are.  Now all I have to do is appliqué on the flower centers from month one's blocks.  I did make a little progress on them--I've actually made the centers.  I'm having a really hard time picturing what this quilt might look like based on the blocks so far.  I guess that's why it's a mystery quilt, right?

4" finished

7.5" finished

11.75" x 9.5" finished

The included pattern this month was Homestead, which is the house blocks.  I'm not generally a fan of any type of house block.  I do, however, love basket blocks although I hate sewing them.

365 Challenge Week 13

March 29, 30, and 31.  All 3" finished.  I did a lousy job fussy cutting on the top left, huh?  

April 1, 2, 3, and 4.  All four center borders.  These are each 18" x 6".
I included my center block (Feb. 28 and 29) for reference.