Taking a night off

Not a real post tonight.  But tomorrow I'll take some pictures of new quilts in TCQC, so I will be posting on Sundays for a while. 

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Friday Flowers 11-14-14

Flowers on quilts go back hundreds of years, so this week I decided to share some flower quilts instead of just pictures of flowers.  Quilt makers use many  different techniques and I am fond of pieced quilts, so these are pieced.  

"Summer Beauties" Ruth McDowell 2011 31” x 30”

Machine Pieced and Machine Quilted

Hand embroidered embellishments. 

"Mum at Dusk" Letitia Chung 2007  56"W x 46"L

Machine Pieced (background), Hand Appliqued (flower), Machine Quilted

I photographed this quilt way back in 2007 at PIQF.  I think it is an exceptional image of a chrysanthemum.  

“Summer Lily”  Ruth B. McDowell  2004  58“W x 70”L
Machine Pieced and Machine Quilted

{Thomas Contemporary Quilt Collection)

"Streamside"  Del Thomas  1997  57"W x 40"L

Yellow and blue flower blocks were made using Ruth McDowell's  Symmetry technique and then incorporated into  a pieced background.  Machine Quilted.  Embroidered embellishment. 

A more traditional pieced flower from a quilt by Sandy Klop  2013

Quilt exhibits at Museo in Anaheim, CA 11-13-14

I went to an opening reception at Muzeo in Anaheim this evening.  The main exhibit is from the International Quilt Study Center and Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska, with a small side exhibit of art quilts by nine California quilt artists.  The main exhibit features quilts made from 1870 to 1940, what the Quilt Study Center refers to as the  Modern Age.  (Not to be confused with the Modern Quilt Movement of today).  

I'll start with the food, because it was so innovative and delicious.  The caterer was www.KandAcatering.com which is located in Anaheim, CA.   

I've enjoyed baked potato bars, but this was a "Mashed Potato Martini Bar". 

The ladies put a scoop of mashed potatoes in the bottom of a large plastic martini glass and offered a choice of toppings.  Shredded chicken, chopped bacon, sauteed mushrooms and/or slightly cooked broccoli tops.  Then they topped it with your choice of brown gravy or Alfredo sauce. 

There was a wide selection of toppings, including several kinds of grated cheese. 

For the sweet tooth guests there was a huge bowl of cut up fruit. 

After the director of the museum made some remarks and introduced members of the Board, he introduced Kim Taylor, Director of Collections at the Quilt Study Center. She gave a power point program showing quilts from the enormous collection of quilts at the Center and she explained the different popular "stages" of quilting over the centuries. 

Several of the art quilters were in attendance - Terry Waldron on the left and Sherry Kleinman second from left.  Rusty from Tall Mouse is wearing a red jacket in the center of the image.

Lura Schwarz Smith and Kerby were there, and also Sheila Frampton-Cooper.   

Of the art quilts my favorite is Sherry Kleinman's "Alone/Together" (42"W x 45"L), a depiction of people with their cell phones .  The "drawings" are all done using machine stitching with a little hand stitching here and there. 

Sheila Frampton-Cooper and Sherry Kleinman

This is a tour de force of yoyos.  They are 1/2" finished and have been sewn together to form squares instead of circles. As the sign says there are approximately 14,000 yoyos!

Offered by Mountain Mist in 1931 "Dancing Daffodils" was a popular quilt.  This was made from a kit. 

Although the Quilt Study Center calls this pattern "Broken Circle" it is more familiar to today's quilters as a  variation of New York Beauty.  This is my favorite of the quilts in the main exhibit.  Wonderful color.  

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Wordless Wednesday 11-12-14

Surfside Quilters Guild November Fest 11-11-14

Today was the big fund raiser for Surfside Quilters Guild in San Clemente, CA.  This event is held every other year, so we need to make enough to tide us over for two years.  Our event included a live auction for some very nice quilts, seventy-one raffle baskets (some of which required two ladies to even lift them) and a pleasant lunch of chicken salad, rolls, gingerbread.  We had 216 attendees. 

It was a fun day. 

The tables were groaning with 71 raffle baskets.

The seats were full of 116 members and guests. 

The auction quilts were hung around the room and then held up when the bidding started.  On the far left is a great 1900-1925 red cross quilt and second from right is a Nosegay quilt with blocks made in the 1930s and hand quilted by some excellent quilters this past year.  I point these out because they are the two for which I had the winning bids.  

My contribution to the event was a laundry basket full of threads collected from various friends and with donations by several thread companies.  The estimated value of $722 is probably a little high because some of the spools have been partially used.  But it is enough thread to last an active quilt maker at least two years! 

 Here is the basket, all be-ribboned and running over.  

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Monday Browsing 11-10-14

There are a lot of pictures of quilts from the Quilt Festival in Houston.   You can check out the winners at the official site:
http://www.quilts.org/winners.html

Here is a video:
http://caydenise.blogspot.com/2014/11/memories-of-2014-houston-international.html

Here are some photos:
http://notesfromnorma.blogspot.com

http://fiberreflections.blogspot.com/2014/11/houston-quilt-festival-2014.html

http://fiberreflections.blogspot.com/2014/11/more-quilt-festival-photos-from-2014.html


You can always Google "Quilt Festival Houston" to find some more references to pictures taken at the Quilt Festival

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Catherine Kleeman quilts in TCQC 11-09-14

There was so much interest last night in Catherine's quilt that I took a picture today of all three of her quilts that are in TCQC hanging together on my family room wall.  

"No Way Out" (2011), "Scribble #18" (2013), "Round the Bend" (2014).  All 12"x12". 

 All by Catherine Kleeman.

If you go to the right sidebar and click on Catherine's name you will pull up the previous posts about her quilts.  

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