Nancy purchased the kit for this “Stars for a Cure” quilt a very long time ago. I was curious and did some research… the pattern was published in 1997! Wow, what a blast from the past! Nancy was motivated to finish it for this year’s quilt show. I quilted it a while back, she had the top done with lots of time to spare. The pattern we chose is called “Lapis”.
I was busy all day with my booth but I went in early on Saturday morning to take a quick look at the show that I had helped set up. Quite a few quilts in the show had been quilted by me, and I tried to take pictures of the others, so I would have something to show that you haven’t seen here before. It was a great show, lots of amazing quilts. The only big quilt I had in the show was the finished sample of the Tuxedo Cats. Two blocks haven’t been published yet but here is a preview of what the finished quilt looks like.
My booth was right next to the entrance, and everybody had to pass me on their way to the hall with the big quilts. It started a little slow but around lunch time on Saturday things got very busy and stayed that way almost until the end of the show. Looking at the pictures of my booth, I realized that I have several patterns that I have been selling at shows but never uploaded to the website or even mentioned here on my blog. I will start working on that… we’ll see how that goes with the Christmas rush coming up. One gentleman was in awe of my Pansies pattern, he loved the colours and how realistic the flowers look, and after he had seen the show he came back to my booth because he wanted to vote for my Pansies as Best in Show 🙂 He was very disappointed when I told him he had to find another favourite quilt since my sample was not part of the actual show.
Encounters like this one make up for the negative parts. Somebody actually stole from me this time. Three patterns went missing and haven’t turned up. I also stopped someone trying to walk away with another three and made them pay for what they picked. It might have been an honest mistake but judging by their behaviour (which had made me watch them in the first place) I don’t think so. I usually just have one bin of patterns out for people to dig through, and that makes it easy to watch and pay attention to where the patterns go. This time I had three, apparently that was too much for the busy time. Next time I will be prepared and go back to just one bin.
But enough ranting, it was a great show, we had a lot of fun, and I enjoyed those two days very much. Here are a few impressions of the show, I hope you enjoy them as well.
Sandra made this quilt based on a Missouri Star Quilt Co. pattern for Jelly Rolls. You have probably seen the original pattern, I have quilted at least two of them, you can see them here and here. But Sandra decided to go down a different route and didn’t arrange the blocks to form a star pattern. Instead she laid them out diagonally and added solid squares in between to give the quilt a more modern look. She wanted the background filled with just one pattern, and we chose these spirals, a pattern called “Overlapping Crop Circles. I just quilted in the ditch around the arrows to make them stand out more against the background.
Isn’t this just the cutest quilt? I was thrilled when Wendy asked me to custom quilt it for her. There was so much negative space to fill, block background, sashing, borders, I had a lot of fun playing with it and coming up with different designs for the different areas. Wendy provided the picture of the finished quilt, and I have permission to share it. I agree with the little girl, the black sheep was my favourite too 🙂
Several people have asked for the pattern, I didn’t design this quilt, I just quilted it. The designer’s name is Janet Stone, and it was published in Fons & Porter’s Love of Quilting magazine, in the Jan/Feb 2009 issue. It looks like it is still available as a digital edition here.
When Nicole dropped off this quilt, she told me she wanted bubbles and seaweed quilted in the background and whatever else I could think of that would fill all this negative space. She didn’t have to ask twice, this was one of the most fun projects ever. I went really crazy, quilting any kind of sea creature I could come up with. It ended up being almost an I Spy quilt. I admit it was quite intimidating when I started at the top with all that empty space. I quilted the bigger creatures first and then went back to fill in the background with smaller objects and various filler designs. The full quilt can be seen in one of the smaller gallery pictures, just click on it to enlarge the view.
Barb made this pretty quilt as a gift for the baby daughter of friends. The quilting design is called “Wandering Daisies” and was just right for this cute girly quilt in all my favourite colours.
Maureen made this cheerful quilt from colourful Laurel Burch fabrics. This is the first of two she made for her grandkids to take on their camping trips this summer. I really like the layout of this one, a very effective pattern. The quilting design is “Celtic Scroll”, we decided to keep it simple.
Jean made this wonderful quilt in subtle neutrals that reminded me of milk and coffee. She chose the quilting desing “Swirling Feathers” which filled all that negative space between the star blocks nicely.
This super cute girly quilt in pink was made by Lynne as a gift for her granddaughter. She asked for a quilting design with hearts, this one is called “P.S. I Love You”. The back is cozy bright pink flannel with a very special embroidered label.
