Purchases from Paducah

I just thought I would share some more of the loot I picked up while in Paducah.  I found some wonderful (new to me) patterns.  The center one on the top I bought with the CL's in mind.  Looks like something they might enjoy making.  You can't see it very well but the one on the right on the top had done something I had not thought to do before and that is use prairie points on an inside border.  The small ones are all feathered stars (you all know my obsession with those)
I have the first Claire's Cats book and did a quilt a while back for my friend Judy that had been diagnosed with bone cancer.  The new book is cute too.  One of my other obsessions is Halloween so I absolutely could NOT resist this cat leading the JOL choir.  It was an adorable quilt all made up.
I had bought some charm squares and wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with them and then I found this book.  I have not seen many of the books or patterns using charm squares that I like but I loved the patterns in this one!  
In fact I liked them so much I bought this fabric and these charm squares to make one of the quilts for myself!!  Wow, I may actually get a quilt on my own bed.  Wouldn't that be novel?

Then I found this fabric.  Fresh Squeezed.  I just fell in love with it.  I found the striped fabric at Eleanor Burns' tent for $4/yard, so viola...I had my backing too!!  Now I just need to find the aqua from the bundle to use for a border.  Any suggestions??  This one will also be for me but I have NO idea what pattern I want to use.
Then I found this and thought I would share it with all of you too.  The woman at Ohio Quilter's Journey is having a give away.  Go check out her blog and answer her question for a chance to win!

Have a great day!  It is sunny and beautiful here!!

Mother Earth and Her Children

This will be one of the final photos from Paducah.  I know, *finally*, right?  I have loved this quilt from the first time I saw a photo of it in the Quilter's Newsletter magazine.  It was so hard to believe that this was just the third quilt this woman had ever made!  This is me with Sieglinde Schoen-Smith the designer and artisian that made Mother Earth and Her Children.  Most of you probably already know her story but for those who don't here is a shortened version.  She lost her son a few years ago and decided to make a quilt to keep her mind off of his death.  She chose a story she used to read and have read to her as a child loosely translated "something about the root children".  The rest is history!
Apparently the copy rights to the story had lapsed and she has re-published the story using her quilt for the illustrations.  It is even more breathtaking in person than these photos show!  And she is really a sweet heart too!!
All appliqued, and embroidered.  The attention to detail is magnificant!

Brushing a bee~


The quilt illustrates how the root children come out for spring, and head back underground for winter.  It is a truly amazing quilt.  

Mother's Day must be quite difficult for her.  I can't imagine losing a child.  I have lost my own mother and strangely enough, Mother's Day is the worst holiday for me.  The first Mother's Day was the worse.  I was in a store and realized that I would never need to buy another Mother's Day card.  Even more strange because we were not particularly close but it still really got to me.  Both of my girls were not home yesterday.  DD1 had to work but she sent me a text.  DD2 is out in the middle of no-where studying fishery and wildlife *stuff* for 2 weeks but she sent an e-card and called.  DS was home but not that into Mother's Day.  He did spend the day watching some movies with me and picked up my favorite chinese for dinner.  I was actually glad when I could go to bed.  I did work on my sister's quilt for awhile yesterday, but I just didn't really feel like doing very much.  I hope you all had a wonderful Mother's Day!

My Paducah Debut

I have a very funny story to tell you about the Japanese quilters at Paducah.  There was an exhibit of Japanese quilts there in a special section.  Yuki and I went there and we were waiting to talk to the group of Japanese quilters when a woman in front of us turned to me and was asking me if I knew what "DV" stood for as it was on a quilt around the corner.  Of course I did not and the quilters did not speak a lot of english so I asked Yuki to translate.  Of course the quilters were thrilled to meet another Japanese quilter so there was a lot of talking, very fast talking!  They explained that "DV" stood for domestic violence.  One of them had done a quilt with a purple ribbon symbolizing ending domestic violence.  Yuki explained that most Americans would not know the abbreviation.  Well, they gave Yuki lots of candy, tea and "stuff" from Japan and we were on our way to look at their quilts.  My favorite was this one, and I met the woman that made it too!

I thought these cranes were pretty great as well.
This was an unusual use of color in a double wedding ring quilt.  
So here is where my story continues.  We walked away and were about half way around the convention center when a little Japanese woman came chasing us down!  She wanted us to go up to their hotel room and meet the rest of the quilters.  So we went to the room and met, apparently, a very famous Japanese quilter.  She did have some amazing quilts.  I will have to ask Yuki her name as I don't remember it.  They gave us some gifts too.  Well, the woman that brought us there was speaking with the leader and with Yuki and then Yuki turned to me and told me they wanted me to make signs to put by their quilts for display.  They pushed paper toward me, a marker and a book with what they wanted (the title of their quilt and their name and an explanation of "DV").  They wanted an American to write it in English.  So I did.  They showered us with gifts.  Finally Yuki and I were on our way.  We stopped back by the Japanese exhibit only to see my signs proudly displayed by the quilts.  So even though I have not had a quilt accepted in this show I WAS IN THE SHOW!!!  See??

Well, after all that excitement, Yuki and I had reservations to go to Patti's Settlement, famous for their 2" pork chops.  Here is Yuki enjoying some tea.  She had never had drinks from a Mason jar before and thought it was cute.
They bake and serve the bread in a flower pot!  The strawberry butter is the best!
Here is what my dinner looked like.  Isn't that pork chop amazing??
Of course we had to buy a slice of pie to bring home to share with Liz and Marlene (there was no way we had any room left after that dinner!)  The pie was chocolate and yummy!!
I still have a few more stories but hopefully they will be winding down and you can see what is happening in the now.  Except for the fact that quilting is taking a back seat to lacrosse.  Our game last night was cancelled so I ended up having a free night.  So I made dinner and did a little sewing on my sister's quilt.  Not a lot, I have been so tired at night lately.  The game is rescheduled for tonight, of course.  No rest for the wicked!  Have a good weekend!!

More Paducah

For this post I wanted to talk about the classes I took.  Yuki and I took these classes together.  They were wonderful.  The first class we took was with Jan Krentz.  She is a wonderful, patient teacher and a really nice person.

The class was about learning about Y seams and making this large lone star.  Now Yuki and I had taken a lone star class here in Ann Arbor so much of it was review for us but she showed us how to make a border on it (not shown here) and that technique was good to learn.  She provided the kits and I chose the birds.
The second class we took was Hunter Star and Here is what my Hunter Star block turned out like.  It was difficult to choose fabrics when we didn't know what the pattern would be (I think it was called something like simplified stars class).  I might have chosen differently if I had known.  Her hand out was excellent and wow, the number and variation of blocks you can make with HST!  Who knew?
The third class we took was Take Away Applique with Suzanne Marshall.  I confess ahead of time to not knowing who she was but she was AWESOME!!  I was so fascinated by her birds, as shown here.
But this was amazing too.  Notice how she outlines the applique with black embroidery floss?  It really makes it stand out.  She uses a stem stitch but she and I do it completely opposite from each other.  I asked for pointers as I don't think mine is very good and she told me I do it the European way.  I liked her way better.  She is a very down to earth, humble person.  If you did not know her quilts and how talented she is you would not know it from her own mouth.  She told of her beginnings, checking books out at the library.  She is self taught.  She told us of her failures and how she turned into the expert she is today.  She even invited people to get together a group of people and visit her home for instruction.  Even to have lunch.  Amazing!
This was my lonely flower.  She told us that if you can master inside and outside curves and points you could do what she does.  Right....  But her Take Away Applique technique is so wonderful.  I know I will be using it in the future.  She has a new book out too and you should all check it out, it is great!
Look, here I am with Suzanne!!
This is the latest project she is working on.  I thought it was rather nice of her to let us photograph it!  Just shows you what a sweetheart she is!
Well, after all that hard work and all that hard shopping Yuki and I needed a break, so we decided to share some potato chip thingies (like apple peeling where you keep the string going, that is what they did with the potato)  So here is Yuki.


And here is me!  We only ate a little and gave the rest to some ladies sitting near to us.  

I have more from Paducah so stay tuned!  Life at my house has been so hectic lately.  We had a lacrosse game on Monday, I had a lacrosse meeting on Tues, Quilting with the CL's on Wed, a lax game tonight, supposed to go to a gold party on Fri (probably going to skip that) and another lacrosse game on Sat.  (which is senior recognition day).  I had to call all the incoming freshmen families this week before today and invite them to come to one of our last 3 home games too and there were 22 families!  My poor DH asked me last night if I was going to do this again next year (be president of the lax assn) and I had to tell him I was.  He is not very happy about that as he thinks I am never home (I really was never home anyway with swimming either).  

I also wanted to let you know that Liz got TUQ quilted and back to me.  I will try to get some photos and post them when I get a minute.  The paisley pattern was perfect for the quilt and she did the quilting in orange.  It really shows up well on the blue/green back.  I promise photos soon.  Too much to share and not enough time to do it!

Paducah part 3

OK, OK so I lied and will post more right now. This tree was so cool. It looked like you were looking right up into it.
I loved these whales. Her wake from the whales swimming was really clever.
Their spouting was cool too. See the fins under the water? Awesome!
I messed up and meant to show the whole quilt first but the actual quilting on this was spectacular! Look how each individual square is quilted.
I took this to show my friend Holly as she has 2 horses.
The quilter really captured the look of the tiger with his kill. Spectacular!
Here is the whole quilt.
This was a miniature quilt. I think it was something like 13 X 19 or so. Amazingly little tiny pieces. These mini ones were behind glass so that's what the glare is all about. These really were beautiful and made me realize how very far I still have to go!!
I don't know why but I really loved this quilt. Of course the quilting on it was awesome but I think it is her use of (again) more unusual colors, like turquoise, chartruse, yellow and raspberry. Her applique was cool too but the colors...
Loved the bunny and the cuddling kitties in the bottom right.
This quilt was really big and bold and awesome. The quilting was unbelievable too. I think it won some kind of award too. I'm sure you will read about it somewhere. I really need to pay more attention to what won what.
I loved this lizard quilt. It was gargantuan, like a queen sized quilt. The workmanship was amazing.
I don't even know what to say about this one. Very detailed and beautiful.
I love Feathered Stars and this one was a beauty. I think it won something too. Feathered stars are my favorite block.
I do know that this one won best of show. Not my style but amazing all the same.
Detail of the feathered star.
And another miniature. (feel like a beginner yet??)
Next post will be with pictures of the people I went with and the things we did and bought. Let me know what you think of these quilts. I didn't post all of the photos but I hope you enjoy the ones I have shared.

Paducah part 2

I told you I would post more but I have been incredibly busy since I got back. I pretty much hit the door running and just had time today to post again. Last week we had 3 lax games, DD1 came home, went back to IN and came home again, DD1 and I moved DD2 from her dorm into an apt for the summer, I had to be in charge of concession at the game on Sat and again tonight as one of the people in charge of it is in Hawaii (the poor thing) and the other one had her son in the hospital (he's ok). I have a lax game tonight and a meeting with the athletic director before to firm up a jv team for next year, a lax parent meeting tomorrow night, quilting with the church ladies on Wed, a lax game on Thursday and another game on Sat. Did I mention that DD1 left yesterday to go and live with my dad and sister while going back to school at GVSU to get her teaching certificate? No? Well add that in there too!

Anyway I have LOTS of quilts to show you from Paducah. If you are not interested, just come back later. These are only some of them, I have more and will post more later. But here goes...

I just loved the animal applique on this one. Isn't that squirrel so cute? And of course the cat!
The other side had a really adorable bunny.
I have the book this was made from but would probably never end up making it. This was so beautiful.
Up close of the dragon.
The quilting on this was amazing but the thing I really loved was the use of the colors. They were not what I think of as *typical* or traditional colors.
This was one of my favorite quilts. I love the way the border just draws you into the quilt. Very unique!
This one an award. You really need to click on it and see it up close, astounding!
Of course, I took lots of photos of cat quilts.
These little nine patches were so adorable. What a quirky family, huh?
This horse was beautiful too (although what quilts weren't beautiful?)
Still want more. I'll post some more later. The window is open and I am getting cold! Enjoy these!!