quilt show and tula.....

First a link to Smilebox that will show all the quilts.

Challenge Quilts

This is old stuff now! Last month was the BEVQ

(Blue Earth Valley Quilters)

And the woodcarvers too.

The challenge quilts were made from the same fabric packets bought the year before. You can do as you please. Any size, any style and add fabric if you want. But you must use all the fabrics.

I don't remember how I found this, but I thought it was pretty cool.

lorrie.cranor.org/blog/2014/01/19/how-to-make-an-interleave-quilt/

I did this in an afternoon. I didn't mark my batting. I used the straight edge of the next strip as my guide and that worked for me. I also pressed each strip as I sewed them on. I failed to curve both sides, so I have some straight edges in there too. I wasn't happy about this, but I had used all ten fabrics and called it done.

I was very surprised with a ribbon. 2nd place. Wow.

It shows that you shouldn't judge your own work.

While you may not be that impressed with what you did....someone else might be.

There was the jelly roll derby race on Friday night. 

Here is mine. I think it will make a wonderful throw on the floor baby quilt. I had high hopes of quilting it myself right away. But it it still just a top in the closet.

This is Karen's finished top.

We were the ONLY TWO contestants! 

She won by about 15 inches.

The event has been cancelled for next year due to lack of participation.

Dang. How can I try and beat her? She won last year too.

The Tula Pink 100 quilt blocks continues.

We are over half way now. 

We are in a new school year. Sewing is pretty sporadic. I did pick up a finished quilt last week,

or was it two weeks ago....

Anyway, I still want to get the binding on that soon. 

It is the gift for the wedding that was last May. 

test link

A smilebox link for all the quilts made from the same set of blocks.

Block Swap Quilts

test complete, it works
Way better pictures compared to mine!

my own little dear photograph.....

Link >>> Dear Photograph

This is a photo of tractor joe's grandparents. Back in the 1960's, they retired from farming. They built a house in town. As the family grew, grandpa built a huge table for the basement. That is where people ate for large family gatherings. 

They passed away in the 1980's. Their youngest daughter lived with them. She continued having Thanksgiving and Christmas gatherings and everyone, or mostly everyone, ate in the basement at the huge table.

Last year Aunt Amanda moved to assisted living. It was decided that the house and contents would be sold in an auction. Saturday was the day. Tractor joe went to the auction while I was up in Blue Earth at the quilt show. This table did not sell. The cousins stood around and wondered what to do with it. They talked about just throwing it away. Tractor joe couldn't see that happening and brought it home. 

When our middle son came over he fell in love with it. He could see his friends gathering around it to play cards and games.  He wondered if it could be refinished. Probably, we thought. I sanded the top yesterday while it was still sitting on our back patio. 

There was also a book of old photos that was destined to be thrown away. Not so fast, and tractor joe brought that home too. In it were pictures of the table and his grandparents.

As I sat and admired how it looked all sanded smooth again, the idea for the dear photograph popped in to my head.

I have all kinds of quilt show photos, but I will save them for another day.

odds and ends.....

My cousin Max has me sucked into the Row by Row Experience. The Winnebago is from The Quilted Forest in Forest City where they make the motorhomes. When they gave me the pattern, I was in a hurry and only half listened to what I was being told about Row by Row.

Then Max was sending me photos of kits she was finding. When I finally investigated and saw done quilts with all the rows, I fell in love with them.

Max has been on road trips collecting them and it has been one for her, one for me. We were looking for fishing/camping themes. There is one way up in northern Minnesota that had the words

Land of sky blue waters.

I ended up just making the words for the quilt.

Then I talked to my cousin Gwen, in New Mexico. she is right across the border from Durango, CO and sent me these two kits....

Now she was sucked in. She had to go up to Idaho and was happily collecting kits and patterns along the way. She has gotten her brother and son involved too. When all is said and done,

I should have two quilts. The out west one and the fishing/camping midwest one.

These are blocks from a win at Block Lotto a LONG time ago. They are finally in a top!

More lotto blocks. Most of these are duds I won at the lotto... and some leftovers from other quilts.

My goal was to get them all up to 12 inch sized blocks. They are a nice stack of blocks now.

More left over sections from last fall and the Bonnie Hunter mystery. My heart still wasn't in it.

There must be another way to use these....

Maybe as a border for baby animals. Still not sure...

Another finished top. I had plans to make more stars, but quickly became bored making them. They are made from 2 1/2 inch strips. The rest of the strips became the border. 

Another top added to the "get quilted" pile.

That is enough for now!

the sunrise quilt.....

I won some of the sunrise blocks last summer at BLOCK LOTTO. I was excited, but had no idea what to do with them. Last spring I figured it out and [started here] 

I remade my pattern as the first one was off. It was the same, just done more carefully.

I picked out some background blues and continued to sew the big sun. I did one quarter of it to make sure the rays and ring would all fit together and they did.

The easiest part was the ring of black and white so I did all of them first.

Three of the rays done. Only one more to go.

Center sun done and ready for next border. A big black and white check was added.

I was slowed down a little bit doing the math and trying to figure out how big the sun should be cut and how big the filler strips should be between the sunrise blocks so it all fit together.

After the sunrise blocks were sewn together and added,

another round of black and white striped fabric was used.

This is where I stopped....I started cutting what I had of this aqua blue, and might even have enough to finish.

But, I think I'll buy some more fat quarters and add a few more for variety.

A trip to the fabric store is planned for Saturday.

going backwards through June......

I finished hand sewing about 3/4 of the binding for this quilt. It is part of the block exchange at the Blue Earth Valley Quilters. There were 12 of us in this. Next week we all get together and show each other what became of the 24 blocks we received. I'm looking forward to seeing all the different takes on the blocks.

These are April Block Lotto blocks I won! This will be the gift for the wedding we attended last month. It needs a border yet. A blue is my first choice, then it will kind of go with the wedding colors....or I may spot a green that I like...

It is already late, so I'm taking my time.

These are MORE block lotto blocks I won last year. This one has gone through many ideas before I finally committed to setting it with the black and white sashing. It is all sewn together and can go to the quilter as soon as I figure out the backing.

Still plugging away on the Tula Pink project.

Crap this picture is sideways.

I made the HST's two at a time. So I these last two blocks are the same, only different.

I would never have done these blocks at all. Never even bought the book. But I joined the small Tula Pink group and once I start making the blocks I find they are addicting and make a bunch at once. We make 8 a month. I am caught up to the August set of blocks.

We went camping again. One activity was going to the studio in Spirit Lake to do a painting. This one was hard. My least favorite of all the paintings I have done. I was the only one to add the people to the boat. 

They look a little scary.

A ton of coaster were made while camping. We used stickers, magazine pictures, photos, or just paint.

The last thing to show is the blocks for June at Block Lotto. These are harder than they look. As Sophie says,

"we strive for perfection, but it isn't a requirement"

or something like that.

Thank goodness.

The sneak peek was sent out earlier this week. After I finish the binding on my block exchange quilt, I will be working on the July block.

Honey, I shrunk the parents.....

We had a wedding last weekend. It was down in Davenport, Iowa. Well actually the wedding was in Illinois, but the reception was in Iowa. We crossed the Mississippi a couple times.

Anyway we stopped for photo opportunities. 

So, the wedding is over, but the gift is not done yet. I won the April blocks at Block Lotto. They are green to blue in color. I decided these would make a great wedding quilt. At the wedding all the bridesmaids were in blue dresses. It was meant to be!

I am adding a 2 1/2 inch strip to two sides of each block. The stars dance around on the quilt.

I am putting this at the top of the list of things to finish.

These are June's blocks at Block Lotto!