My quilt “Z is For Zinnia, C is For Cosmos” is featured on The Quilt Show.com today. For the past few days, The Quilt Show has been showing the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place quilts in First Entry in Paducah–Small Wall Quilts. Third place was Friday, second place was Saturday, and my first place quilt […]
100 Days Project
Today, May 22nd was the beginning of the 100 Days Project, a creativity project that runs for 100 consecutive days. If you are not familiar with it, the idea is that you will: (1) Repeat a simple creative task every day for 100 days. (2) Record each day’s effort. Check out the Project website, if […]
Judging in the Rogue Valley
On May 8th and 9th, I had the pleasure of judging for the Rogue Valley Piecemakers in Grants Pass, Oregon for the first time. Members submitted over 200 quilts–a healthy number–in 19 categories. Best of show was created by Yvonne Cook, a master quilter whose work I have met before. In April 2016, I awarded […]
It Takes a Great Teacher to Make a Great Class
The Northwest Quilters’ Guild hosted teacher Melinda Bula at this past weekend’s quilt show. She taught two classes: Summer Rose, an appliqué class and Renegade Threadplay, a quilting class. I’ve taken two classes in the past from Melinda on the one and only quilting cruise I’ve ever done, which was through the Panama Canal. Melinda […]
Northwest Quilters Show Their Spirit
Yes, once again, the Northwest Quilters’ Guild had Eastside Distilling among their vendors at the quilt show this weekend held at the Expo. I had to buy the Marionberry Whiskey for my partner Mike, because it was such a big hit last year. I also bought the cherry-flavored whiskey, which has just a hint of […]
A Birthday Hit!
My grand-nephew Conor’s second birthday was Saturday. I had quilted a bed-size alphabet panel for his baby brother as a Christmas present, and Conor has been wanting one since. I’ve mentioned Patternjam in the past after seeing their vendor booth at the International Quilt Festival in Houston last year. I bought a twin-size bed panel […]
How to Hang a Quilt Show
As mentioned in my previous post, I earned a first place in the Small Wall Art–First Entry category at Paducah. Masanobu Miyama, an amazing Japanese quilter, was kind enough to send me images of my quilt hanging at the show. I interviewed him and his wife, Hiroko Miyama, at the Paducah show when I was […]
Quilt Show Excitement
Sunday evening I received word from the AQS Show in Paducah my quilt “Z is For Zinnia, C is For Cosmos” had received an award: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or honorable mention. But…I couldn’t find out which until Tuesday evening after the awards ceremony took place in Paducah, KY. I entered the category Wall Quilts–First Entry […]
It’s Quilt Show Season in the Northwest
On Thursday I judged at the Umpqua Valley Quilters’ Guild Show in Roseburg, OR. Best of Show was “Galactic Supernova,” an original design by maker and quilter Corrine Woodward. Corrine is a well-known longarm quilter for others in her area. As an upholsterer by trade, she is talented with fibers and stitching in more than […]
It’s My Birthday, and Some Just Want to Have Fun!
The theme for this year’s Clark County Quilters’ Show was “A Walk on the Wild Side.” Needless to say, many interpretations included animals, such as zebras, lions and tigers and bears–oh my, and dragons. Scary creatures. But there were three quilts that were just plain fun. As a quilter and a judge, I have thought […]
A Modern Quilt–and a Special Award
I had the pleasure of presenting a special award called the Award of Merit to Gerrie Thompson for her quilt “Improv 3” at the Clark County Quilters’ Show called “A Walk on the Wild Side”. This award is offered through the National Association of Certified Quilt Judges to a quilt demonstrating excellence in design or […]
Quilt Judging–just how does it work?
Yesterday I had the opportunity to serve as one of three judges at the Clark County Quilters’ Show in Ridgefield, Washington. I thought I would explain a little bit about the process. Best of Show is, of course, the biggie. Everyone who attends and enters wants to know who won the big prize. As the […]
March–National Quilting Month
Today is the tail-end of National Quilting Month, and here’s what quilting and I have done together. My cousin Michelle asked me to create two wall hangings from state bird blocks embroidered by her mother. This is my Aunt Lee who turns 86 on April 13th, two days after my birthday. She stitched the blocks […]
A Quilt For Conor
When I attended the IQA show in Houston last October, I ran into a new vendor called Patternjam. (Love the name). The company does pre-printed panels for you to quilt, which you can personalize. This past Christmas I quilted a panel purchased from Keepsake Quilting for my nephew Nick’s youngest son who was born right […]
Master Art Series Challenge–It’s On!
During last year’s workshop, one of the exercises was to choose two pieces of painted fabric that complemented one another in style or color. Then we were to interpret the fabrics through quilting, while changing the character of the design. We started in class, and I just finished the quilting this week. Now the really […]
Yachats–Gem of the Oregon Coast
Mike and I spent the past weekend in Yachats to see the Gems of the Ocean quilt show and visit a town and part of the coast I haven’t been to in probably nine years. I was impressed with the caliber of the quilts juried in. There were even three international entries, two from Belgium […]
Juried In!
After covering the winners for six years in a row for American Quilter magazine at the well-known AQS show in Paducah, Kentucky I’m excited to say my quilt “Z is for Zinnia, C is for Cosmos” was juried into the show to take place in April. So while I won’t be there in person, I’ll […]
Surprising Auguste Rodin
Yesterday I attended a docent tour in French of Rodin: The Human Experience exhibit at the Portland Art Museum. While I have been to the Rodin Museum in Paris and studied his work in a modern art course while living in France, here are a few things I learned yesterday that I had never heard […]
Cool Tools!
I discovered some nifty items among the vendors at my last two quilt shows and want to pass them on to you. Here are the first three. I will have two more as soon as I can find them! I bought them to use for my next big project, but I don’t know where they […]
Road to California Finale
A friend and fellow certified judge, Linda Rasmussen, serves as the awards clerk each year at Road. This year she also coordinated a special exhibit called Stringy Fowl based on the vintage quilt below owned by collector Julie Silber. Quilts were created by Road’s Judging Floor Staff. This first quilt is by Linda herself. The […]
Grid Quilting Workshop
For the first full day at Road I attended a 6-hour grid class called Quilting on the Grid with Laurie Tigner. We quilted on Handi-Quilter machines, with most students having a machine all to themselves, which was great. Much more experimentation and practice, needless to say. Here are samples of some of the designs we […]
