Just under the wire I completed my July mini!
This was a Primitive Gatherings pattern from last year, I believe. I am very happy with how it turned out; I especially am so very impressed with the beautiful quilting done by my friend, Sandy Lachowski.
Check out this quilting!
There's no way I would even think of sewing flowers to replicate the flowers on the top. That's why I'm not a machine quilter and I pay for the talent in others!
Let me first tell you that Marsha B. is the winner of the 8th year blog-iversary so please send me your snail mail address and I'll whisk off your winnings. Thank you to everyone who posted such sweet and kind comments.
This past weekend was the annual Sisters Quilt Show in Sisters, Oregon. It's a really quaint town (the population has soared from 700 a few years ago to all of 2,000 now) about 20 miles from Bend. There are all of two main streets in the town, which are closed off during quilt show. There are constantly different events in the town (little Emma would love the rodeo, for instance~) but I think the Quilt Show brings in the largest crowd. The newspaper says 10,000 people show up!
One of my favorite parts of the show is seeing the employee challenge from The Stitchin Post (the store which is the main sponsor of the show). Sadly the trees have grown so tall it's hard to see the quilts; they are also hung too high up to see them well.
I spent the day looking at the quilts with my friend Sandy Lachowski, who is the most fabulous machine quilter around. In fact, she did so many of the quilts in the show, we spent a lot of time looking at her work. Also, she knows a lot of quilters so we were frequently stopped by quilters wanting to thank her. It was great because she gave me a different perspective on looking at the quilts...she looks at the quilting; I look at the piecing.
This is what we saw FIRST on walking into town!
Not very quilt related but so fun. Someone hung a small pair of jeans from his mouth later in the day!
Another of my favorite spots in the show is the teacher's tent, where the teachers display quilts that were the models for their classes. I think they also show quilts they've made. There were a lot of Tula Pink quilts. In fact, I'd have to say that this year the show seemed more modern than usual. Still fun.
Tula Pink and Sarah Felke were paired together, selling their books. Sarah had two quilts made with the same pattern but different fabrics. I love seeing that.
Sue Spargo usually teaches and does incredible applique and thread-work.
I'm going to show you the close up of this quilt first; it's a Tula Pink and I just love her fabrics. When you see the whole quilt, you'll be surprised.
Great use of colors, I think, even if you don't want to sew with modern fabrics.
This is another Sarah Felke quilt which I thought was so sweet.
Loved these stars in different sizes:
Keep in mind that the town of Sisters displays the quilts from the roofs/gutters of buildings, held up with clothes pins. There are two main streets but the quilts are everywhere!
My favorite all day? I'd have to say this feathered star creation was the most amazing. The machine quilting was equally spectacular.
You may not be able to tell that the corners around the center star were sewn entirely by machine; you can't see the tiny crystals that were put on as well as the sparkly thread. of course I happen to think that a feathered star is one of the most beautiful blocks so I guess I'm biased. Isn't this fabulous?
This was a spool quilt, and I loved the way it was pieced and the arrangement of colors was fabulous as well.
This little label was on the back of one quilt, which I thought was so sweet. You will now understand why I was there all day, carefully looking at quilts, piecing, quilting, and even labels!
We loved this applique quilt:
This was another favorite of ours. The fact that my friend Sandy was the machine quilter didn't influence us! vbg
If you enlarge this, you might be able to see some of her quilting. She really is amazing.
I picked up two quilts that she quilted for me and I'll show them to you later this week.
There were a lot of Jen Kingwell quilts, especially Long Time Gone. Each year, there seems to be a theme and her quilts were probably more prevalent than other themes this year (one year every other quilt was a stack n whack, for instance). This was Midnight at the Oasis, but there were many of her quilts all over the town.
There are many little shops in Sisters; this one was selling really cute framed words using pieced license plates!
What is so fun about the show is that two people will take pictures of entirely different quilts. If you read Lori's blog (humblequilts), you'll see that she posted different quilts.
That reminds me: the quilt shop Quiltworks, where I always go to see a quilt show each month, sent an email this morning (after the deluge of quilt show quilters!) that they are closing next month. So very sad. I'm happy to have shopped there regularly and tried to support Marilyn's business.
I realized I never did show you quilts from the Shelburne, during my trip to Vermont. I'll do that later this week.
Many comments about blogs in general mentioned that they like hearing about books and recipes. I want to share a book I've loved and chose for my bookgroup to discuss next week. Do any of you listen to books via Audible.com? One of my favorite things! Before I was a lawyer, I was an English teacher, so I love to read. And listening to books while I drive here and there is a big treat.
Anyway, the book is "The Storyteller's Secret" by Sejal Badani. I read it and loved it. We listened to it on the drive back to California yesterday and my husband was so engrossed in the story, he completely missed our exit off the freeway! I can't recommend it enough.
I promise to post more this week and next, since I don't have any grandkids staying with me. ;-(
