Onyx in Autumn

 I received a pattern in my email yesterday for an adorable table runner called 'Onyx in Autumn' designed by Jessica Dayon, so I pulled some fabrics, and made it yesterday and finished up the top this morning.  Love it (of course, there's a cat, what's not to love?)...  Fun, easy piecing and fast!

Won't get it backed and quilted in time for Halloween, but definitely can try for Thanksgiving!   Thinking of giving the cat some eyes, too... haven't decided on that yet....

Now, back to some Tula Pink EPP!

#onyxinautumn, #onyxtablerunner, #jessicadayonpatterns, #bernina, #madetocreate

Samhain Approaches...

As the season creeps along, approaching Samhain (or Halloween), it always makes me smile when I see the change in decor that graces all the houses, cars, clothes.  We've decorated our house (blow up grim reaper, and some flickering light Jack-o-lanterns), and a little inside too (the seasonal quilts hung, a few decorations set up).  We don't go 'ALL OUT' like we used to when our son was little, but we still enjoy it.  Sadly, we live in a neighborhood with few trick-or-treaters - Ours is a busy street (it's a residential street with only one stop sign, that has become a thoroughfare for people who want to avoid the lights on the main street).  Add to that the fact that we live near the upper END (literally) of the street, and the last 3 houses on the block have nothing across the street (no homes, just a long fence), so the kids walking up the street, usually stop at the fence, (2 houses down from us), cross the street and work their way down again... they never make it to our house.  We get only 2 or 3 groups of older kids each year, almost never the younger ones.  We always have candy and goodies just in case, and my husband takes the leftovers to work the next day...  (There's usually a LOT of left-overs)...

Going back a week to my trip to PIQF, I have to say I was a bit disappointed.  There were FAR fewer vendors compared to last year, and fewer quilts too.  And yet, the show was still aMAHzing!!! I managed to get through all the vendor booths buying nothing but a single pack of hand sewing needles for my EPP project.  The quilts that were on display were mostly awesome.  The Best in Show quilt was astounding, I cannot fathom how you make yoyo's the size of my pinky fingernail!  Look at the 2nd picture - the detail shot - yes, some of those edge loops are yoyos! and the detail shot - yes the sashing is all tiny little yoyos!!!  I was blown away!

 

  And so many incredible displays of various genres and wonderful quilters.  The Afrifaces display was overwhelmingly beautiful!  

 

But...none of that was why I was disappointed... The quilt I had entered into the show, and was 'guaranteed' by UPS to arrive by the deadline of Oct. 9th... didn't arrive til Oct. 13th... How it took 7 days to travel 320 miles, I have no idea (it's about a 5 hour drive!).  UPS really dropped the ball there.  Sigh.  I was almost in tears when I found out (after viewing the entire show and not finding my quilt).  It did get appraised, as that was prearranged, and didn't require that it hang in the show for the appraiser to do her work.  So a slight benefit, but not enough to ameliorate my disappointment. 

Okay, rant over, I'll recover and because of the finish date of the quilt, it will still be eligible to hang at PIQF next year.  If it gets accepted next year, I am going to ship it FedEx! 

Oh My, Time Passes and the World Spins On...

 I can't believe it's been almost exactly a year since my last post.  (*listens to the crickets*), even if it's just for myself... the past year has been a difficult one in many ways - My knees are much worse, my eyes are getting worse (though I must admit that is partially my fault - I didn't get a new prescription last year and couldn't figure out why everything was double-imaged, even with my glasses on (it was because my prescription was MUCH changed in 2 years, sigh)... 

Despite the challenges, I've still managed to sew some by hand, some by machine, and finish some older projects as well... I have gone on a few retreats, some good, some not so good (the people were all great - the venues and weather sometimes not so great).  I entered some quilts in the county fair and did well... (no quilts last year due to a complication with their new software and new rules about everything having to be pre-entered on their computer system.)  This year, I entered 16 quilts... All 16 of them received ribbons (2 honorable mentions one 3rd, 3 2nd, and 9 first, one of which got nominated for best in show)... I'm very happy with those results... Quilts that I thought were so-so, got some top awards, quilts I thought were better got 3rd or HM... go figure, but overall thrilled.  

The quilt that got nominated for Best in Show at the county level, has been juried into PIQF (Pacific Int'l. Quilt Festival) in October, so I'm hoping it is well-received there as well.  I'm waiting to hear if it has been accepted into Road to California in January.  

Here's a picture of 'I Put a Hex on Mew' which is the one going to PIQF.  It's a king hexagon quilt, made using the 'potholder quilt' method, which is was popular in Maine and Massachusetts in the mid-1800s.  Each hexagon is individually layered, backed and bound, then quilted, then all the hexagons were whipstitched together... There are 900 hexagons in the quilt, each of them contains pictures or text having to do with cats (mostly pictures).  While I used some pieces of fabric more than once (if I hadn't, I'd still be collecting cat fabrics rather than having finished it!)... but no cat image was repeated in ANY hexagon.  Each is unique!   I started this quilt in 2005 with the intent of making it a king quilt with all cats... I finished it in November of 2022, 17 years later!!!  Can't wait to start using it!  I also made little night-stand coverlets to set our lamps on (I had about 30 hexagons left over, lol... felt the need to use them up).

A close up of a piece of the Hex quilt:

I sewed the hexagons together randomly without any regard to direction or color placement (I'm not generally a scrappy quilter, but I wanted this one to have that look... All the backings/bindings are different blues and I thought about making the back an ombre from light to dark, and decided against that due to lack of desire to sort the finished hexagons and confusion as to what to do with ones that weren't a single color of blue (some were kind of batik-like or had prints).

More fair pics (of my other quilts:)

Our county fair folds many of the quilts and hangs them folded due to lack of space (and time I think)... and maybe staff... In previous years (pre-covid), they'd hang quilts in the middle of the room too - none of that this year - some were folded up and placed inside displays... others folded and hung on the walls... none in the center of the room from the ceiling, sadly.  Even my hex quilt was folded and only partially displayed (understandable due to its size, really)... 

There were a few others, but due to lighting or poor display, I don't have a good pic of them.

I also made my very first real baby quilt this year - just delivered earlier this month to its recipient... she seemed to love it and stood up unassisted for the first time to see it better! (it was a little late, lol)... The quilt is called "Girls Can Do Anything" (there's pictures of typical girly stuff on it - unicorns and cute pandas and forest animals and such, but also of science and scientists and trains and such).

This is the back of the quilt, with the alphabet and an image to go with each letter (it was a panel):

Another fair quilt was a mystery quilt from last year.  Every year I do a 'Murder Mystery' quilt - the designer is also a writer, and writes a mystery story and designs a quilt that has clues and hints to enhance the story that are only in the quilt... you need both quilt and story to solve the mystery... You have to enter your 'whodunit' solution before the end of the year to be entered in a drawing to win a prize or two... All the folks who do this mystery each year (and there are literally hundreds of us), are divided into 'clue crews' and each crew has their own facebook group... Last year's mystery took place in Yellowstone Park, and this was the result:

I am gifting it to my husband's cousin, who took an extended trip to Yellowstone last year with her husband.  Hope they like it.  It should be mailed off be the end of this week.

 I accepted a commission end of last year, and have been working on that, but I'm almost stymied.  I have extensive notes of what she wanted (and it was due to her by early this year (it's now September and I'm still not done!)... I've designed 8 different quilts (mostly variations on a theme), and made 4 of them (in full or in part... I haven't been happy with any of them - and I don't think she would have bene either... maybe I'm being too much of a perfectionist?  Anyway - I need to get back to work on that now that the fair is over (it was in August), and convention season is now over (that was August - September, though I AM going to PIQF in October)...

Ah the quilty fun and stress and anxiety seem never ending... I'm glad that the fun outweighs most of the downsides....