A trip to the Kansas State Fair

Sunday, Sept 15 was the last day of the Kansas State Fair in Hutchinson. At the beginning of the fair I had made the nearly four-hour trek (one way) to take quilts to the fair for myself and seven other women from the guilds I'm in. I picked up a friend half way who rode with me the rest of the way, helped with the check-in, after which we enjoyed supper together before returning home. It was pretty much the same routine this weekend, only I picked up a different quilting friend to ride along and help with the check-out.

When we arrived, as soon as we got out of the car, we looked at each other and knew we should have brought some sunscreen! It was hot and muggy with little shade to be found other than along the noisy midway.

However, as you can see in the above picture, a front moved in about an hour later and dumped more than an inch of rain and hail on us in about an hour's time. I had hoped to wander and take some cool midway pix, but instead had to hustle to get the quilts from the exhibition hall to the car, keeping them as dry as possible (in a wagon wrapped in plastic!), and then hightailed it home!

Anyway, when we arrived, Linda and I made our way to the Domestic Arts building and decided to escape the heat and humidity and enjoy the air conditioning while we enjoyed looking at all of the quilts and needlework items that had been turned in for judging by people from across the state. Several of the women whose items I had delivered to the fair two weeks earlier had won ribbons! It was fun finding them and snapping pictures. Between the skylights and fluorescent lighting in the building, and the plastic wrapped around/over all of the quilts to protect them, the pictures aren't the greatest, but I did my best to capture what I could.

This first quilt is queen size with row after row of perfect flying geese and all long-arm quilted with fabulous feathers down each strip of geese. Kathleen, who did the whole thing, was delighted with her 2rd place ribbon when I delivered it back to her last night.

Kathleen's Christmas wall quilt, which was pieced, embroidered, painted, and custom quilted, took first and Best of Show in its class!

Linda had never entered anything in any event and missed the county fair deadline by just a couple of hours. However, with a great deal of encouragement, she entered several items and took ribbons on nearly everything, including two first place ribbons! Way to go Linda!!!

Linda, grinning from ear to ear, next to her queen size Labyrinth she had made for her son.

Linda's pieced and appliqued quilt got 2rd and had great comments.

Linda hand quilted this one, getting yet another red ribbon.

This mini-quilt, which she hand quilted, went to Afghanistan and back with her son, and now has won a blue ribbon.

We both participated in the QOV block contest, which was open to everyone across the state. Everyone was to use the same block pattern, but could pick their own red, white & blue fabrics and color scheme. There was only one ribbon given for appearance and technique and Linda took it!

This is the display board of all of the QOV blocks that were turned in for this year. These will all be turned into QOV quilts by volunteers to be presented to Kansas veterans. Such an amazing and worthy cause to support!

Only one of my four quilts entered took a ribbon, but I'm pleased as punch that Enlightened Souls was the one to win something! Entering any quilts at the state level puts you in a much larger pool of quilters, so taking any ribbon is exciting. This is a very special, original design quilt that I made for a friend, who graciously loaned it back to me to put in the fairs and quilt shows this year. This quilt won blue ribbons in two county fairs and Reserve Grand Champion at one of them, and now second place at state. Woohoo!!! It will be finding its way back to California to Adele before the end of the year to its permanent home with a new label listing what shows it was in and awards won this year.

 Two other gals from our guild also won ribbons. Joan took second on her miniature churn dash that she made at the last minute to enter (I think it's about 15" square).

And Sharon won first on her twilling embroidered table runner and third on her English smocked dress.

After looking at all of the great quilts and other items, it was time to head to the car to get the wagon, claim tickets, and various bags to put all of these quilts into when we returned for check-out. The building was to be cleared and locked at 5pm and reopened at 6pm to let people pick up their items. About 4pm we noticed the rain had started and was dumping like crazy (Weatherbug reported rain was falling at a rate of 3" per hour!). With thunder crashing and lightening flashing, we waited for a lull and about 4:30 we headed out to the parking lot. By the time we got to the cars, it had started again and we sat there for probably 20 minutes waiting for the lightening, at least, to subside so we could make a dash back onto the fairgrounds.

Looking out the window of the metal building we waited in, watching people make mad dashes towards the parking lot!

We got within a block of the Domestic Arts building when it started hailing! We hightailed it into the first open door we saw, which the fair security guy quickly closed behind us. The sound was outrageous being in a metal building with rain, hail, wind, and the nearby thunder! Once again we waited, probably another 20 minutes at least, before the cloud burst passed and we could continue on our way.

Just for fun we took shots of each other inside the metal building while we waited. Linda got her husband's coat and an umbrella when we got to the cars to help on the way back from the parking lot. I borrowed her hat and the umbrella for part of the walk, but mostly just got soaked to the skin.

The plastic ponchos came out of backpacks or were purchased on the midway for last minute protection.

Just across the alley from the Domestic Arts building, water pooled in the street nearly a foot deep!

We enjoyed watching this little guy walk right through the middle of the puddle, still ankle deep on him.

The fair staff came out about 5:30 and announced they had been told by the fair administration office to open the building and let everyone in so those waiting to pick up items wouldn't be left outside in the rain & lightening. So, we moved our line inside and waited for the check-out to begin promptly at 6pm. According to one friend who had been through this process before, we made it through check-out in record time, being fully loaded and on the road by 7:30pm. Everything made it safely to the car without getting wet and was then delivered back to their respective owners.

The sunset behind me as I left Hutchinson was spectacular as I headed back towards northeast Kansas. Viewing all of the quilts entered by quilters from across the state of Kansas was great fun and provided much inspiration. Running like a kid through the rain and attempting to dodge puddles ankle deep (my shoes are still wet two days later) was an adventure. I'm so glad I was able to attend this year and take part in the fun!

More snippets from the sewing room soon,
Liz

Busy week of school work!

I had great intentions of starting last month's project for my Marti & Me class, which is fast approaching this coming Saturday morning; however, so far all I've done is pull out the fabrics and open and close the box a few times. Instead, those plans were spoiled by multiple assignments due in my master's classes for this semester. Luckily I have gotten my assignments turned in on time and my message board posts done in a timely manner as well. That's certainly a relief! For those who may be wondering, I'm nearly half way through getting a Master's of Science in Gerontology through the Great Plains IDEA online program and I'm enrolled at Kansas State University as my home institution. It's exciting to be pursuing this at my age (yes, I'll be hitting yet another round number in December--the big six-O). I'm still not sure what I'll do with it once I'm done, but at least I'll have accomplished what I set out to do. This semester I'm taking one of the core requirement courses--Nutrition and Physical Activity in Aging, and an elective, Spirituality and Aging. Both are fascinating, but are keeping me pretty much occupied between reading, online quizzes and message boards, and various assignments to be uploaded by specific dates.

I did complete the quilting on Jordyn's Peace quilt last week and got it trimmed. I really need to get the binding sewn on and stitched down since her birthday is a week from Thursday. It will be here all to quickly, so I'd better get on it to be sure it's ready!

For the Marti & Me class last month, we got Marti Michell's template set H to make the Seven Sisters quilt. Some of the gals are only doing table runners with two star clusters, but I'm hoping to make at least a throw size out of a fun Christmas fat quarter bundle I bought several years ago and these cute colorful snowflakes on white as the background. It will probably be for next Christmas, but at least it will have been started. Just what we all need, right? Another NewFO!

And as always, Jacob is keeping me on my toes as well. This week it's been all about the remotes. If I won't let him have the TV remote, he goes for the Wii remotes that are in a cupboard down at his level and is SURE they will do something! I'm afraid not, little buddy, but keep trying. LOL!

Hopefully next week I'll have gotten something accomplished to report, even if it's just that more assignments got turned in on time! That's progress even if it's not on quilting. :-) I am trying to keep up with the FatMumSlim Photo of the Day postings as well, although I missed almost a week already and will be playing catch up once again. And so life goes on. Priorities shift and change. We get up every day and do the next indicated thing. I'm just anxious for quilting to be the focus and the next indicated thing for more than a few minutes at a time. But alas, the semester won't be over until the 2nd week of December, so I have a long couple of months to go before I can really play. I'm thinking seriously about going back to just one class per semester. At least the last semester I had a life some of the time!

More snippets from the sewing room soon...
Liz

Photo-a-Day challenge at FatMumSlim's--September 1-8

I've been following Barbara at Cat Patches for awhile now. Not long ago she started posting the most interesting pictures! I started clicking on links in her blog and found the original post of how to play the Photo-a-Day Challenge hosted by FatMumSlim. I discovered there is a group on Facebook where I've been posting daily, but thought it would be fun to share my photo posts here as well. Thank you Barbara for posting something new that caught my interest!

So, the premise is, there is a list posted just before the first of each month with a prompt for each day of the upcoming month. Here's the list for September, the point at which I joined the fun. Pictures can be posted on Facebook, Twitter (which I have resisted signing up for so far), Pinterest, or blogs, or wherever else we decide to post them. So far, I'm trying to keep up with the daily posts to FB and am adding a weekly blog post just for fun, especially since a number of my pictures will be quilt/crafty related.

Here's my contributions for week one...

9/1: Together... Although my sister-in-law Cindy lost her battle with cancer in May, we will be working together on this beautiful quilt top that she started and I will finish as I add my touches to make it ours.

9/2: My name begins with... L! Ms. Moondance Gal loves wearing her vintage, sparkly monogram pin.

9/3: Lines... of quilting from the back of my granddaughter's quilt I'm finishing for her birthday later this month.

9/4: Alone... on the road through Death Valley this summer with a single cloud to keep me company.

9/5: Here forever... After 69 years of marriage and six years apart, on 4/2/12 my parents were reunited for eternity. My brother made this beautiful memory box for me to hold pictures of our folks, the guest book from their memorial services, and other precious items to be cherished here forever.

9/6: Getting ready... to start a new quilt for my great-great-niece due in December!

9/7: White... the Amish doll my mom made for me out of my gramma's vintage linens.

9/8: Made by me... a quilted mandala I designed and made for a class final creative project.

So, new adventures continue as I try my hand at becoming more aware of the world around me (instead of staying holed up inside my home quilting or studying). It's been an interesting challenge to come up with something to fit the prompts, but as I read ahead new ideas are already popping.

More snippets from the sewing room soon,
Liz

Jordyn's Road to California is underway!

Friday afternoon I got to spend some time with my daughter Jeni. At the last minute, it turned out her son/my grandson Joe was going to St. Louis with a friend for the weekend, leaving her daughter/my granddaughter Jordyn home alone while Jeni and her husband worked the weekend. Jeni asked if I was busy and if I'd like Jordyn to visit for the weekend. Grandchild? Here for the weekend? YES YES YES!!! So, after her acro class (some combo of acrobatics & gymnastics), Jeni brought her down to me on Friday evening.

I know I've mentioned our trip before, and even showed our routes when I talked about taking one car load out and bringing another back in the form of Cindy's 30-40 UFOs. This is a little more of the story about how Jordyn and I planned our days at the computer, finding quilt shops to stop in along the way. I was SOOOOOO excited to have her SOOOOOO excited about stopping at shops for fat quarters!

The last time Jordyn & Jeni visited, we pulled out the bags of fat quarters we had purchased on our cross-country trip from Kansas to California this summer. Jordyn's were in a separate bag from what I collected on my solo trip back home. Her "instructions" were to look around at what she saw each day and then see if she could find a piece of fabric that matched the local sights or landscape. She came up with lots of fun finds including the ice cream cone fabric representing the cones we got and ate BEFORE lunch on several occasions along the way.

My collection was more of the same, plus a few extras for specific projects like QOV materials, a piece to put with some fun beach fabrics (the umbrellas are so bright & fun and shared with me by a quilting friend in CA!), and other fun stuff for my own trip memory quilt.

Jordyn stayed in CA for 2 months after I dropped her off, so this was to be her first weekend visit since our returns to start on her project--a Road to California memory quilt. Friday night we talked about the design, which I drafted in EQ7 for her to follow.

Then it was fun time eating pizza & watching movies. Saturday morning started with picking out the fabrics and getting them all pressed and ready to cut. They had all been folded up snug in the bag during and since our early June trip.

While Mormor handled the rotary cutting, Jordyn pulled out the old favorite for a play break--the Brio trains that her mommy, uncle, and auntie all played with when they were little, along with a little snack--watermelon chunks and Goldfish.  

Back on task, Jordyn helped as I cut out some of the squares because we wanted to fussy cut a fabric postcard from some Route 66 fabric for each of the states we drove through, plus she found the state birds and flowers for most of the states on another piece we had purchased. She put a pin on the image she wanted cut out to help me find them. Another look through the bag indicated we hadn't purchased any fabric for sashing, so we took quick break and drove the six blocks to our local quilt shop to pick out another piece of fabric to add to her quilt. After all of the pieces were cut out, she started organizing them on the design board.

I had seen a pattern like this before. The alternating sashing gives it a fun zig-zag look and only has seams to match up when sewing the rows together. I figured a pattern with few seams or corners to match would be good for a beginner. (On the pic above, the top row of blocks is already at the machine getting side sashing strips attached. Oh, and the design board was too short for all the rows, so the bottom row is laying on the floor. LOL!)

After helping her pin the sashing to the blocks, she got started strip piecing. As usual I had the machine threaded with Aurifil 50 in both top and bobbin--this time a neutral ivory that played well with all the colors. I figure I may as well start her early with all the time-saving techniques and best supplies! More than once, as she strip pieced blocks together, she proclaimed, "This is going so fast!"

Another trick to help her keep her seams at 1/4" was to add a Sewing Edge strip to the deck of the machine. I took one strip, cut it in half and stacked them to give her enough edge to work against, and set her loose. I had seen these used at a retreat workshop last year and thought they would be a great tool to help her keep her seams straight. And it worked!!!

After sewing the side sashings on, she pressed all of the seams toward the dark sash and then put the blocks back up on the design wall so we could pin the top and bottom sashings on the correct edges to make the alternating row pattern.

Again, I helped with the pinning to keep the blocks straight and she went back to the sewing machine.

 Back to the ironing board where she pressed the next seam toward the blue sash, thus framing each block on two sides with the blue marbled sashings. All done! Ta-da!!!

She put the blocks back up on the board one more time and we decided it was time to quit for the day. We relaxed with a yummy supper and she crawled into the hide-a-bed for movie night.

Sunday morning we were back up and at it, this time sewing the blocks into rows and then sewing the rows together to make the top.

After a singed knuckle, I agreed to finish pressing the completed top. After she had sewn rows together, we found only one seam that had not stayed straight and had to be redone. Not bad for an almost-10-year-old! Plus, there were a few spots where she had not checked and had allowed the seam on the bottom to flip over, creating that nasty seam twist we all hate so much. Being a learning experience, I insisted that we take out those few stitches, pin the seams back into nesting fashion, and resew them (Mean Mormor!). There were a few moments of grumpy over having to redo these spots, but they didn't last long. Over all, she did a fantastic job! And before we knew it, she had a completed top!

Next visit she will be adding borders--a bright strip around the whole thing and then a 4 or 5" border of Route 66 signs to tie it all together. We also have fabric for a pieced back--a beautiful desert landscape border print and a printed bandana from the Petrified Forest will be incorporated.

We wrapped up our weekend together by sharing her requested celebratory lunch at DQ for doing such a great job, followed by a visit to Auntie Ali's to play with her little cousin Jacob. It was so much fun watching them play and to have story time together before driving Jordyn back home to get ready for her school week.

This is one happy Mormor reading stories with two of the best grandkids ever! Maybe next visit Joe (now 13 and 5'10"!!!) will come too. How do we get 13-year-old boys interested in quilting? Star Wars fabric? Maybe...

More snippets from the sewing room soon,
Liz

Another deadline approaching...

Last summer my granddaughter, Jordyn, picked out all of these fun retro prints with peace signs and asked for a quilt. Initially I went to EQ7 and started playing to see if I could design a layout that had an actual peace sign on it that would fit the top of her twin bed. My playing was successful and this is what I came up with. I matched the fabrics as close as I could from the fabric library to get the right look.

I used the EQ7 rotary cutting directions to cut the right number of HSTs and layout for placement, and completing the piecing done over the winter, got it sandwiched and pinned, and then it got tucked up in the closet for months, both before and after my move, waiting to be quilted. Well, Jordyn's 10th birthday is fast approaching later in September, so I guess it's time to get busy and finish this quilt so she can enjoy it while she's still likes the theme she picked. I pulled it down last week to start quilting as the first project to work on at the HQ16 in the kitchen while Jacob plays downstairs. The first day I got the entire central motif--peace sign and the center pink sections within the sign--quilted in one day! Now to get back to it and continue my progress.

To get a look at the whole quilt, I went ahead and hung it up on the line on my patio fence. Here's the front (not trimmed or bound yet). The entire quilt is pieced and quilted with Aurifil 50. The top is being quilted with a lilac #2510 Aurifil 50 with white Aurifil 50 on the back, except on the central peace sign and outer border.

The back is a glittery fun print with peace signs too. Below is a closeup of the straight line quilting I did around the peace sign itself. Since the fabric for the peace sign on the top is mostly black, any quilting wouldn't really show up, so the straight line quilting was perfect to stabilize that section. For the peace sign and outer border, I used (and will use in the border) black Aurifil 50 and on the back a pale purple/lavender #2520 Aurifil 50 that blends with the print. I found the two are of a similar enough value so any tension glitches won't show like they would with a white/black combination.

On the peace sign I started with three equally spaced lines of quilting, which left a little too much fullness compared to the central portion quilted with large swirls and pebbles, so I added another line between each one and it's perfect! Tomorrow Jacob will be back, so I'll start in on the next round and keep going until it's finished.

So this is my contribution to Linky Tuesday hosted by Freemotion by the River--a work in progress that now has a firm finish deadline for Jordyn's birthday.

More snippets from the sewing room soon,
Liz