Prairie Fest Quilt Show 2023

 Yesterday I went to the Prairie Fest Quilt Show.  I try to go every year (lots of posts on my blog from previous years).  This year I put 5 of my quilts in the show.  Here are previous photos of the quilts I had in the show (I didn't take photos of my quilts this time).

Peter Pan quilt

LOTR/Hobbit quilt

Harry Potter Castle quilt

Emmalynn's Compass quilt

Covid Toilet Paper challenge quilt

Here are some of the quilts from the show.

up close

Because this is in a small space, they lay some of the quilts over chairs.  

they even have a book showing where they got the quilt blocks from

I'm slowly making one of these OhMyGosh! quilts myself

More quilts.

hand quilted in purple thread, lovely

made using paperless paper piecing technique

I forgot to take a photo of their raffle quilt this time.  Lovely hand quilting on it.  The quilt show is hosted by The Quilter's Dozen, a group of hand quilting ladies.  Many of these quilts were hand quilted.

They also have a few display cases showing off sewing related items.

As usual, it was a nice show.  

My large quilt guild meeting was Thursday night.  Back in 2019, Kevin Huffman (Kevin the Quilter) came to both of my quilt guilds and taught classes (blog posts here and here).  At the large guild, he taught crumb piecing and Crumb Stars.  Eileen finally finished her Crumb Star quilt and showed it off at the guild meeting.

Eileen's Crumb Star quilt

I'm off to Ladies Crafting at church!  I hope you have a great Saturday!

String Star Quilt

It's been busy for me since Kevin the Quilter left.   Kevin left on Saturday afternoon, and we drove towards Texas on Wednesday.  Luckily, as we drove thru Oklahoma that evening, we only got in the edges of the storms that were going thru the area, not in the middle of the bad storms. 

We went to Texas to celebrate hubby's mother's 80th Birthday.  All her kids, grandkids and her 2 great grandbaby's were all there. I didn't take but a few photos while I was there.

our granddaughter and my hubby

We are lucky in the fact that my mother lives 4 blocks from hubby's parents.  We got to see my family, too.

my son, my mother and my granddaughter

It was a great trip (and very rushed) other than my oldest son and I getting food poisoning the last night in Texas.  Poor hubby had to drive almost the whole way home himself (1200 miles), since Christopher and I were too sick to help drive.

As soon as we got back, our oldest son finished packing up his stuff and hauled it to a storage room.  Our oldest son then flew off to Alaska to spend the summer with our youngest son and his family, to help with their side business.

Since we were traveling, and packing (and recovering from being sick) not a lot of stitching went on the last half of May.  My RSC19 May/orange blocks were not even started.  I DID get some machine quilting done on the String Star wall hanging before we left for Texas.

Linda at Art in Search blog mentioned a way to make sure your quilts lay flat when they are done. You use 1/4" twill tape along the edges before you stitch on the binding. This will keep you from 'stretching' the binding too tight and making the sides of the quilt wave.  I decided to try this.

stitching 1/4" twill tape on the edges of the quilt

It worked great!  Thanks Linda!  My wall hanging lays flat.

finished String Star quilt

I took some up close photos of my machine quilting.  I used the walking foot.  I'm not any good at free motion.

Of course, no quilt is finished until the label is attached.  I'm not good at attaching labels, but, I found the perfect one for this quilt.  Kevin taught the class, and Kevin loves his chickens, so, when I saw this label, I knew it was 'the one' for this quilt.

Rooster quilt label

Two other ladies from the class also had their String Star quilts finished for Show-N-Tell last night at quilt guild (several ladies were out of town).  What a fun class!

Kevin the Quilter, String Star class

It was another fun day with Kevin the Quilter!  Kevin stayed with my husband and I during his visit.  What a great house guest.  We got a couple dozen fresh eggs from Kevin's chickens.  I'd never had a green egg before.  Kevin knows from the color of the eggs, what breed of chicken layed that egg. 

eggs from Kevin's chickens

Kevin visited my little quilt guild 4 years ago.  I wrote 3 different blog posts for that visit.   The ladies all enjoyed Kevin's presentation so much that when we knew for certain that Kevin was coming to my large quilt guild, we decided to have him teach a class just for us while he was here. 

Huffman's Hotties helped start off Kevin's class.

Kevin taught us how to make his String Star quilt.

Kevin with his String Star quilt 

We had a great group of ladies at this class.

Kandy's tiara is a Hawaiian tiara

Of course, we had tons of great food for lunch.  We had it spread out all over the kitchen.  Linda got a head start adding chicken to her salad.

Everyone had some great string diamonds.

Patriotic

colorful

my diamonds

more colors

Minions

Kevin is selling his first pattern.  It was just printed before he came. 

Kevin's first pattern, Goodnight Darlene

Goodnight Darlene quilt

Kevin is a very hands on teacher.  He loves to make sure everyone is having fun and learning new things.

Kevin, teaching the next step

By the end of the class we all had completed quilt tops.

completed quilt tops

Here is a closer look at my completed quilt top.  The ladies with me are friends and drove up from downstate just to take both of Kevin's classes.  It was fun to see both of them again.

Mary Ann, Kevin, Sharon & me

It has been a fun few days with Kevin.  If your guild ever needs a fun speaker, think of Kevin.  I'd love to attend more of his classes.