2 Quilt Shows

Yesterday I went to the Prairie Fest Quilt Show at the Little White Schoolhouse.  This is a tiny show, but, I always love it.  I know most of the ladies who sew at the Little White Schoolhouse.  The Quilter's Dozen are a hand quilting group.  I only took a few pictures.  The quilts are really close together, and you have to take pictures at an angle, so, they look a little wonky.  I did use my camera, and finally got Google to upload the pictures. 

As you walk in, they have a quilt set up, and always have at least one person quilting on it. 

hand quilting

They have a raffle quilt every year.  The money raised goes to the Little White Schoolhouse museum.  Of course I bought tickets.

raffle quilt

Since they are in such a tiny space, they get creative with how they display quilts. 

Sorry, I forgot to get names of the makers/owners of these quilts.  Oops!  Some quilts are new, some are vintage quilts. 

This next quilt was embroidered by the husband and pieced by the wife.  I got to meet the husband while he worked the entrance table.  Teeny tiny stitches on these snow globes. 

snow globes

Here are more quilts.

grouping of small quilted projects

My son's love Star Wars.  This was a great way to fussy cut some of the newer fabrics for Star Wars. 

Star Wars fabric in the center

up close of the Star Wars fabric centers

This was a new twister pattern that I'd not seen before.  There was another new twister pattern a few photos up (Uncle Sam).  There were at least 3 different twister patterns at the show.

bunny twister quilt

This next quilt had hand applique in all the circles.  I took a close up picture of one of the circles.  Each circle is different.

up close of one of the circles

After the Little White Schoolhouse quilt show, I headed over to the church where my little quilt guild meets.  They were having the 2nd annual Ugly Quilt contest.  I took pictures of all 12 entries, and of the ugly fabrics they used.  I'll show the ugly fabric first, then the quilt that they made with the ugly fabric. 

ugly fabric

ugly fabric

ugly fabric

ugly fabric

ugly fabric

ugly fabric

ugly fabric

ugly fabric

ugly fabric

ugly fabric

ugly fabric

ugly fabric

Two different ladies from my little quilt guild were in this Ugly fabric challenge.  You were asked to vote for your favorite quilt before you left.  There were several different quilts that I liked.  It's always hard to pick just one. 

I'm off to the Pride of the Prairie sew-in this morning.  It's always fun to stitch with friends.  Hopefully the gym will be cool today, since our temps are supposed to reach the mid 90's, and the heat index is supposed to get to 103.  Sunday will be even worse.  We will finally get some relief on Tuesday, just in time for me to load my car for the Missouri TOGA.  I leave on Wednesday morning.  If you are in Missouri, come to Ava, MO, and come join us for a couple of days of playing with vintage sewing machines.  I'm teaching 3 classes at the TOGA (Pin Cushion Thread Catcher, Sewing machine mats & how to convert an electric machine to a hand crank). 

Stitching! Stitching! Stitching!

I've been stitching up a storm the past 2 days.  I was celebrating National Sewing Machine Day on Wednesday.

I prepped Triangulations papers and fabrics for Half Square Triangles.  Triangulations is my favorite way to make HST's.  I made 180 different HST's.  These are for 2 different projects.

Triangulations HST's

I was bad, and didn't close my rotary blade cover.  I barely touched the blade to my hand and cut myself (not bad, thank goodness).

rotary cutter slice

Put your rotary cutter down, and close the blade EACH time.  I didn't put the rotary cutter down, when I tried to move something with that same hand, and I also didn't close the blade.  The cut kept bleeding and I was working with white fabrics, so, since it was National Sewing Machine Day, this is the bandage I chose to use.

I love to stitch my Triangulations on my hand cranks.

1927 Singer 15 hand crank

I spent the day stitching, cutting, ironing and pulling papers off the backs of 180 HST's.

180 hst's

Those pinwheels are now stitched together, and I'm working on adding corners to all of them. 

I'm heading out to the Prairie Fest Quilt Show shortly.  There is also an ugly fabric quilt contest at the church where my little quilt guild meets.  If my camera will charge, I'll try to take pictures.  Since Picassa was taken over by Google, I can't upload pictures from my camera easily to Google photos.  I don't like taking pictures with my phone, but, that is the only easy way at the moment.  I wish Google wouldn't keep changing things.  They are making things MUCH HARDER, not easier.  *(I also wish that they would bring back our comments to our inboxes).

Saturday I have a sew in with my large quilt guild.  It will be a nice (HOT) quilting weekend.  

Happy National Sewing Machine Day!

Today is the first of 2 different days of National Sewing Machine Day!  Our sewing machines are sew great that we get TWO days to celebrate them (the 2nd day is September 10th).

Here are a few of my favorite sewing machines in my collection.

This is my oldest sewing machine.

1880 Willcox & Gibbs chainstitch hand crank

This is my oldest treadle.

1881 Singer 12 treadle

My 'brightest' sewing machine.

Post WWII Japanese machine that I turned into a hand crank

Yes, I do sew on a few electric machines.  This is my favorite electric machine.

'Betty Sue' my 1939 Singer 221 Featherweight

This is my favorite treadle to sew on.

'Victor' a Post WWII Japanese sewing machine

parlor style treadle cabinet

And this is the machine that I do most of my stitching on (at the moment). 

1927 Singer 15 hand crank

What is 'your' favorite sewing machine?

Cook Book Shelf

Hubby finished my new cook book shelf this afternoon. 

new shelf hubby built

The old shelf didn't really hold all of my cookbooks very well.  They were jammed in, to get them off the floor.

old shelf

The old shelf was built especially for me.  It has my name and the year across the top curved piece.  My mother in law has one just like it, but, her's has her name on it.  Hubby's uncle Bill made them for us in 1996.  We are auditioning places to put the shelf, since it is too precious to store in the basement.

Thanks hubby for my new bookcase!

My Week

Last week was not normal.  I was supposed to go sew with friends on Tuesday, but, I was sick.   Sick enough to not only cancel on sewing, but, I didn't sew, or even do anything else for most of 2 days. 

On Thursday, one of my bridesmaids came to town for work.  She only had a couple of hours to spend with us, but, we had fun catching up. 

hubby, me and Sheila

Sheila mentioned wanting to see some of the wedding photos, so, after we dropped her off at her hotel, I took some pictures of the photos.  Our wedding was 30 years ago.

wedding party

my bridesmaids and flower girl

Sheila and me

Sheila catching the bouquet

I did get to sew some the next day.  I worked on my crazy quilt.

stitching down the doily

Saturday morning, we drove to Wisconsin to see friends.  The weather was great (59-63 degrees for the high).

On Monday, I finally got my crazy quilt blocks stitched together, and the basting removed.  I still need to applique 3 of the Victorian ladies onto the cream colored blocks.

blocks stitched together

Yes, I'm going to keep the quilt this shape.  I'm calling it my Crazy Victorian Ladies quilt, so, I like the crazy shape, too.  This quilt is serving 2 purposes, for my 'Library Book Challenge' with my little quilt guild, and also my 'Crazy Quilt Challenge' with the Camp Tuckabatchee quilters.  The finished quilt isn't due until next March, so, it will be put aside for a couple of months, while I work on some other projects.  I needed to get it this far, since the 'Library Book Challenge' was due last night, at guild. 

I turned in 5 quilt blocks at guild last night.  The guild is making quilts for both a boys home and a girls home.  We are trying to get 14 quilts made before Christmas.  I handed out kits, to make blocks for a quilt last night.  I'll show the blocks when I get them back, in July and August.  Here are the blocks I made for some of the other  quilts.

for a girls quilt

for a boys quilt

for another boys quilt

More than 40 blocks were turned in last night for the 'space' quilt and for the 'eyeball's quilt and also for the 'sports' quilt (I turned in my sports blocks last month).