"Q" is For Quilts

This past weekend was our local quilt show titles: "Q" is For Quilts.  This was the first show I've participated in since joining the guild.  It was a lot of work, but a great experience.  There were nine categories of quilts and judging was done by those attending the show. 

In any case, this quilt won Best of Show and clearly deserved the honor with any kind of voting:

Here are a few others:

 I entered several quilts in a variety of categories and was very excited to come home with a red (second place) ribbon in the First Time Entry category for this one:

One more - the write up on this next quilt said that the maker bought the unfinished top in a thrift store.  When she brought it home her husband declared it, "The ugliest top ever."  But, she felt like every quilt deserved a home so she finished it and displayed the result.  She said that her husband still thinks it's an ugly quilt.

The title:  "Ugly, Homely Quilts Need Love, Too."

Playing Hooky - Again!

I've been playing blog hooky again.  It started with our beach vacation at the beginning of June and then just expanded to now.  I have a whole list of things I want to blog about, though so perhaps I'll get motivated to put all the thoughts down on virtual paper soon.  I'm still a bit behind on things around the house.  My quilt guild had our quilt show this past weekend (more on that soon) and tomorrow Seamus is due at the vet for some surgery (probably no details forthcoming on that since I don't think it's of general interest - unless of course I just need to share  :-) ).  And the garden got way ahead of me as you can see:

Yup....that's a sunflower growing out of our gutter.  But I love sunflowers and can't bear to pull it out just yet.  In a few days it will die and I guess then it's time to clean out the gutter and weed the beds.

More (hopefully) later.

Ohio: Home to Pencil Sharpeners and Washboards

We've been traveling again.  This time we spent a few days in the Hocking Hills area of Ohio with some family members.  We visited one of the many, many state parks and had time to take in a few other unusual sites.

This area of the state is home to the Pencil Sharpener Museum!?!?  3479 pencil sharpeners, no duplicates all in one place.  The husband felt misled because some of the sharpeners were the same shape but different colors.  The pictures on the link above can show you the inside displays better than my pictures, but here are a few from my camera just to show that I was truly there:

On the way home we visited the Columbus Washboard Company.  This was a surprising find.  The factory has been making washboards continuously since the early 1900s.  They have a small store right next to the factory.  You can walk through the factory and see just how these washboards are made.  In addition, they were very dog friendly and let Seamus visit also, showered him with love and treats and gave him a bag of treats for the road!  I came home with a washboard/corkboard for my sewing room.  The "washing" part is cork so it can be used to post things.  It's a nice, usable reminder of a fun trip.

 

Rag Quilt for My Winter

I'm not sure if this is "quilting" or "sewing" but I've always wanted to make one of these rag quilts and having a new little one (my little Winter) around gave me the perfect excuse.  I made it out of flannel without batting.  It also gave me an excuse to use my Accuquilt Go.  I feel a little guilty that I don't use this more often.  This seemed like a perfect project.  The die cuts both the square and the fringe so that once you sew the pieces together, you're done.  There was enough fabric left over to make a matching pillow.

Even with a project this simple there were a few lessons to learn.

• Using the die cutter didn't guarantee that each square was the same size.  The fabrics responded differently to the process of going through the press resulting in some small differences in size.  It didn't matter too much in this project though.
• Having the fringe precut was a time saver in the end but it did make it a bit more difficult to line up the pieces and sew the rows together.
• Between the larger seam allowances and the shrinkage my final piece was considerably smaller than it looked on the design wall.
• All pinks are not created equal.  I ended up buying several pieces of fabric that just plain didn't go with each other.

I'm hoping Winter finds this to be a snuggly little blankie and pillow to snuggle up with.  Her Nana would be glad to make some more.
 

The Pillow Puddle: Part One

Next month my local quilt guild will be having a quilt show.  Much of my sewing/quilting time lately has been directed at this.  I've put hanging sleeves and labels on quilts I'm entering, finished up my Whisper Quilt and Russian Quilt and, most recently I've been making pillows for the puddle.

The pillow puddle is a big child's swimming pool filled with pillows.  To win a pillow visitors will choose a ticket out of a jar for a given price (I'm not sure what the charge is) and if the pillow is marked as a winner they get to choose any pillow out of the puddle. 

So far I've made these:

It's sort of addicting.  As I'm making one, I come up with an idea for another one.  I've used mostly orphan blocks and scraps and stuffing from extra pillows around the house.  All but one of the orphans above came from some items I won at our winter quilt guild auction.  So, another member donated the blocks, I bought them and made them into pillows to donate back to the guild for the puddle!  I also got to use my Sashiko for some of the top stitching.

I thought I was finished, but I came up with another pillow design and have planned to make a few more.

My two favorites from this batch are:

Stay tuned for part two!

Key West, Florida

Our recent trip to Florida included a three day sister trip to Key West, the most southern location in the continental United States.   The husbands drove us to Fort Myers, FL where we caught a ferry to Key West.  The ride took about 3 1/2 hours.  I don't know much about boats, but this one sure seemed to go FAST.  Here's a picture of the wake behind the boat:

Key West wasn't really what we expected.  It is called "small", but between the heat and our luggage in tow (and we both packed super light) it seemed pretty big.  And it's much more congested and built up than I expected.  It almost has an urban feel to it in the downtown area absent the tall buildings of most cities.  It has a full time population of 30,000.  It turns out that Key West tried to secede from the USA at one time.  I'm unclear about the event, but we were told that residents can have a Conch Republic passport OR a US passport.  And the Conch Republic passport is accepted by 38 countries including the USA.  They have their own flag, but they are part of Florida and the US.  I don't completely understand it.

We spent the next few days exploring and visited a few highlights including the lighthouse:

It was a somewhat short tower with just 88 steps to the top.  The keepers of this house were all from one family throughout the entire time the house was in operation.  Here's a view from the top:

 

We toured Ernest Hemmingway's house.  At least they call it his house, but it really belonged to his second (of four) wife.  He did live there when he did most of his famous writing and he was such a larger than life character who really embraced life in the Keys, and besides, who would pay to see "Polly Hemingway's House"?  Most notable part was this awesome pool.  When it was built it was said to be the largest privately owned pool in the US:

He owned several polydactyl (many toed) cats and the decedents of those cats still reside on the property and are loving cared for by the staff.

 

We toured a very nice butterfly museum:

 



Took a disappointing glass bottom boat ride - not even worth a picture.  Here's a bit of advice on glass bottom boats.  When the trip starts with the captain telling you that the water is too rough to go to the Atlantic and see the Great Barrier Reef so they are going into the gulf instead to see the coral gardens and you can get off now and get your money back if you really wanted to go to the Great Barrier Reef........get off.

Visited the original Margaretville restaurant of Jimmy Buffet where we shared the best cheeseburger ever:

And saw a pretty sunset on the ferry ride home:

The husbands were a bit late picking us up which was kind of spooky given where the boat docked, but it all turned out well.

We warmed to Key West after our initial disappointment.  I would go back again, a wiser traveler for having taken this trip. 

One more bit of trivia - Key West is 90 miles from Cuba and 134 miles from the nearest Walmart.

 

The Wild Mustard is In Bloom

This is a picture of wild mustard:

It grows in empty lots and fields around here as a weed.  Dairy farmers hate it because if their cows eat too much of it their milk will have an odd taste.

I have a vivid memory related to this plant and except for this memory I probably wouldn't give it a second glance. As I was on my way to the hospital to give birth to son #1, (The birth of a first child truly changes the course of the rest of your life in ways you can never anticipate or imagine.) I remember a lot of wild mustard growing along the sides of the road and in empty lots.  So every year when I see the mustard come into bloom it reminds my of this special, special day....which happens to be today.

Happy Birthday, son #1!