PUYALLUP FAIR 2024

 Darrell and I went to Puyallup to the Washington State Fair.  We haven't attended in years, so it was about time.  And, I had entered three quilts into the show and I had to go see them.

"Cincinnati"

"Amity: Baroque" I stood behind a lady and listedned to her talk about what she liked about this quilt.  That was fun.  D and I voted for this one for People's Choice.  Good luck #93!

"Tractor Beam" .  My Voltron type quilt.

Then we went walking about for a few hours.  We had scones right away.  They are smaller and sweeter than I remember from when I was much younger.

We saw the baby piglets, only a few days old.

And we had to see the Draft Horses.

We also walked through the grange to see the Giant Pumpkins and the displays.  We hurried through the retail vendors building and were accosted by several of them.  And we perused the goats.

It was something different and great fun.  But, since it was going to be a very hot day and we left at noon.  

PHOTOGRAPHYING BIG FLOWER

 We set up Darrell's bench room for photos and hung Amity Baroque for photographing.  He took a bunch of photos.

This is not one of the photos he took.  I shot this with my iPhone.

FACED

 I sewed the facing onto Amity Baroque using some of the excess backing that was trimmed off after quilting.  I did have to add some Kona Pecan on the bottom edge.

This sateen backing was probably not a good idea.  It's wonderfully soft, but there have been several 'pulled threads' which don't look very good.

I'm now in the process of hand sewing the facing onto the back of the quilt, today while listening to the Brave Patch group discussing our current book, Threads of Life by Clare Hunter.

AMITY B QUILTED!

 Despite all the heartaches and stress, I've managed to finish quilting on Amity Baroque and get it off the machine today.

I reached the conclusion that I won't be showing it.  I'm a little heartbroken.  Putting it into a show and having it be appreciated would have gone a long way to justify all of the hard work I've put into it. But, there are problems that cropped up, mainly the hole I inadvertently snipped in it when cutting threads.  I might have been able to live with that, but I also discovered a place where one of the loosely woven plaids was pulling apart from the seam.  It looks too bad to be hanging in public and being inspected.  It's not my best work.

But, I do love this quilt and appreciate it for what it is and how it got there.  I will find it a place of honor to live.

Here are the threads I used on it:

HALF WAY MAYBE

 I've got the flower part all quilted.  There's a lot of background to do still.  And then there's the leaves.

It's coming along!

QUILTING ON AMITY

 More quilting - coming along great!

MORE QUILTING ON FLOWER

 It's slow going, I'm tying and burying the starts and stops as I go, which slows me down.  And, there's endless thread changes.  But, it's coming along nicely.

FUN WITH QUILTING

 This new machine, Erik, is a dream to use.  I'm having fun quilting on the big flower, Amity Baroque.  

LET THE QUILTING BEGIN

 I've been fretting over the quilting for the big flower, Amity Baroque.

Well, today is the day.  I got it loaded onto Eric the Bold and Big (where I discovered that one of the leaders has been installed backwards.  I called Ben and he'll come out after I finish this quilt and fix it).

But, first I had to applique the circle in the middle of the petals and removed the excess fabric from behind it.  Cutting into it was scary.  And, I got to use my new duckbill scissors that came with the longarm package.  

Then I got started on the quilting.  I'm happy with it so far.

BACKING FOR AMITY

 I've finally started on the backing for the Amity: Baroque quilt.  I need to get it quilted and photographed before the end of the month.

I picked up this large floral backing fabric the other day at Wyldwood in Renton.  It was a remnant, only about a yard wide, but 108" long. I cut it into three parts and added some leftover plaids from some of the fabrics I used on the front.

BIG FLOWER TOP DONE

 I got the last pieces sewn into the Big Flower, Amity Baroque, today.  I stay-stitched around the outside, too.  I'm sure a lot of those seams would have come undone when it's time to start quilting it.

Now, I can relax a bit.

Well, no, it isn't actually 'done'.  I still have some appliqued circles to sew on.

ALMOST THERE

 I've been working on the Big Flower over the last few days and not taking pictures, unfortunately.  I got the last two leaves done while trying to deal with the bathroom remodel and the truant workers.

Today, during the meetup with the Monday Brave Patch group, I got most of the background squares sewn together and joined with their leaves.

Only one more section of just squares (and I think I'll have enough of them) left to sew together.

SEWING IT TOGETHER

 Up until now, the flower was all in chunks and not many chunks were sewn together.  I sewed them all together today.  I spent yesterday on it, too.  First thing this morning I had to unsew what I had sewn at the end of the day yesterday because I had misaligned it all.

This time I approached it from a different part and got it right.

I'm glad I did, I was worried it would be more difficult and not go together at all.  So, now I can stop fretting about that.

So, here it is...

The bottom right is the only part left to do.  It is a big chunk, though.

JOE AND RED

 Today was this month's Joe Cunningham's Quilt Freedom Workshop.  The topic was 'Red'.

He had a San Francisco artist, Amy Trachtenberg,  as a speaker, along with Carolyn Ducey from The International Quilt Museum and Julie Silber, quilt collector.  They each talked about the color red and how it affected the composition of the artwork and quilts we were viewing.  It was very interesting.

I was listening and watching, but I was also working on a chunk of background for the Big Flower quilt, Amity Baroque.

It's looking like I will not have enough of these fabrics to finish the quilt.  Eek, I have to dye fabrics to match now.  Good grief.

TWO LEAVES

 I've finished the second leaf and sewn it to the first!

I'm not wanting to start on the second two leaves because I'm still thinking about what fabric to use around the outside of each.  (more on that later)

So, I started sewing the top part of the quilt together.  It's going together very easily.  TG.

I'll take it in to the house tonight to sew a few more circles around the petals.

GREAT LEAF!

 I got frustrated the other day while making the spikey parts that go around the leaf.  They were difficult to make and i was having a hard time.

So, I put off finishing the first half and went off to do something else.  I was sorting my fabrics and bagging up stuff I don't want anymore.

I came up with a slightly different method to make them and yesterday I finished the first half of the spikey parts and it looked great!  So, I finished the second half today and sewed them all together and even added some of the background.

FIRST LEAF

 I started making the leaves for the big flower, Amity Baroque, this morning.

It still needs to be trimmed and the 'thorns' added.  But I like how it looks, so far.

It's Monday and I attended our regular Brave Patch meeting at noon.  I worked on appliqueing more circles onto the petals while visiting with everyone.  I'm almost done with all the circles, which means I can start sewing the petals together.  There may be a few more added after they are joined.

MORE SQUARES

 I worked on the background of the other side of the big flower, using some of the fabrics I dyed yesterday.  They are matching pretty good.

BACK TO THE BIG FLOWER

 I'm feeling better about putting the little squares around the big flower.  So, it was back to work.  I realized I had to have a plan for the grid of squares, which means I had to draw those lines on the pattern, so they would appear to line up anyway.

After doing that, I went ahead and started sewing some of the squares together.  

I also put wax dots on the 'yellowish' fabrics I dyed yesterday and then over-dyed with a light green in an attempt to replicate the fabric around the spikey parts of the big flower.

Instead of dyeing in a baggie, I just laid the fabric out on my plastic covered table and poured the dyes over them.  This will give an interesting look with 'bubbles'.  

BACKGROUND SQUARES

 Taking the advice I received at yesterday's meeting with Irene Roderick's workshop group, I cut some of my hand-dyed fabrics into 2-1/2" squares and put them up to see how it looked.

I'm not thrilled, but it is heading in the right direction.  

I need to make more of that light yellow-green fabric that's around the spikey parts to make the transition between the different fabrics less stark.