ROAD 2 CA WINNER

I was pleasantly surprised today to find out my quilt, Carolinas, was awarded "Best Use of Color" in the Road to California Quilt Show and Conference 2020.  It's held in Ontario California, so we didn't attend.  My friend, Kim, who was working at the A-1 booth, sent me these pictures.

P.S. the award comes with a $1000 prize.  Yoo-hoo!

Here's a link to all of the winners.

PEARS AND RIBBONS

I picked up my quilts from the Puyallup Fair today.  I was pleasantly surprised they both had ribbons.

"Carolinas" won first in Small Quilts Original Design and an Award of Merit for Quilting.  Woo-hoo.

"Trinkets Six" won a third place in Large Quilts.  

PICTURES TAKEN

Darrell was kind enough to take the photos I need of my quilts for the application for Quiltcon.

ON SALE

It was pouring buckets of rain this morning.  The dogs actually refused to go for a walk.  I went by myself and got soaked.

When I got back, I took the Carolinas quilt off the machine.

Then, I couldn't help myself.  There is a great sale going on Berninas and it ends today.  I drove down to the Federal Way Quality Sewing and Vacuums and test drove a few of the Bernina models.  I had done a lot of research beforehand, and I think my mind was already made up on the B770QE Anniversary model.  It comes with a lot of goodies.

I had to go back to the Tukwila store, where the warehouse is, to actually pick everything up.  It all barely fit into my car.

Darrell took all of the  boxes upstairs for me.  But I didn't open them.  I wanted to get the binding on the Carolinas quilt first.  It's the last job for my beloved 1230.

QUILTING DONE

YEA!  I finished the quilting on the Carolinas quilt.  I've got until next Friday to get it completely finished and pictures taken to be able to submit it to Quiltcon.  I think I'll make it.

A DAY FOR A WALK

We all needed a good walk after this last week.  But it was pouring buckets of rain most of the night and into the morning.  The dogs wouldn't even stick a nose outside.  

I went upstairs and started working on the Carolinas quilt.  After about an hour and a half, the rain subsided.  We quickly gathered up our leashes and headed to Lincoln Park.  

The clouds parted and the sun came out.  It was beautiful.

I got back to work on  the quilt afterwards.  I finished the fourth row and did one block on the fifth and last row.  

SECOND ROW DONE

I've got the first and second row quilted.  And, I've started on the third row.

Coming along.

QUILTING IT

I loaded the Carolinas quilt onto Eduard yesterday.  It was all ready to go.  Machine cleaned and oiled and greased.  Back put on with two batts - a Dream Cotton Select with Hobbs 80/20 on top, then the top was loaded and basted down.

I'm using Aurifil 50 wt thread, a light grey, on the front and back.

Today I got three of the blocks quilted.  I have decided to do something simple yet hand done.  Basically, I'm going to mimic one of the lines of the block and do parallel lines about a half inch apart.  I'm pulling the threads up, knotting them and burying them into the quilt (instead of doing a tie-off stitch).  This is time-consuming.

Wish me luck.

MAKING THE BACK

I was looking for fabric for the backing.  I called around.  Gossypium wasn't open on Sunday and I really don't want to drive out there.  I called Running Stitches in Kent.  The gal working there suggested that she take some pictures and text them to me.  Great idea.  I saw some fabric that I thought might work.  Darrell and I went down there and I got three fabrics I liked.

I made the label and sewed everything together.

CHANGE UP

I started moving the blocks around.

I added more color to the Corn block:

Okay, I think I'm ready to sew it all together.

THE LAST OF THE BLOCKS

I finished up with the last few blocks.

This is the Charleston House block:

 From this picture.  What's interesting about this type of house was the outside door on the street.  If it was closed, it meant they were not up to company.  If it was open, it meant the mistress was accepting visitors.  

Then, I was satisfied with the colors of the Bridge block, so I sewed it together.

 This is the Ravenel Bridge in Charleston.

MULTI ROUTER BLOCK

Okay, I finished the Multi-router block.

Here is my original drawing:

HOSES

I was concerned about making this block.  It looks very difficult.  That's one of the reasons I put it off until almost the last one to do.  But, once I started looking at how to make it, it turned out to be not that tough - other than the little circles.    So I jumped into the hoses first.

They were a lot easier than I thought.

The next part would be more difficult.  These little half circles....

Well, that didn't work.  I had to pick it out.  Too many pins doesn't allow it to turn evenly.  I cut out all of the little circles and took them into the house so I could hand sew them in the morning.

STORAGE UNIT

Another block - made from a photo I took in Greenville, SC at the Lorraine Machine Shop.  Darrell wanted to stop there to meet the owner, Jerry.  Darrell has been a distributor of his multi-routers for years now.  

That's a multi-router there on the table behind Darrell.  Instead of interpreting the photo, I choose to do just a portion.  Behind them is that storage bin.  I drew just a corner of it.  

All straight lines with a few y-seams.  But, it had a lot of little pieces.  

Fun.

MORE BLOCKS DONE

I'm still putting together some of the Carolinas blocks.

I had already cut out the pieces and had them on the wall.  Since I've decided I'm happy with them, I'm sewing them together.  I'm not sure if this is procrastinating making the next few or what.

The Tower block.

Fashioned after a Tower at Biltmore in Asheville NC

I was really excited to sew this next on together.  It has curves and ends up being a circle.  Very cool.  I'm glad I left it unfinished for a while, because I ended up changing the color of the melon.  It looks better now.

Porcupined melon.

Very slow and careful stitching.

The finished melon part.

The Dome block

The inner dome at the capital building in Columbia SC.

The next block is a close-up one of the lamps outside the main  entrance to the Biltmore Estate in Asheville NC.  I love how all of the points came together and the y-seams worked!  That doesn't always happen for me.

A close-up - look at those points!

The Lamp block.

The actual lamp.

The main entrance to Biltmore, with the lamps on the sides.

Then it was the Stairs block. 

The Stairs block.

The stairs at the Nathan Russell house in Charleston SC.

And finally, the block that has been bothering me.  Here it is after I changed alot of the colors.

I'm hesitant to say what this one is fashioned after, but what the heck.  It's the back end of the harness and Rowdy's tail.  

Come on Mom!  No more sewing - let's go to the park!