Houghton Lake Show

Despite a few organizational glitches and a lack of promotion that produced a small crowd for the vendors, last weekend, spent at the Houghton Lake quilt show, Out of the Box, was a pretty perfect quilt weekend.

I drove up with a friend and stayed in a hotel on the lake that was only minutes away from the show and workshops.

Besides the Debbie Danko quilts, the travelling exhibits of Woman of Biblical Proportions and Men of Biblical Proportions were there, as well as about 100 quilts made by local quilters. I was impressed with how much hand applique, hand piecing and hand quilting I saw in these quilts.

This quilt, Beauty of Milan, is based on a photo of an 19th Century Aubusson carpet and is made entirely by hand.

The description says that it is only the SECOND completed quilt made by it's maker--the first was another show-stopper based on Cinderella--and that she worked on it, off and on, for 14 years. Quilters joke about their forever projects. Here's proof that some forever projects are finished.

For detail photos of the applique, Broderie Perse, trapunto and quilting, as well as the rest of my photos from this show, hop over to my Flickr set, Out of the Box 2006.

Fabric Gardens

One of the nice surprises at the Out of the Box quilt show in Houghton Lake was an exhibit of Debra Danko's wonderful flower quilts. This is a detail from Hibiscus.



I've seen many of these quilts before, but this was, for me, an opportunity to really look beyond the beautiful images and examine the details of the artist's alchemy and how she uses fabric, textile paint and thread (after taking a class with her and with a better understanding of what to look for).

Here is another detail photo, from Yellow Rosebuds.



In a show where few quilts were hung well, it was fantastic to see Danko's Trumpet Lilies hung so that you could see the transparency in the dark chiffon background--at least you could in person.



All my photos from the Fabric Gardens exhibit are featured in the Quilt Show Flickr badge in the side bar. You can also find them in my flickr album, tagged with fabricgardens.

Why We Quilt

This weekend, I went to a small regional quilt show in Houghton Lake, Michigan. The artist statement for this hand pieced, hand appliquéd, hand quilted quilt, made by Connie MacAllister, made me smile.

It said: I made this quilt while waiting for our new house to get done. It helped me keep almost sane. All done by hand in 2003.

Sometimes it's as simple as that, isn't it? Keeping almost sane.

This quilt reminded me of Becky's hand piecers on the Quilting forum--who are currently working on lemoyne stars. I thought they'd appreciate it, so I took a couple detail shots for them.




(Click images for larger versions)

What Kind of Flower Are You?

I am a Snapdragon What Flower Are You?

"Mischief is your middle name, but your first is friend. You are quite the prankster that loves to make other people laugh."

12 times 3 is (not) 48

Last weekend I finally started on my blocks for Kate's half-square-triangle sampler swap. I started with the black and red blocks, so that I could include Kate and Michelle's blocks with the sets of June lotto blocks they won.

Each of the sawtooth square blocks contains 12 HST units and one large one ... I started doing the math and realized I'd be making 260 HSTs by the time I'd finished my blocks for the swap. It was daunting ... so much so that when I started making HSTs for the three red blocks, I multiplied 12 times 3 and came up with 48 ;-)

After recovering from that mistake, I proceeded to sew right side to wrong side when making the pink block, decided I was too distracted and put the blocks away until today.

Things in the studio went smoother today ... and I'm happy to report my new status: 169 HSTs done, 91 HSTs (in blue and neutral) to go.





With each color I find myself saying, I wish I would have decided on this colorway ... these are going to be very pretty quilts, I think.