SFQ 2012 Challenge

I finally got my photos cropped and resized for my blog and without further ado here are all the quilts I was allowed to take photos of  at my Guild Quilt Challenge.

The theme for 2012 was "Quilting in the Carolina's"

This quilt was made by Lorene and won first place for "Best Use of Theme.

There were a total of 41 quilts turned in to the challenge.

They ranged in size from miniature to King size.

Ribbons were awared in several categories.  

As a guild we decide the winners by secret ballot.

Those who attend the show walk around and look at all the quilts.

Then we write down who we think should win for each category.

The votes are then tallied and ribbons awarded.

This quilt by Harriet won second place for "Best Applique" Unfortunately my camera picked up some bad lighting and totally distorted the beautiful blues in this quilt.  It was very beautiful in person.

Lots of beautiful wall Hangings.

This one was turned in by Donna.  You can see more about it here.

Beth turned in this quilt and it won 1rst for "Best Piecing"

Ginny's first ever entry.

This one was done by Elaine H.. It is HUGE and is all hand quilted.

This one was turned in by Lucy.  It won 2nd place for "Best Machine Quilting"

Gloria did the quilting.

This won the  "Best first ever entry" that was presented by the president of the South Carolina Quilter's Guild.

This humongous quilt took home two ribbons.  1rst for "Hand Quilting, and 2nd for "Best Art Quilt"

Martha turned in this one.  She took home 2nd place for "Best Piecing"  Tomorrow I will post more pictures of this quilt.  It was one of the ones I quilted but wasn't able to show till after this show.

Lovely Applique flowers by Alice.

More lovely wall hangings.

I love how the batik fabric makes perfect swampy trees.

and Elaine T.'s quilting added a lot more to look at.

Peggy made this stunning crazy quilt.  The white dots on the background are actually stiny sea shells.
You can also faintly see the hand quilted images in between the shells.

More lovely Art Quilts.

Rita T. turned in this beauty.  It took home three ribbons:  "Best of Show', 1rst for "Best Art Quilt", and 2nd for "Best use of Theme"

Mine again.  :)

This one by Susan took home two 1rst place ribbons.  "Best Applique" and "Best Machine Quilting"

Tish added some embroidered labels since I last saw this one.

This is also Tish's.  She took the same mariner's compass class that I did and she put her quilt in a glass box with some beach sand and some ocean themed statues.

Very nice work done by Karen K.

Akemi won 2nd place for "Best Handquilting" with her feed sack quilt.

Another nice Applique by Peggy.

And we end the show with Sara's Turning Twenty.

It was fun to see everyone's quilts! It was a fun morning spent at the Museum.

Hope you didn't feel too bombarded with so many photos, but since the show was fairly small compare to big quilt shows I felt like I could show every quilt and not take up too much space.

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Suessical Jr.

Whoops, how did yesterday get away from me? I had planned on posting about my guild challenge. Instead I spent the day getting things ready for the kids opening night of Suessical Jr.  The play is being put on by our community theater.  I spent the day making sure everything was ready for opening night and the after party.  The kids sure did a great job at the show. I wasn't allowed to take photos during the play, but here are a few I took during practice.

My son is in the white shirt, he plays JoJo, and my other Son, in the top hat, plays Mr. Mayor.
They are singing about how tiny Whoville is.

My daughter is the 5th girl from the left. All the girls in pink are "Bird Girls"

Here they are again singing around Horton the Elephant.

It is so fun to be a part of a production like this.  The kids have spent three months practicing and learning all their lines.  They have two more shows this weekend.  I will be sad when it is over.  It is fun to have them sing around the house and bring the joy of the play home with them.
I can't wait till they do another one just with kids!

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My Guild Challenge Entry

Today was my Guild's quilt challenge reveal at the Hartsville Museum.
There were lots of great quilts submitted and I will post more of those tomorrow.

For now I will show you the quilt I submitted.   

 The theme was "Quilting in the Carolina's".

 I had a hard time coming up with something to fit the theme. 

I finally decided to use my Lithia Park quilt since I worked on it in both NC and SC.

 I worked on English paper piecing the flowers and appliqueing them down as I traveled, visiting relatives in NC and SC.  I figured that would fit the theme literally.

I impressed myself with my cute little applique circles.

That was the first time I hand appliqued circles.

 I quilted the border with some inspiration from Sew Kind of Wonderful.

  I moved out front to the sunshine to try and pick up some more of the quilting details.

Here it is hanging in the museum.  It is one of the first quilts you see as you come in the door.

Now I need to start thinking about next years show.  The theme for that one is

"America the beautiful: My home sweet home."

I have no clue what to do for that one but I want to come up with something wowing for next year so I better get crackin.

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Back to Quilting Shirts

After finishing up Mr Mayor I started the quilting on Shirt Quilt #3. I finished it up and put the binding on yesterday morning.  I wanted to take a photo yesterday, but it was raining all day. I thought it was going to rain again all day toady too, but the sun finally came out this afternoon.

I did some big loops in each of the 4 patches.  The single patch got some smaller loops.

I did some meandering in the white sections and then wondered if I should have done something a little more fancy. But then I turned the quilt to the back and realized the meandering is perfect.

I love the back and how it looks like a totally different quilting design than it does from the front.

This makes three of the 6 shirt quilts finished.  And to give myself some extra work, I started a 7th top this morning.  I had enough squares to make 35 pinwheel blocks.  When I get further along on those I will post photos.

This makes finish #14 for the year.

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Mr. Mayor

This week I was working on a costume for my oldest son.
He is playing Mr. Mayor in the play Suessical Jr.
   The play is being put on by the Lake City Community Theater.

Dress rehearsals were this after noon and I finished up the last stitch on his bow tie this morning.

My youngest is also in the play.
He plays JoJo.  I didn't have to do much for his costume.
I found some white pants and white shoes and we died them yellow.
The LCCT provided his bow tie.

My daughter is also in it.  She is a Bird Girl.  Her dress was provided too. All I had to do was alter it to fit.  It was a little too big and kept falling off the shoulder.  We also added some extra boas to the back for some "feathers".  I snapped this shot as we headed out the door to play practice.

I stayed to watch the whole show at practice today.  That was my first time seeing the play from beginning to end. All the actors looked great in their costumes.  They have dress rehearsals all week, and tomorrow characters get fitted for microphones.  The play starts Friday June 8th and has a show on Saturday and Sunday.   Both Mr. Mayor and JoJo have a couple solos.  I am very excited. 

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AYOS for May - Doc Top Done

I finished my Doc top Tuesday evening, but it rained all day yesterday so I didn't get a chance to take a photo of it till today.  I really like the way this one turned out.  I have always wanted to make a Card Trick quilt and now I have one.  Thanks Sinta and Sherri for giving me the "umph" I need to get these projects done and to use up the fabric I keep buying.  :)  Can't wait for the parade tomorrow.

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Doc in the Works

I made some good progress on my May Schnibbles project, Doc, yesterday evening.
I have all my half square triangles cut out and trimmed and all my fabrics matched up.
I even made the first block.  Only 8 more to go.  I feel like the rest will go together lickety split.

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Faceted Jewels Top Complete

All of my sewing this week has been spent finishing up my Faceted Jewels Quilt.  I didn't take pictures of the progress this week because I didn't want to bore you all with the same quilt pretty much over and over, sewing a block together and then a row together isn't too exciting.  But the top is all finished now and I took it outside this morning to get a full shot of it.  There is 2192 pieces in this top.  All but the white were individually cut from my scraps.  I am so in love with this quilt.  I have admired it on Cupcakes and Daisies blog for a long time and wanted to have one of my very own and now I finally do. Well at least the top part.  :)

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May FNSI

I spent my FNSI working on my Faceted Jewel quilt.  I now have all the blocks sewn together and the two rows on the right sewn together.  I also have the first border, which is 1/3 of the original blocks, sewn on to each block.

I laid out the second row border to get a feel for the completed circles.  I still have to make some more geese for that border though but I didn't have enough wings (I guess they are called wings) for those geese  so I cut out some more this morning.

Everything is coming together slowly but surely for this one.  I could be going faster, but I keep picking out my stitches to fix the points I cut off while sewing.  I have heard the quote, "If you can't see it from a galloping horse it is fine."  But I don't ride horses so I have to fix my points.  :)

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May Schnibble Project

There hasn't been much sewing going on the past two days, but I did get my fabrics picked out for my May AYOS.  I will be working with two charm packs of Friendship by moda.  

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15 Blocks to Go

I got all the "54 40 or Fight" blocks sew together over the weekend.  Then I laid out the alternating blocks on the design wall and have a total of 3 of them sewn together.  This is suppose to be a scrappy quilt, but I have a fear if I just grab colors out of the pile I will end up with the bottom corner of the quilt being all blue.  So I organize it before I sew it all together. I call it my controlled scrappy look.

When laying it all out I realized I am short one Goose.  I either lost it when I was shifting stuff around, or I miss counted when I cut and sewed them all out a while ago.

Here is the full version of my design wall.  I LOVE IT!!  I had been taping a flannel backed table cloth on the french doors, but I kept having to take it down for various reasons.  So I built this design wall.  It is made from two blue insulation boards that I got from Lowes.  I trimmed them down and taped them together with white duct tape to create a wall that measures  6' 8"  x 7'.   Then I put some warm and white batting on top of it, wrapped it around to the back and taped it on.   It is light weight for good portability yet stable enough to hold up all my fabric.  I love it!

Behind the design wall is my shelf of fabrics and my daughter's sewing machine, which she doesn't use (I still have hope that she will get it out and want to sew something again one of these days). To the left, which you can't see, is my sewing machine and computer.  I must admit I spend most of my day in this part of the house.  And now that our TV is broken, thanks to some rowdy boys, the kids spend most of their time in here too.  I must say, it is a nice place to be.  :)

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