Luke Haynes at Quiltcon

 A few quilts we were lucky enough to see up close and personal!

Yes more face quilts (total coincidence, I promise, lol)

One of the lectures I was fortunate enough to attend at Quiltcon was The Quilts of Luke Haynes.  What a fun lecture.  I was entertained from beginning to end.  Some of his stories had us all laughing out loud.

Such as his story about the woman who while visiting his studio mentioned that she loved that he didn't worry about matching corners or keeping things square.  The comments were made about a quilt that he had used his newly found tool "the rotary cutter" on.  He took great care in keeping things nice and square.  Her compliment was no compliment at all.  He had a great sense of humor about it. 

I wish I had known more about Luke Haynes the first time I saw him.  He was sitting directly behind me at one of my very first PMQG meetings.  He seemed to have an outgoing personality and jumped up during show and tell to show a couple of his quilts.

The first quilt was his name pieced bigger than life.  The next quilt he showed was his face...again, bigger than life.  Hmmm interesting.  They were cool pieces but my attention quickly turned to a woman showing her pixelated quilt.  The man behind me laughed and quickly offered to let her take a picture of his face for her next quilt.  What?  When someone mentioned having custom fabric made by Spoonflower he again offered to let people take his picture if they wanted to have fabric made with his face.  Huh???  Who is this whipper snapper?  lol

He's freaking LUKE HAYNES, that's who he is!!   And silly me was tired and in a hurry to go home and passed up the opportunity to walk over to a table to look at his work when he offered to show people after the meeting.  Again I thought "Who is this egotistical man"?

Oh silly woman, you missed out. 

About a year later I was looking threw a magazine in a waiting room when I saw a Fossil watch add for...LUKE HAYNES!!  Hey that's the guy who sat behind me....oh my gosh!  Not only have I discovered what an amazing talent he is, I have also found him to have a wonderful personality.  He recognizes his talents yet has a down to earth, friendly, very approachable personality and is happy to share his knowledge with others.   I now see the humor in his offering to let people use his face and his very clever marketing skills.  Yup silly woman indeed!   My sister Carol is 10 years older than me and claims to have lost her wit with age.  Oh dear....is my wit slipping?

 You go Luke!  How fabulous to see a quilter be recognized as the artist they are!

Quiltcon picture overload part1!

Once again I'm behind, lol.  Story of my life.

First off let me just say I loved Quiltcon.   Every single second of it!  I thoroughly enjoyed every lecture I took.  Unfortunately I had to cancel the only class I signed up for because of my flight. 

 Melissa Averinos (judges choice award!)

The quilt show was fabulous and I took a million pictures. Unfortunately I took them all with my phone!  Which I learned in one of my lectures is a huge no no for blogging.  (ok so I really didn't need to learn this...lol...I just really need to get a new camera!)  I'll try to post a few over the next few days (adding the quilters names when I can, please let me know if you know a name I can add to give proper credit.  My system failed me miserably)

So anyone who knows me well knows I haven't been shy about my feelings about faces on quilts.  I found them creepy and plain ole WRONG!  Well the joke is on me now that I made a face quilt for the Bridge challenge. 

I seem to be obsessed with quilted faces!!  I can't get enough of them.  Why?  No clue, they just speak to me.  I like them on the front of quilts, I like them on the backs of quilts, I like them anywhere on a quilt.  Isn't this one fabulous!!

Here's another beauty.  All I can say is WOW!  

Wow, wow, wow

The detail is amazing.  Love the colors and simple quilting.

 One more! (for now, lol)

 Isn't this fun??  If I should ever do a face again I will use a program to generate a pattern.  No more winging it for me.  These are fabulous!

I still find it odd that something I used to loath could make me so happy now.  And here I thought I hated change, lol.  Hmmm maybe I like the pixelated faces and not the printed??  Hmmm...I'll have to think on that some more.

Quiltcon

With Quiltcon right around the corner I've started looking for a light weight bag to carry around.  I usually carry a small purse because of my bad back but I know I'll need something larger for those special treasures often found at quilt shows "wink, wink".  There are so many cute quilted bag patterns out there that I'd love to make, but I would only be able to carry one for a couple hours and I'd be paying the price. 

So here's my solution!  A feed sack bag!  It's light weight, large and lined in the cute fabric I bought at the last Portland Modern Quilt Guild meeting.

It's loaded with Velcro pockets and has plenty of room to spare for treasures!!  It is seriously light weight!  Perfect! 

Mini's

In all honesty when this years PMQG's quilt along was announced I was a little...

I am so not a mini quilt person.  I think I've made 2 in my entire life.  And to be perfectly honest I have wondered why others do.   I'm trying to de-clutter my house this year.  And the thought of mini's sitting in drawers for no reason made me.....

And then I decided to do a search on Pinterest to ...peak my interest.  Oh my gosh the possibilities!  I filled an idea file in minutes.  

Time to start hanging curtain rods on the walls so I can begin hanging pretties.  I need them on the porch, in the hallway and even in the bathrooms...yes the bathrooms.  I could use a tiny mini for my entry table and maybe even a quilted pillow or two.

 Yup, I think it's time to start whipping ups some mini's!!

 How about you?

January PMQG meeting

I had fun from the minute I left my house.  I really hit the jackpot with my carpool ladies.  What a fun and talented group of women to spend time with.  We never seem to run out of things to talk about.

So anyone who knows me knows I joke about being the queen of the nine patch.  No, it's not the only block I make, lol, but lets just say I've made my fair share of them.  I also love chickens!   So when I saw the August 2013 PMQG block of the month I melted!  The block was designed by our own Michelle Freedman of Design Camp.  I became obsessed with assembly line hen making and ended up with enough blocks for at least 4 quilts.   And the scary thing is I'm still not tired of this block!

Michelle was kind enough to take photo's with me.  Very green photos.  This is after editing some of the green out!  I can't wait to see what she comes up with next ....Ok she gave me a little hint and I can tell you I am excited!

 

We stopped at Modern Domestic on the way and I picked up the pile of fat quarter solids on the right.  Other than the green they are not the typical colors I buy.  Although we haven't been given the full details on our next challenge at the Pine Needle my wheels are turning.  I added them to the stack of blues I bought last month.  Boy I hope my idea works with the rules Geri comes up with, lol. 

We had a very entertaining guest speaker, Jessica Darling.  Who just happened to bring a few tables worth of fat quarters and 1 yard cuts.   Mix $2 fat quarters and a room full of quilters and you have a party.  Add lights that turn everything green and you have a very interesting party.  Trying to guess what colors the fabrics really were in green lights was entertaining for sure. 

It's not a resolution

Since I seem to fail miserably at new years resolutions and appear to be improving on challenges, I hereby challenge myself to finish the following UFOs this year!  Apparently some of mine are not official UFO's as I haven't started them.  However if I've spent money to start something I consider it started.  The initial investment has started anyway, lol.  I had 37 at last count, here's the projects that made the cut.

Elf Hats! (You too Carol...you know who you are, lol)

I finally added the borders, it just needs a backing and she's ready to quilt!

 I need to buy pink border fabric and this ones ready to quilt...well actually the blocks need assembled as well, but the backing is ready!

I will be so sad if I don't get to this project from my sisters Teri and Barbara's book.  The dress stands show through some of the dresses (as seen) and I lost interest.  I've decided to move forward and embrace the fact that my dresses need slips. Maybe I will call it "slip-less" or "transparent"... "Naughty"?  lol

The bra.....errrr circle quilt.  My blocks resemble massive bra cups more than circles...must remedy that.  I actually spent an entire sew day trying to reduce the cups only to end up with badly puckered reduction surgery.  Redo!

The inherited blocks from my sister Robin.  These have to be at least 17 -20 years old, but I can't toss them. I'm thinking they may turn into a Christmas tree skirt this year =)

Mr Skelly will be coming out to play for sure!

A cross quilt collection!  We LOVE our one and only king size quilt on our bed.  Which happens to be a cross quilt.   It is in need of a partner ASAP!

This ancient paper piecing kit.  I plan on one block a month, so technically this one probably wont get quilted until 2016. 

Another oldie.  My noodle swap circle quilt from way too long ago.  I got this far on the quilting and decided I wanted the cross hatching at a different angle.  Lets just say I'm not fond of frogging =)

I am determined to work through this stack of project boxes in 2015!!

I will also be joining 2 quilt along/challenges.  That's one finish a month.  I was shooting for 6 total...oops.

Oh and I vow to clean out a few closets... but lets be real, they wont all get cleaned out.  We have 45 drawers in our bedroom closet alone.  (I know this because I recently had to buy 45 new knobs, yikes $) About the only thing I like about my ...er ...hideous 70's bedroom addition is the storage.  Truth be told I am not exactly into clothing shopping so most of it is really odd things to find in a bedroom closet.  Such as Easter and Valentines supplies, gift wrapping and bag drawers, holiday paper supplies and various supplies from hobbies long given up (anyone need a few thousand beads.....floss?).   I saw a sign recently that has helped "If you saw it in a store today, would you spend $ on it".  If it's a "no" it goes!

New theme....Let it go! 

Bob just hanging out at PDX

I am so grateful to friends and customers (whom I consider friends as well)  who have sent me emails and texts with pictures of Bob at the airport. 

 I still haven't seen him in person.  But this just may be more fun. 

I've even received a few giggling phone calls from PDX "Is this your quilt"?  Hmmmm giggling because they saw their friends name on a quilt at the airport or because their friend made a quilt of a head??  Hmmm...lol ???

And even a picture of someone else taking  picture of Bob.  

This made me giggle.

Bridges of Portland

So .... once again I'm a little delinquent posting pictures.  It was so hard to not post these quilts as I quilted them, but I held to the rules of not revealing any quilts until the show.  .......And then I waited another 3-4 months to finally post them, lol.

First up is Betsy''s wonderful Bridge quilt.  I LOVE this quilt.  It's the quilt that inspired me to make a second more colorful quilt.   The color placement is spot on and has great balance.  Do you recognize the bridge?  The little green buildings with red roofs is a dead give away, but for fun I will not list the bridges so you can guess on all the quilts =)

Hanging at the show

Betsy had very distinct quilting ideas for this quilt.  

                                                             And I loved them all!

                                                           Aren't these colors fabulous!!

Next up is Sharon's beauty.

A lot of creativity in a small package.  

                

                               Sharon informed me that her quilt was chosen to hang at PDX!

And then she was informed it didn't fit in the display.

  Ughhh,what a let down.  This quilt was so deserving of being shown.

Next up is Connie's lovely quilt.

Wow, the colors look so different with this camera and light.

It's hard to capture all the little details in Connie's work.  

All the black is piping and the wings are dimensional.  

And finally we have Valri's amazing work of art.

I can't even comprehend how she kept those diagonal lines straight.  

Obviously a skill I have yet to master.

The fabrics were fun!!

Check out the backing!

The color gradation and simple lines make for one fabulous piece.