Is It Wednesday Again?

Last week we were vending at the Shipshewana Quilt Festival so I wasn't home to take photos of my design wall.  Not that it mattered, it was empty!  This week, I have another excuse. 

We have short house guests that are demanding all of our attention.  This is Grant and Madeline our grandkids, otherwise known as "the Twins".  They are staying with us for 10 days to give their Mom and Dad the chance to do a few things around the house without interuption.  Trust me, these two specialize in interuptions, but they are still the most adorable things on the planet even if I won't get any sewing done while they are here.  I think you will forgive me for not sharring my design wall when you see the photos of the Shipshewana show that I have for you.

The Shipshewana show was spectacular!  Yes, all quilt shows are wonderful, but the workmanship on display in this particular show, this particular year was breathtaking! 

In no particular order:

I posted the detail shot of this hand applique, hand quilted piece on The Quilt Company Facebook page while we were there.  It generated several comments and requests to see the whole quilt, so I'm showing you both.  By the way - this quilt took a SECOND place.  Those two ladies were doing their best not to get caught sneaking a peek at the back of the binding.

This quilt wasn't a top ribbon winner either, but it should have been as far as I was concerned!  The color and workmanship in the border is absolutely beautiful.  I dream of something like this being on my design wall!  

My appoligies for the poorly cropped photo, but this border and setting triangle shot was really what I wanted to share.

The quilter gave credit to an applique book for the border inspiration, but I didn't jot it down.  The only way I would be able to accomplish that border is by machine!

This was the blue ribbon winner. Baltimore Album done to perfection. 

Not all the quilts were traditional.  These were a few of my favorites:

The woman that made this one did a little shopping in our booth.  This New York Beauty was her FIRST quilt!

This is called Bali High and the photo does not do it justice.  It is made in silk and batiks.  The green background actually shades from light to dark.  Here is a detail photo of the quilting - all done in metalic threads!

Now do you really care what is on my design wall this week?



Design Wall Wednesday

Apparently all of the kinks are not out of the system.  The following should have shown up yesterday.  I'm not sure what happened, but there is NO WAY that it was operator error.  You believe me, don't you?

Here it is, the first of my Design Wall Wednesday posts. I'm hoping that you will be inspired, but I'm hoping even more that you will share with me what you have on your design wall - or floor - or table - or shoved in your tote bag. Comments are great, but photos are even better! If you aren't sure how to post a photo (I feel your pain), email it to me at karen@thequiltcompany.com.

While you are at it, if you have used any of my patterns to make a project, email me a photo of those too. I would love to post them on our shop Facebook page. Other Facebook friends LOVE seeing your version of the patterns - so share! Don't forget to friend The Quilt Company on Facebook while you are there. You will hear from me more often! Be proud of what you have done!

It's been a zingy spring! I had to finish this batik project that I started last January at Kaye England's Florida seminar in time for Quilt Market in May. This was a fun quilt to make. I had no idea what I was making when I started the blocks. The goal was to work with Kaye's Half Rectangle and Bias Triangle rulers, otherwise known as Peaky and Spike. I've named it "Oh Kaye". I love the way this one finished up - but I am going to spare you the photos of all of the discarded border ideas! This quilt is off being photographed for the gallery section of Kaye's new book that is due out in July.

This one will be in the book too! After "Oh Kaye" was delivered to Kaye at Market she told me that she wanted this one too. I had finished the center section at the seminar, but it still needed borders, backing, quilting and binding. Not wanting to abuse my favorite long arm quilter any more than necessary, I decided to quilt this one myself on the BERNINA 830. To avoid having light thread in the dark areas and dark in the light areas I drew a "loopy" design that fits right in the stars on the computer, digitized it using the BERNINA Version 6 software and quilted it in the Jumbo Hoop! There is a reason that our store tag line is "It's all in having the right tools!"

The first weekend of June was the last class in our First Friday/Saturday Club. This is our version of the $5 quilt. Participants paid $5 for the first block. If they made the block and returned the following month they got the next block for free. They could make each of the 9 squares for $5 just by doing their homework. I'm not sure that anyone expected the quilt to look like this when they were finished! I love it! We used the Quick Trim ruler that I designed for Creative Grids to make the $5 blocks into circles that were then mounted to squares. Once again, not hard at all when you have the right tools!

Then there was the Shop Hop quilt for the Western PA Shop Hop that starts next week. This is my version of what you can do with the patterns for the buildings that everyone will collect as they hop around town. We will be providing the assembly instructions for free to all hoppers, but you have to collect the building patterns from the 10 participating shops!

That brings you up to date!

Back In The Blog

I've been in blog limbo.

My account was hacked, proving that they are correct when they say you shouldn't use your phone number as your password. Not that it made any difference. It isn't like having free reign on my blog would give you access to my financial accounts.

.... it just dawned on me that I am not sure if I have access to all of my financial accounts. My husband takes care of all of that, both personal and for the business. For years I dealt with all of our day-to-day financial issues, to the point of frustration. In the midst of creating the business, building the building, working and raising kids, he told me to "just deal with it". I did. I put everything that was paid off, things that we owned outright and all of our bank accounts in my name. Everything that had a mortgage or a payment plan went into his. Now he takes care of it.

 

Back to the blog lapse. I had planned to start what I will call "Design Wall Wednesday" here on the blog. I know that some people do "Wordless Wednesdays", but I think that is just a cop-out because they don't want to write something. My plan was to show you what is on my design wall each Wednesday and tell you what I am working on. Don't worry, I have 3 design walls, so there is always something cool happening on at least one of them. Anyway, that was the plan.

Quilt Market happened, speaking engagements were tended to.  Then I was distracted when Facebook made some changes. As a tech looser, I can only deal with a certain amount of social media upkeep in one day. Our shop had a page and a place and friends and business associates are all intermingled with my personal page. My husband decided that he needed a page, but not his own, he just wanted to be able to access the photos of the grandkids without having to wait for me to show them to him. Now his high school class is planning a reunion and he wants his page changed to be only his, and he has no idea how to do anything social media related. And The Quilt Company page needs constant attention

Exactly when did I become an IT person? I have no recollection of applying for that job.

 

In the midst of it all I have to admit that I forgot my new blog password. Has that ever happened to you? Honestly, has that ever NOT happened to you? If you answer yes to that question, your password is probably your phone number... or you are under 30.

Forgetting your password normally wouldn't be a problem, if you ask they will email it to you. If you know your email address. Who in the world forgets their email address? Especially when it is your name, followed by the business that you own, as in Karen@thequiltcompany.com. Obviously I wouldn't forget that. Unfortunately that isn't the primary address on my blogger account. I had to have a hotmail account to set up the blog years ago. THAT was the email I forgot. As I remember it was one of those frustrating exchanges that went something like this:

USER NAME: Karen
unavailable


USER NAME: KarenMontgomery
unavailable


USER NAME: Karenquilts
unavailable


USER NAME: Karen4879532
unavailable


USER NAME: KMontgomery
unavailable


USER NAME: KMontgomery9532
unavailable


USER NAME: Karensayssew
unavailable


USER NAME: Ohgoodgodhowmanykarenscouldtherebe
unavailable


USER NAME: picklerelish
thank you, your user name has been saved.

Huh? What had I typed? I don't think I typed picklerelish. Or maybe I had. It could have been any of a million things that popped into my head in frustration. And I can only assume that they emailed my forgotten password to that cyberspace account each and every time I asked them to send it and I thought it hadn't arrived.
 

But I'm back now, and everything is safe and secure. I'm using an old phone number, nobody will ever guess.

See you Wednesday!