The Big Move

 

2020 was a big year for me. Retirement, Covid, lost a sibling, & our fur-baby kitty, & preparing for the big move to the south.

It was always part of our plan, but it was surreal now that it's all happening. We sold our beloved cabin in Alaska, & have made the big move to Knoxville, TN. We are momentarily in limbo, waiting to close on a house, hoping to make it a home. Staying with daughter-in-law, & son #1 while we wait. 

I continue to call myself a quilter, & hope to get back to quilting & posting regularly once we are in our new home. I sold my longarm with my Alaska home, & have bought a Bernina Q20 with the hydraulic table, but she still resides at the dealer, until I can get her moved in too. In the meantime, I have been hand sewing flowers for a quilt that was the last one quilted on Lily, my former longarm machine.

I miss all of our Alaska family, though I still get to Zoom with my Calendar Girls (the one advantage to Covid). 

My grand bunny is really funny, & I'm enjoying the grand daughters too.

Anchorage Log Cabin Quilt Show 2017

I can't take any credit for helping to hang our show this year. I decided to be kind to my new knee & just enjoy the show. I spent a few hours there today, & snapped a few photos of just a small sample of the quilts.

This 1st struck me as familiar, then I realized I had quilted it. It's a comfort quilt & is being offered for sale. Money will go to whichever charity the purchaser chooses.

Robyn Maas made this yummy log cabin quilt.

Rainbow Birches by Veronica Haberthuer (her own design).

This Judy Niemeyer design was pieced by Jane Ferguson, & quilted by Joann Gruber

Barbara Clinton credited Rayna Gillman's technique, using some block she had received from Japan. She called it "What If...?"

George Taylor said he started this in 1976, & had put some hand quilting into it. He moved & it was set aside for years. One day he decided to take out all of his hand quilting, & had Joann Gruber machine quilted it for him. It only took 41 years! I LOVE it George!

Here's another that I fell in love with. My friend Linda Postlethwait made it. We talked yesterday about how different our styles are, & how we each love what the other does. Linda made this from re-purposed men's shirts that she got from Salvation Army for their Transformed Treasures challenge. The pattern is Kim Bracketts "Windmills", but Linda added the center appliqued circles & turned it into "Whirligig".

Rena Brinker did this set of circles for our Oxymoron  challenge. "Larger half- or Orange is the new Black"

There is always an over achiever in every challenge! Sharon DeBoer was it in our Roosting Robin. She doesn't even live in Alaska any more, but followed along in her home in Oregon (I think-correct me if I'm wrong). She & a friend flew up here to do show & tell & delver this quilt.  She made it in memory of her mom Lavonne, who a lot of us knew. She was a fabulous quilter, & Sharon obviously inherited her mom's talent. It started with the butterfly panel in the center-left. It was purchased when shopping with her mom in 1967 at "Caribou's"(no longer operating). Lavonne loved butterflies, & she loved these colors.

Another of my Calendar Girlfriends, Mary Bristol did this for her Roosting Robin. It started with a mola that she bought when she was in Panama.

This next one isn't pretty, but it brought tears to my eyes as I looked at it.  I actually voted for it as one of my viewer's choices. Another Calendar Girl Rena Brinker (again- I love the things Rena does),. Her husband's grandma sewed chainsaw pads on his Old Hickory shirts. She said she couldn't throw the last one away. She added as many of the fabrics (& non-fabrics ) of his life, as she could. She says' "Sure it looks like the dog's breakfast, but life is messy!"

I love that Grandma's handwork is being preserved in this crazy fun way.

Happy Ground Hog Day

It's so nice having a bathtub again, to do things like hang my Avocado dyed fabric. We've been eating a lot of Avocados lately. I love them, & we have been doing the Whole 30 diet. Avocados make me happy, & satisfied, & the pits & peels yield a soft pink dye. It always amazes me the different colors you can get from things. Someone could probably explain the science behind it, but I just like to think of it as magic.

I took a little walk outside this afternoon, & enjoyed the views.

I feel very lucky to live in this beautiful place.

Part 4-Crazy Qult

Back home from our trip to Disneyland & Port Townsend. The following are what progress was made while on vacation. These 3 lacey pieces were painted/dyed before the trip I used most of them on the quilt.

I hit the bead shop in PT & got a few new beads, shown below on the tips of the folded ribbon triangles on the left side of the picture.

Did some silk ribbon roses.

This Dragonfly below, was made from a bit of my own shibori silk hand dyed. I also got the little green triangular beads in PT, & put 5 of them together to make a little flower on the piece of dyed net for more texture.

Lots of buttons from my button jars were used.

I also found this beautiful glass dragonfly button in the same building behind the bead shop is a cool little yarn shop. They had these beautiful Czechoslovakian made glass buttons. Amazing how much money can be spent on such small items.

More buttons,& leftover bits & a ruched flower .

The trip was great, we had a much calmer vacation this time, & I was the only one that caught a travel bug, that lasted about 3 weeks. Doing fine now!

Crazy Quilt Dragonflies-Part 3

In preparation for our vacation trip, I decided to do some more machine stitching on the Dragonfly quilt, then will start embellishing with hand stitches tomorrow as we travel. I'm looking forward to doing the slow stitching. I so rarely find the time. I also have an issue with the thumb joint, that with too much hand work, it gets pretty painful, so I normally limit that sort of thing. Here it is as it looks now, & below are details of the seams that I will stitch & bead.

These last 2 photos are a wire ribbon flower I made, after watching a tutorial on a ribbon flower.

The 1st is the under-side.

I used some inks on it, to color it up a bit.  The tutorial used a smaller ribbon, without the wire, & did 25 petals. I pared this down to 17 petals, as it was tight enough with 17.

It will likely be mid October before I can post again, as I've never figured out how to post from my phone. Have a lovely autumn!

ALCQ Quilt Show 2016 Part 1

I would love to post every picture I snapped at this years show for Anchorage Log Cabin Quilters, but I need to get to bed so I can get up for work in the early morning. I'm just going to share 2 things here.

This first photo is Gail Ramsey. Gail was our featured quilter this year. She is one of my favorites in our guild. She has a great eye for color & design, & a wonderful sense of humor & whimsy in her quilts. I Love everything she does. These are not every quilt she had hanging but about half-2/3? My very favorites are the old cars!

The second thing I wanted to share tonight is that Carol's Quilt won a viewers Choice ribbon.

I promise this is the last time I'll make you look at it! Carl was tickled pink.