Just a few more pictures

I couldn't figure out how to get these final pictures of quilts at the end of my last post so I had to make one more. The Walrus quilt is just another marvelous example of a pictorial quilt. It is done completely in fabric. The quilt with the circles was another surprising technique. Other than the background white fabric there is no other fabric in this quilt. Everything is painted! Unbelievable! It was also very heavily quilted around each of the motifs. Finally here I have a picture of a very traditional "Dear Jane" quilt. Just to show that yes there were traditional ones at the show. This one caught my attention because I have a "Dear Jane" quilt started. Will I ever finish it? I certainly hope so, those are all 4 inch square blocks and note there are lots of them! Color, fabrics, Creativity! Everything was found at this show and I loved it. Some day I hope to be able to attend another show of this magnitude.

Nashville Trip Wrapped Up

This is the final installment on my trip to Nashville. The picture here is actually a quilt, but I can see a card image here as well. I really loved this. It's not necessarily something I would quilt, but it was so beautifully done that I spent a lot of time just looking at it and imagining how it what done. I will never quilt something like this, but I think I will play around with stamping techniques and come up with a card design.

Many of the quilts at this show were pictorial rather than what most people would consider "a quilt". The techniques used were amazing. I wish I had such creativity and talent. I did pick up a lot of ideas however and was greatly inspired to stretch what I do. This insiration was aided by several of the "make and take" workshops that Mary Moore and I took which taught us how to create appliques with man made fabrics and a heated stencil wand, how to paint on fabric and even how to create our own fabric using yarns and threads. Then also several vendors showed us how to color fabrics with crayons and embelish using crystals, which was something I learned about on one of the quilting cruises mom and I took. I wish I could spend most of my days just creating beautiful items like I saw on the trip.

Nashville 2

Here are some views from the Gaylord Resort. It is definitely a beautiful place to stay and it is very relaxing. Not only are the gardens wonderful and the sound of the water calming, but there is very nice unimposing music in the background. I had to continually remind myself that I was indoors.

Now I must be truthful; the picture of the balconies are guest rooms, but they weren't where we stayed. Those are what I called the high rent district rooms. I will only ever stay in rooms with that type of a view in my dreams. Our room, though in the "low rent" district was very nice. Very spacious for the two of us and we did have a pleasant view out over an outdoor court yard. At least we weren't overlooking a parking lot. But we were in our room so little it really didn't matter.

Mary Moore and I did eat at the Cascades Restaurant which is shown here in a picture. We had a very tasty sushi appetizer. The restaurants are very good and they really cover the complete range from Chic-Fillet to the very formal Old Hickory Steakhouse. We ate at neither of these; one too casual the other way to expensive. We did have a very good meal at Finnigan's which is an Irish Pub. I wanted to go to Jack Daniel's on Friday before our flight out but it didn't open in time.

Well so much for the hotel. If you want to know more about it click on Nashville 2 title. Next posting will be more about the show including some stamping ideas I came away with.

Nashville Trip

Well I am back from my trip to Nashville to see my quilt. For the next few posts this blog will deal more with my kwiltin than my stampin. Though I did pick up some stampin of fabric tips on this trip, but more on that later.

This was a wonderful trip in many aspects. Of course it goes without saying that it was a thrill to see my quilt hanging in a National Quilt Show. It was also very humbling as the quilting skill level and creativity represented by the quilts at this show was phenomenal! It was also wonderful to spend a few days with quilting friends and sharing this experience with them. Once again I was very impressed with the friendliness and helpfulness of quilters. Though most people I encountered on this trip were strangers to me they were all so friendly and willing to help with advice for seeing the show or hints on how to reproduce something we were looking at together.

Mary Moore, my travel companion for this trip, and I headed off on out adventure at 5:30am on Wednesday morning. We flew into Nashville via Southwest Airlines and were checked into our room at the Gaylord Opryland Resort by 10am. It was then off to explore the show for a few hours before the awards program. I must report that our guild did not receive an official placing award, but being there was reward enough for me. There were only 19 guilds from around the country that had quilts accepted for the Guild competion so I think we did very well.
The pictures at the beginning of this posting show our entry into the show, our group of four who attended the show and me with my quilt.

Its time for me to head off to work so more on the show and my experiences later. If you would like to view the winners of the competions at this show click onto the title if this blog posting. It will link you to the AQS web site where theyare posted. See ya later!

It's County Fair Time!

No time for stampin or kwiltin this week it's the week of the Montgomery County Fair. That means I'm real busy between volunteering with 4-H and helping out in the fair office. I did get a few things entered into the fair last week and did pretty well in the ribbon department. I entered 8 things between Home Arts and Arts & Crafts and all 8 received ribbons. My card that I entered in Arts & Crafts took 3rd place. It was the first card I posted here on my blog. If anyone reads this and is interested you can see it by going to my June archives. It is the Faith Card. I also received a 2nd place ribbon for a framed picture I stamped. Pretty much everything else was a sewn item. It's nice to know that ones work merits someone elses praise and recognition.

Back to Stampin'

Two more projects using the Nature Prints stamp set. The "Memories" book I can take full credit for. I've been wanting to alter a school composition book for some time now and finally got around to doing it. It was really fun to do, but there is one caution. After I had the whole thing finished I openned the book and discovered that I had put the cover design on the book upside down. Since I used sticky tape (which is very well named!) I couldn't just remove the cover paper and turn it around. I was able to remove all the taped on cover articles. Since I had stamped directly on the cover I had to sticky tape a new cover sheet on. This then became to back of the book. I then Carefully retaped and stamped the front right side up this time!

The Happy Birthday card I cannot take credit for. I CASED it from the Stampers Showcase on the SU demonstrator web site. It was designed by Adele Heffern. I was intrigued by her method of making the wooden wall behind the trophy fish and wanted to see how it would really turn out. I LOVE IT! The wood grain backgroound was created by taking a piece of Creamy Carmel card stock and swiping the edge of the Whisper White craft ink pad over from top to bottom. After it has dried you then go over it again in the same manner but with a Creamy Carmel craft pad. when that has dried you mark the lines for the boards and dots for the nails. It turned out better that I had even imagined and it is so perfect for this card. Thank you Adele.

Kwiltin' this time round

Well I have been productive today and it felt so good. I did get some stamping done, but it was related to a swap I was in and was only stamping 28 images of the letter X. So not too creative, but my three letters (I also did O & Q) are done and they are in the mail. I also spent some time packaging up card kits for the StampFest I am involved in on Saturday. I think this may be the last one I do as I just don't have any customers or friends to get there and it's alot of work and expense to be providing projects for other peoples customers. Unfortunately I do enjoy doing them because I like teaching, but I keep loosing money on them so they don't make sence for right now.

My real work today came in the sewing room and here are two of the projects I did. They are both paper pieced and a lot of fun. The flower block is only two inches square and I did two others like it. They are for a challenge sent out by Carol Doak for her Yahoo group on Paper Piecing. I also made five little basket blocks for our 2008 guild raffle quilt. I LOVE DAYS OFF FROM WORK! Unfortunatly today I need to go back to work so won't get much done. Though at least there today I have the Secret Shop Craft workshop so I will get some crafting in today!

Lack of Creativity is a Sad State

Boy after a flurry of activity on Sunday I have been a real slug! With a friends help I did get 100 small party type favors done for the Chrysalis weekend, but I can't say that they used any amount of creativity I simply used my tag punch and the Yum Yum tag stamp and a verse stamp both of which are retired SU stamps and adhered them to a Hersheys nugget. They did look cute. But I was glad when they were done. Hopefully tonight it will be cool enough to work up in my stamp room. It's been way too hot this week. Close to or over 100 almost every day. I need to get some projects designed for next Saturdays Stampfest and whould like to get some entries for our county fair done as well. It sure would be nice if I could make this weekeknd a 4 day weekend, but since I can't I'll just have to get off my butt and move twice as fast.