Sea of Quilts 2008

Well, it's all over, the show is done, packed away and everyone has gone home. It was fun, exhausting, and exhilarating all at once! There were some fabulous quilts there, it's amazing to see the scope of machine quilting people are doing on their own. Our Best of Show was a lovely applique quilt that was machine quilted by the quilter on a Gammil longarm machine.

This is a close up of the wonderful quilting, close stippling and a feather wreath that looks like trapunto.This is one of my favorites - Christmas pickle! It's a beautiful quilt all done in batiks. It was professionally quilted, but the piecing is what stood out on this quilt.
Last, but not least, this is the cute pincushion that I am teaching as a free class at the quilt shop on Oct. 11. I made several samples and this one will be given as a door prize at the Quiltsy Trunk Show tomorrow night. Look for Quiltsy Trunk Show and click on the link to take you into the room. Not sure if you have to be a registered buyer on Etsy, so it would probably be a good idea to join first. You can find the shops that are participating by searching for sewso under tags and titles. Good luck, and hopefully we'll see you there tomorrow afternoon/evening!

Setting up the Quilt Show

Today was the day to set up for Coos Sand 'N Sea Show - A Sea of Quilts. Our show takes place at the Boys and Girls Club. They have a nice large gym there that is great for the show, and we are able to store our stands there also. Instead of actually posting all the pictures here, I'll just put a couple. You can see the rest on my Flickr page.

The day starts with bringing up all the stands, sheets, clips, and other supplies from the basement storage area. Unfortunately, it's a pretty dusty and dirty storage, so things need to be wiped down and cleaned. The sheets need to be pressed, and the stands arranged in a grid. Everything needs to be exactly in the right place to be sturdy, so it takes a bit of time and care to be sure that it's just right. Then the uprights go in the stands, and the crossbeams attach to them.

We hang sheets to back the quilts, then the quilts go up! There are some beautiful quilts this year! Tomorrow there will be public voting, then on Sunday the ribbons will go up! I'm excited to see who wins - I didn't enter anything this year, so at least I don't have to be wondering if it's me!

There's also a great vendors area, so I'll take some pictures of that tomorrow, too. It's all part of the big Fun Festival that the town puts on every year. Fun for everyone!

Messy or Creative?

Looks lovely, doesn't it? Excuse my mess, and actually this is the cleaned up version of the mess! I don't know if I could even function in a fully clean and organized situation, but it is one of those things I might like to try someday!

This is my cutting table. It is covered with things that I need to work on this week. My plan for the day is to sew my way through these piles and have them gone by evening. Then I will organize the left-over piles and deal with them, leaving a clear space to do some quilting work on for the rest of the week. I really need to do something with that overflowing box of fabric that was given to me that is resting on the floor also! At least the garbage bin has been emptied recently!

Ironing board, and notions area. Not too bad, I worked on that over the weekend. There is a stack of magazines on the dresser that needs to be sorted and put away, or at least moved to another area! The balloon sculpture is from a clown that I recently did some sewing for. I suppose I ought to take a picture of it and then give it to someone. It is already starting to get floppy and not as cute as it was! In the back corner is my strip bucket which is absolutely overflowing. Time to start some string blocks to make some more quilts from.

My sewing table, which looks much better than it did earlier this week. I have found some fabric to finish the quilt hanging on the wall, so want to work on that. I even have some backing fabric for it, so it is ready to work on. Also there is a stack of t-shirts that I really need to work on finishing for a t-shirt quilt. I have about half of them fused, but it's such tedious work I have a hard time pushing myself to get it done! Right next to the machine is fabric I bought to make some placemats and napkins that I want to get done this week also. So, as you can tell I don't have a lack of projects to work on, just a lack of initiative to get them done! That's why I did all my shopping yesterday, and planned menus for the week, so I can actually get a ton of sewing done this week and break out of the doldrums. Wish me luck!