Paducah or Bust!!

My Quilting Friends....you must, you must, you must put Paducah on your upcoming travel list at some point. It is amazing the way this town turns out for our once upon a time 'little passion'! It is no wonder that it is called Quit City USA.

Ken just came in and told me that the odometer read in our car that clocks the hours we spent in the car as well as miles, said that we were in the car 64 hours on this trip! Wow! But it was worth every bit of it. You might wonder what I do all that time while he is driving so I will tell you and show you. 

Because of my bad back, I have a fluffy feather bed in the back seat, where I am either laying down watching movies, quilting videos, reading, working on new designs or sewing. Amazingly the time flies by. And yes, I can hear some of you now...what about a seat belt? I don't wear one, unless the roads are bad, or we are in a snowstorm. I've come to the conclusion that if we get in a wreck, well, we get in a wreck. It is the only way I can travel to all of these shows, and both Ken and I hold hands and audibly pray together for God to protect us on our journeys. So if something happens after that.....whatever will be will be!

After leaving Mom and Dad's we drove16 hours the first day, and on Monday, the 19th it was Ken's 56th birthday. This is us outside of the hotel, getting ready to hop in the car and head out once again.

The Quilt Museum here in Paducah is now recognized as the National Museum for quilting which is quite exciting. Ken and I stopped in on our last day out. We couldn't take any pictures inside, so I decided to take them outside to at least help you to get a picture of it. They also had a great little shop inside with books that aren't always easy to find.

This was a statue out in front of the museum with a closer look at the write up about it.

     I will post more later. The hubby is wanting to take me to breakfast.

We made it to the Pueblo Quilt Show!

Good Morning My Quilting Friends!
It is early Saturday morning..the second day of the show. We need to be up and at the convention center at 8:30, but I thought I  would share a few photos of the last two days work before heading out this morning.

When I first walked in....I was tickled pink to see one of my own designs (Meet Me In Paris) hanging from the front hallway!

 

 

I also thought this was a cute quilt in the hallway.

For all you Grandmother's Flower Garden Junkies out there....I captured this picture.

And here are some pictures of our booth this year.

And of course this entry wouldn't be complete without a pic of Burk setting up. He does all of the set ups for me now, and how I love this man of mine. There is no way I could be on the road without him!

Last night, dad and mom came down from Castle Rock and met us at the Black Eyed Pea for dinner. They had just flown in from their Hawaii trip. My mom is quite the woman. She is 80 years old, and she runs their 3 Assisted Living homes. She takes care of old people!!

Did she get married after dating him for 2 weeks?

And the answer, sadly, is yes!
She called us yesterday morning and told us she was on the way to the courthouse. I cried, I prayed, I called my prayer warriors, and alas, the deed still was done. Some of you have met this little spitfire of mine. She is the dark haired, funny little beauty of mine, Tory. I do believe I could write a book on her alone! She definitely keeps us on our knees. The following is a picture of the little angel with me on her graduation day.

And by the way, she is the one who has sporadically sent you all newsletters, answered your emails and calls, sent you packages and sold you on the Meet Me In Paris at Quilt Shows!

And now about the Man Quilter I hinted to you about:

I met his wife Dee and her dear friend Bonnie at the Pueblo Quilt Show a few years back and we all have become fast friends. Imagine my surprise when she shows up in my booth at Las Vegas out of the blue! (Quilters will go anywhere for a good Quilt Show). She proceeded to tell me about her husband who was working on his own Meet Me In Paris quilt in the back of his 18 wheeler (in the cab). He has his sewing machine all set up, boxes of fabric all sorted in containers, etc, etc. And not only that....the Wall Street Journal interviewed him a few weeks previously for 6 hours about his new found passion he had picked up to pass the time while waiting for return loads. They even mentioned the Meet Me in Paris quilt in the article. Now what's a girl to do about that? Do you think I could ever get an article in the Wall Street Journal??? And yet here a man did??  You go Man Quilter!!!! I am so proud of you!

AND ALAS..... about my new pattern:   Here are the pictures of the work in progress It's called:

                                          MEET ME UNDER THE MISTLETOE
I knew I wanted to set it on point like the Meet Me In Paris quilt. I also wanted it to have some romance...thus the ruffled hearts and bows.

This was the first basket I made for the center block using the EZ Dresden Ruler. But I wasn't one hundred percent happy, so back to the drawing board. Below is the new basket. Much better. It wasn't a very good picture, with the sunlight coming through the slats and all. (With snow piled up outside...how I wish for that sunshine now!)

                                                                                                                       Here it is up on the design board with the ribbon being attached to the basket and the "Meet Me Under The  Mistletoe" card being propositioned
on the left side of it  It's slowly coming together!
It is now after midnight, and the lighting is not very good, and maybe just maybe, I'm not holding the camera still enough! But I am determined to get these pictures loaded before we leave at 6 a.m. for Colorado!

And a close up of my mistletoe. I have never seen a quilt with mistletoe on it. I am always searching for new design ideas.
I might also add, that I don't use a computer to design my work. It is all free hand. Sometimes I start out on a piece of paper drawing, and sometimes I just start out commissioning fabrics.
I now have to work out the final borders. My plan is to have a few more small borders around the setting triangles and then if its not too much, the last large outer border will have holly and candy canes in it.
I'd love to know what you all think!

We are headed out in 6 hours for the Pueblo, Colorado show, and then if we still have enough inventory we will go straight to our Paducah Kentucky show! Yippee!! If we are too low, we will drive back and have to make more kits to restock and then scramble to get there in time for set up.

I hope to post more pictures of our travels there, and of course many more pics of great quilts at the shows that are being presented. Good Night and Happy Quilting to all of you quilters out there in Quilt Land!

Wow...where have the days gone? We have been in the midst of a move and some very difficult decisions that have been hard to make. Mostly, closing the shoppe for now. We have actually moved into it for the time being, until the economy gets better. After crunching the numbers, we realized we had to make some changes. And since the vending at quilt shows keeps the business running we have made the decision to go that route for now. I think this has been the hardest winter I have ever had. Dealing with health issues, coming to the realization that there was no way I could run a retreat house was pretty humbling. Oh well....thankfully I still have my business, my wonderful customers, a stash that is just waiting for me to dive into,  and even the hubby has hung around. See?? I really do need to count my blessings!
A few weeks ago we attended the Quilt Show in Henderson Nevada. It was one of our first shows, and the first place where I humbly hung my Meet Me In Paris quilt, not having any idea how the quilting world would respond to it. So going back to that place always sparks a happiness in my heart.
Here are a few pictures and happenings at the show:

For some reason my pictures turned out kind of blurry. I don't know if it was because I tried to gingerly step back as far as I could and yet not stepping on the next row of quilts, so I could get the whole quilt into the picture. But anyway, you can get the jest of these. This was an adorable quilt with embroidery as well as quilting. There was also one in red. The red pictures weren't quite as blurry.

I tried to get some close ups too, so you could really see all of the great work on it.

 

This darling Christmas Quilt was made by Darlene Finney and I had to take some close ups of it. The embellishing on it was amazing. She also won a ribbon on it.

 

So tomorrow I will wake up and tell you about my day today. How my youngest daughter called me from the courthouse and told me she was getting ready to marry her boyfriend of 2 weeks. I will then post pictures of my new pattern that is almost finished, and I will share a story about one of my customers...a guy....a trucker...who was written up in the
Wall Street Journal about his sewing studio in his big rig.

Until then....my friends....Happy Quilting!

Now for the more of the Bed Turning my fellow quilters!

This quilt is owned by Sandie Allen. She has had this doll quilt since she was a small child, and played with it a lot. It wasn't until she was older that she learned it was made by her great grandmother. The quilt is over 50 years old. It is hand quilted and appears to be lined with a stripe fabric.

This baby quilt was made on a treadle sewing machine by Sandie's husband's grandmother when she was about 80 years old. It is a practical, hand tied, flannel quilt made with scraps.

Sandie wat beside her, pregnant with her 1st child and handed her pieces. She bound it in pink because she was hoping for a girl.

The quilt is over 40 years old. Sandie owns the treadle machine it was made on.

This quilt began its life in Arkansas in the 1930's. Gwen Christiansen inherited it in 2008. The embroidered blocks are finely hand stitched on feed sack muslin. However they had not been squared and were put together with yellow depression era fabric, a very loosely woven fabric which is one step above gauze. There was no quilting and a yellow gathered skirt was added to make it a double sized bed spread.

After much thought Gwen decided to take it apart, square up the blocks and use the yellow skirting to make borders and blocks. She hand quilted around the flower blocks and is hand quilting a dahlia design in each yellow square. Gwen believes the embroidered blocks were first published in the midwest publications in 1930. They began as embroidery only. Then a little applique was added. In 1977, Ruby S McKim published them as all applique squares.

Betty Ray found this quilt at a yard sale. She spotted the quilt and it seemed to talk to her. The lady having the sale was older than herself so she asked her if she had made it. She replied, "No, probably my                 grandmother. No one in the family wants the OLD THING so I decided to sell it!"

Betty paid $60 for it!

It has since been appraised for $600.

The quilt is hand pieced and was made in the early 30's. The pattern is Seven Sisters.

The fabrics on this quilt are prints from chicken feed sacks back in the 20's and 30's. They all have baby chicks on them and even the quilting is done in baby chicks. It belongs to Mary Byers. Her mother-in-law grew up on a farm in Mendon, Illinois and acquired these fabrics from her mother's stash. She never did anything with them until after her mother's death. She then gave them to Mary who was her only daughter-in-law.

Mary finally put them into a quilt last year.

I wish my picture would have turned out better, but oh well. I can't not put this one in.

Iris Shaffer's daughter found this old quilt top in an estate sale in Portland Oregon. Some people call this the postage stamp pattern.

There is no history for this quilt, but someone spent many hours and days cutting and piecing it by hand. The fabrics are at least in the 30's or older.

The pieces are 1 1/4" square with 1/8" - 1/4" seams. All of the corners match perfectly. Seeing there were no rotarty cutters in those days this is really an amazing piece.

It has 60 squares X 65 blocks, totalling 3,900 cut squares. It is a queen size measuring 82 X 88.

Wow ladies, what an inspiration. We must get out our hand projects and take them everywhere with us. Little by little, square by square, hexagon by hexagon, we too can have our own master piece made with our own hands!

My hubby has just pulled up to the house with the trailer all loaded and is ready to head out to a Quilt, and Sewing Expo in San Mateo,  California so I am going to have to run. I will bring you more of this Bed Turning when I get back from the show. Until then.....Happy Sewing!!!

Have you all ever been to a "Bed Turning"?

If not, I am bringing one to you from Yuma Arizona where we did a show in January. We love those gals down there!!

A Bed Turning is usually found at a local guild show. There is a bed with a pile of quilts on it, and as each one is held up and shown, one of the guild members tells the story behind it. For a lover of quilts it is worth that alone going to a quilt show for.  The history and stories are heart endearing.

This lady is Lovabel Rice. And oh how lovable she is!! She is 92 years young and quite a force to be reckoned with. I felt honored to have met her and to hear of her quilts. Her quilts were hanging in the bed turning room. This one is her favorite and is all hand appliqued.

She started quilting when she was 16. She went to Woolworths and bought her first block for 10cents. The blocks had both hand embroidery and hand applique. After she finished all of her blocks her grandmother hand quilted it for her adding sashing. The quilt is below:

Here's the story:

Here's another one of her magnificient hand appliqued quilts:

These patterns are usually done with raw edge machine applique but Lovabel did it mostly by hand applique. An amazing feat when you see the work close up and how tiny some of the pieces are.

The second morning of the show, I was in the bed turning room at 9 0'clock sharp determined to meet this fine young lady. She was only going to be there for a little while. As I stuck out my hand to shake hers, I was shocked at her strong and confident hand shake. And after talking to her found out her only health problems were that she was hard of hearing and she was on blood pressure medicine. That was it. Oh to be as productive and active like her at her age. I hope I am sitting around working on quilts when I am at the tender age of 92 with grand children and hopefully great grandchildren around, patiently passing on this wonderful medium for story telling to future generations.

Speaking of bed turning, I am going to go in and turn in to my own bed, and bring the rest of this story to you in the morning!