AQS Des Moines Quilt Show Recap

I had a lot of fun at the quilt show this week.  Somehow going to quilt shows always makes me think not really about the quilts I see (although they are Amazing) but about what I like and what I want to make next.

There were so many wonderful quilts, but my picture taking time was limited by my daughter.  I took her toy puppy for her to pull, the idea being that it would: 1. Keep her happy, 2. Keep her walking when she didn't want to be in the stroller (90% of the time) and 3. Because the puppy makes a small popping sound as it moves I could look at a quilt and still hear where she was and if the popping stopped or got too far away I could respond.  It worked ok.  :)

But the long and the short of it was that having a two year old with me made me have to be choosy about what quilts I took pictures of and I only took pictures of ones that I immediately "ahh-ed" over.

So here are my faves from the show (Some of the quilts are from the AQS show and others are from the local DSM guild.  I labeled the ones I had info for):

 LOVE the quilting

Love the solid red and white and the different sized blocks.

Love the log cabins mixed with blocks.  Very striking.

 Nice and graphic and scrappy.  Love the blues.

Cool quilting in the negative space.

Bright and fun.  The quilting was great too.

I want to make this type of applique quilt someday 

Here is the same quilt in a different colorway.  It uses my favorite color of blue for the background and I LOVE the fabric choices for these flowers!

The applique and quilting was perfect. 

 I loved the texture the serpentine stitch gave the quilt.

 I love rainbows and the quilting in the negative space was really fun.

 I really love wool applique.  I love the look and I love that you don't have to turn under the edges.  I don't like the price of wool.  Insane!  (Note the spiderweb quilting between the blocks.)

 Becca's favorite quilt was the one with the animals under it.  She stayed there looking at the animals for 15 minutes until I pried her away with the promise of candy from the vendors' booths.

 
Conclusion:
I mostly like quilts with clear crisp colors (the exception being the beautiful wool quilts).
I like solid backgrounds.
I want to make an applique quilt like Aunt Millie's Garden.
I want to make a quilt with solids.
I want to make a quilt with different sized blocks.  (I already have an idea for this one.)
And I want to continue to improve my quilting.

What kind of quilts are on your bucket list?

Sometimes We Are Our Own Worst Critic

In January I pulled this stack of fabric for a quilt.  It was totally "me" in terms of scale (small) and print (tone on tone and dots) but it was more monochromatic than I usually go.  But my friend assured me that it looked good and really, how can you go wrong any fabric pull that includes Flea Market Fancy?

I sent fabric packets off to more friends to test block patterns for me.  I got their amazing blocks back, made a few more blocks and started to lay them out.  I want to make it very clear at this point that my friends' blocks were perfect and wonderful and that I would never, ever, ever have gotten this quilt made without their help and that the feelings expressed in the next paragraph are me being crazy not a critique of their blocks.   So....

I got to this point in the layout and started to freak.  Why had I chosen those colors!?!  Those blocks* stayed on the living room floor for a week (much to the dismay of my husband) and I would move a block here or there each time I would walk by.  I finally sucked it up and decided it was what it was and started sewing it together.

And it wasn't as bad as I thought.  Then I added the borders and it looked better.

Then I quilted it.  And it looked good.  (I really like that section of quilting!)  It wasn't my favorite quilt, but I knew wasn't embarrassingly ugly either.  So I turned in my quilt to AQS and went on with life.

And then I saw this.  I realize that the American Quilter's Society Quilt Week header shows just the edge of what could be any quilt but it is the quilt that I stood in the living room and cried over because it was so. embarrassingly. ugly.  AQS has no shortage of quilt edges to photograph and they. chose. mine.  To say I was excited is a huge understatement.

Then this flier for QuiltWeek came in the mail.  I think I am going to have to laminate it.  Not just because they say my quilt is beautiful ;) but because it's message is one I think we should all remember - especially when we are being hard on ourselves.

Your quilt is beautiful.

Really, it is.  

You've poured your heart and creativity into your quilt.

Now it is time to let it shine! 

I think we are our own worst critics.  And to paraphrase a Jillian Micheal's exercise video, "This isn't about being perfect.  Perfect is boring.  Perfect sucks!  This is about pushing yourself and discovering what you can do.  When you push yourself that is when change happens." 

I know I'm not going to stop being a neurotic perfectionist overnight, but I am going to try to keep things in better perspective from now on.  So, love your quilts, love yourselves, be happy with your quilting and have the best weekend ever!

* I don't know if you noticed, but some of those blocks are from the Skill Builder Sampler!  More info on that next week!

The AQS Show

On Wednesday I went to the AQS Quilt Show in Des Moines.  The highlight of the show was seeing Marlene's We Can Do It! Skill Builder Sampler on display.  Not only was it on display, but it won 2nd place in the bed quilt category!!!!  It know it is all her work, but I do have to admit to a feeling of pride and a quite a bit of "Hey, look!  That quilt is from my quilt along!"  :)

Here are Marlene and I in front of the quilt.  It was great to meet her and see all of the quilt details up close.  

Pick me up mom!  She later crawled up and down the aisles.

Our time together was interrupted as my darling children spilled a bunch of pretzels on the floor.  Good times.  I didn't stay at the show for long, but I did decide one thing as I looked at all of the quilts.  I want to use more color in my background fabrics.  I was really drawn to quilts with bright backgrounds.

White is my go-to safe choice and looks fresh and clean, but what about yellow?

 Or green?

 Or Red?

More yummy yellow?

Or Orange?

I think it is time to say, "I can do it!" and mix things up with new background colors.  What is your favorite background color?  What was the most crazy background color you have ever used?  I think mine is the scrappy black backgrounds in my Star Flowers quilt.  Yeah, I'm not very daring.  ;)

Des Moines AQS Quilt Show

Almost three weeks ago I went to the Des Moines AQS Quilt Show with my friend Julie - yes, I had someone to go with!  :)  We had a good time and saw lots of great quilts and fabric.  I thought I would finally share some with you.

 I really liked the vibrant colors and black background of this quilt.

 I loved this scrappy hexagon quilt with the black "sashing."

Almost better than the quilt was the name of the quilt, "Why Do People Think I'm Crazy?"  Who in their right mind would think she was crazy for piecing together thousands of tiny hexagons?  :)

 I loved the colors and all the different blocks in this quilt.  The funny thing was that just a few quilts down was the same quilt done in a different colorway.

 I love simple red and white applique.  Something like this is on my quilt life list.

 Julie pointed out the cool scalloped border made by the bat wings in this quilt, and as I stopped to take a closer look...

 I noticed that it was made by Becky Larson from Huxley, IA!  My little town of 3,000 had a quilt in the ASQ section of the show!  I have no idea who she is, but I thought it was pretty cool.

 This is a closeup of a Hawaiian style applique quilt.  At first I thought that the shiny red buds were made from fabric, but they are made up of very close lines of stitching with metallic thread.

 Love these applique poppies!

 After checking out the quilts and vendors in the main show area, we went into the arena where the local Des Moines Area Quilt Guild was having their show.

 I thought this idea of using bandannas for a quilt was brilliant - although I think I would chose ones not so Americana.

A postage stamp quilt.   This is also on my list of things to make.

 I really liked the simplicity of this green and blue quilt.

 Loved the simple tiny blocks in multiple frames in this small quilt.

There was a section of the show with various WWII quilts.  This was one had appliqued badges from Navy uniforms on the front.  The woman who made it would trade the sailors a pack of cigarettes for a badge.  ?!?

When I looked closer, I could see that the badges had many different symbols on them - different Navy duties/jobs?  Pretty cool.

I had a good time, although I am pretty sure that the show has gotten smaller over the last three years.  I was hoping to find some specific vendors I had seen the previous two years and they weren't there.  Humm...  I mentioned to another quiltly friend that I was disappointed that I hadn't been able to find some of the fabric I had been hoping to see and she said, "You go to a quilt show to see vendors?"  Umm...yeah?  In case you were wondering, I totally scored some out of print American Jane prints and a Fairy Tale Friends charm pack.  :)

I am already trying to figure out a way to go to the International Quilt Festival in Cincinnati in April or Spring Quilt Market in Kansas City (only a 3 hour drive!) in May.  I don't qualify as a vendor or a buyer, but maybe I could help at someone's booth?  A girl can dream, right?

Iowa State Fair, Quilters Edition

Yesterday I took the girls to the Iowa State Fair.  I wish I could say we had the time of our lives, but honestly, it was packed, we got lost, I got grouchy and did I mention I had four kids with me?  Don't get me wrong, we had fun, but it wasn't magical like the fair sometimes is.

 One of the first things we saw was a line of quilt blocks surrounding the Jacobson Exhibition Center.  From a flier:  "A call was sent out to Iowa counties in the Spring of 2009 to create a quilt block design to represent each county in an outdoor mural at the Iowa State Fairgrounds.  The winning designs from each of Iowa's 99 counties have been constructed in tile on the exterior of the new Richard O. Jacobson Exhibition Center.  The quilt block project incorporates Iowa's heritage and tradition of barn quilts into the Fairground's newest facility."

The flier also had thumbnails of all of the quilt blocks.  I am sorely tempted to make an "Iowa" quilt out of them.

The next stop was the Thread and Fabric exhibit.

Every year there is a Make-A-Block category at the fair.  They send you fabric and you make a block that is judged.  Then they take the blocks and make a quilt that is raffled off the next year at the fair.  Fun!  I have to remember to sign up next year for sure.  Do you see the cow block that took fourth place?  Here is the tutorial for it.  How fun is it to know where someone got their block pattern from?

 As we walked along the walls of quilts, I realized two things.  #1 - I was at least 15 years younger than most of the women there and  #2 - quilt shows are a much better place to see quilts.  In order to maximize space only a few feet of each quilt is showing.  Bummer.  But here are some favorites.

A Dear Jane Quilt

This one was on the cover of a recent Quilters Newsletter

I am hoping to enter my Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt next year,
so I needed a picture of the competition.  :)

I love the graphic look of these flowers.
An appliqued flower quilt is on my must make someday list.

Loved these bright HST

The six year old loved the yo-yos.

I really liked the colors
and different designs in all the diamonds.

Got to love the vintage quilts.

Great Cathedral Windows and Stars.

Tiny pieces in this around the world/postage stamp quilt

More Beauties.

Snakes!  Love this block.

This was the last quilt in line and much to the girls' relief we left the quilt area, wandered around, ate, looked at animals and went to the Little Hands on the Farm exhibit.

Me milking a cow!
She must be so embarrassed to have this picture of her on the web.

I must say that I enjoyed looking at the animals.  They had a great building with newborn baby animals and their moms.  If it hadn't been so crazy in there I could have stayed all day just looking and petting.  And cow milking?  Awesome!  I am totally a natural.  :)

Did you go to the fair this year?