Superior Quilts

historic Magma Hotel vintage bar

We made a field trip to Superior for an annual end of summer festival - Prickly Pear Days. 

We found some unique quilt art. But not all of them are actual quilts. See what I mean?

Apologies for the blur - I'm learning new phone/camera settings.
The black and white border is bugle beads in-the-ditch. And the binding is variegated crewel yarn whip-stitch. I like how the quote stitching crosses the background and first border.

There was a series of these mug-rugsized  arts, each with the hound's-tooth check background path. 

Did I mention my new camera issues? Sorry I can't show you the complete series.

These heart triptych fabric boxes are the same mug-rug artist, now with broderie-perse and stuffed hearts. I couldn't tell how they constructed the fabric boxes - sew clever!

This Town Hall quilt is painted blocks of local historic places.

I have to make special mention of the smokestack - it came down (video) 9 months ago. A landmark for 100-ish years, all gone. But commemorated in quilting and plenty more local arts :)

I just really liked this local artist painting of cow-girl with coyotes, so I wanted you to see it tool:0.

Thanks for sharing our trip!

Donna's Quilty Valentine

A new Pearl's Post poem was planned for today. But I'm' postponing it in favor of a new story related to  Quilting Nurses, one that is perfectly suited for celebrating this Valentine's Day.

Dad was again in the hospital this week, just for testing, and he is doing great. It was a new hospital, very nice yet unfamiliar to us. Imagine how happy I was to see this:

There were six giant framed batik blocks decorating the hospital main corridor! A tag on each frame said,

"Created by Donna Smith in loving memory of Donald Smith"

What a lovely tribute! See why I wanted this news for a Valentine's Day post? 

Do you think Donna is a local quilter? I hope I get to meet her some day.

Then I can tell her, thanks Donna, for the extra effort in framing your blocks, and making our hospital stay more beautiful and homey and bringing peace to my heart.

Happy Valentine's Day



Local Themed Quilts

Here is our Saguaro Sunset hanging in a good company at show. And do you know what? It came home with some nice judges comments. Don't laugh, ok? But I thought judge comments were only for quilts with ribbons. This entering show stuff is so fun! I love a report card!!
OK, you must be laughing by now, very well. But the way I see it, if you've already gone to all the work of finishing the thing, and you really want to get better in the art, why not take a report card when you have the chance? I'm going to find more quilt contests:):):)

 Here is President Sue hanging in President's Challenge. Yes, our President Sue was super surprised:)

And here are more local themed quilt from this show:

The View Before They Jump by Trudy Cowan

Forest Fires are a big deal here. This is Trudy's Smokejumpers quilt. There are variegated logs quilted in the tiny border. The "smoke" is wool roving and the "fire" is machine stitching. Even in my bad phone pic you can see the depth Trudy crated by stitching half the trees before putting the backing on. Genius! Trudy says the background fabric is something hand dyed she found in an estate sale, and it has sat in stash for ages waiting for the perfect quilt! Don't you love happy stash stories?

Mogollon Rim Strata by Catherine Clark

You thought there would be lots of cactus quilts in this post? Wait, they are coming;)

But canyons and their resulting exposed rock layers are such a part of our state landscape, even school kids here can name the strata. Catherine is so creative; stash comes in strata too, right? BTW, There was a MQG retreat on the Rim last year. I wonder if Catherine's quilt started there?

 

Blooming Desert by Barbara Nicholson

You know Prickly Pear is my favorite:) Do you have a favorite cactus? Barbara's is extra cheery, fun batiks, perfect orange+green. Prickly pears bloom yellow and pink too, but I've found these orange blossoming ones have the best pears for making jelly.

 

Fork & Spoon by Liz Stark

How fun for a southwest kitchen! Reverse Applique? More "strata," this time desert novelty prints.

Yes, kitchens need quilts too, right?

 

saguaro spine stitches - sew cute!



Okay this next one is unusual. It is a group strip quilt in progress. I hope you can see all the fun details in this collage. There is a studio with a big window on a flower garden with quail. There's a hogan with quilts on a clothesline. And there is Sue and Sam flying a kite by delectable mountains. I've posted the attribute card at the end. I understand this will be next year's raffle quilt for guild. For sure, I'm saving for these tickets! Can you imagine when this all quilted!?!

 

 

Happy Quilty Trails



My Quilt Show Faves

Finally got these quilt show pictures out of my phone, thanks to Alex's help.
Yes, I am old enough to realize how silly that sounds. Remember when pictures were something you picked up from the Kodak Kiosk in the grocery store parking lot? Alex doesn't believe me.
Anyhow......these are worth waiting for:

Arizona Starry Night by Alicia Sterna You won't believe how tiny the pieces are for these raw edge stars!
I hoe you get to see this somewhere someday. Genius; design, construction, quilting, everything!

Summer on the Shore by Pat Roche Wish I had taken more pictures of this one. Just HST boats, but.......

Swoon by Cheryl Benjamin

Next post I'll show you some local themed quilts from our state guild show.
You know I LOVE hometown commemorative quilts. If you have local themed quilts on your blog, please post your link below, I would love to visit!

President Sue

Our chapter president is Susie.
This is President's Challenge: 

use the Moda Lipstick and thimble charm.

So......

Yes- it's President Sue :)
These '30's greens cacti were just asking for
a Sunbonnet Sue friend.

Plus, you can see how easy it is to customize

Random Cactus PDF improve pattern.

I'd like to see one with orphan blocks. Or a panel! Hmmm...

Susie won't see this until our show next month.

She's been a great President, and the reason I finally joined Guild.

I hope she will be pleasantly surprised.

 

President Susie really does wear pearls:)





Saguaro Ornaments and Bunting

Christmas lights are kindofa big deal here in the Wild West. I guess it's because...no snow! There's no excuse for not getting out there and doing the work of putting up lights. So we put lights on everything. Yes, even the cactus get lights and Santa Hats. I'll be sure to get you some good pics next month.

This bunting project was so quick. Stitched up in 2 hours! That included hunting for cookie cutters and tiny Christmas lights in the back of the closet. Easy beginner quilting project.

 

You know I love quilting with cookie cutters. This time I'm using Saguaro cookie cutter for a mini-bunting pattern. Sandwich some batting and fabric scraps in Christmas colors. Double batting will give more body to your tiny cookie cutter shapes and help support the lights.

Draw around your cookie cutter. This will be your stitching line. Next, stitch the outline with your darning foot. [Or go ahead and use a regular foot. Smaller stitches - about 3.5- will help you turn the tiny curves of cookie cutter shape.]

Then stich some straight lines right across your cactus shape. Change back to regular foot and use a long stitch. Overstitch your outline - that's right - we are coloring outside the lines! When you finish a line, just flip your cactus sandwich, turn around and stitch in the other direction, just like chain piecing, no need to trim threads.

Here is the time saving part: Get your pinking shears and cut out your cactus. See - all the threads are instantly trimmed. Now you have super Cactus Ornaments you can hang with regular ornament hangers or....

Tack Cacti onto jute for a quick and quilty Southwestern Holiday Bunting!
To determine how long your twine needs to be:  add 3" to the width of  each cactus, then add 20" for ties.


Lastly, remember to add Christmas lights to your bunting. [I was lucky to find battery powered mini light string in the back of the closet.] Here is Becka with lighted Saguaro Bunting at MQG Swap.

Liberty Angel Quilt

Even in summer, some houses become so cold that you think you can see snow falling, but if you turn off the air conditioning the whole house becomes a sun. Mom's new Flag Day quilt is the perfect size for a lap quilt to keep you warm from your air conditioner. Or maybe it will be a baby quilt for a cute little someone with a summertime birthday. I would like to take this quilt on a trip to a cabin by a lake. Perfect for picnic and watching fireworks! Plus, if you're looking for matching decors, Mom also made a matching mugrugs (check 'em out here). 

If you look closely, you can see stars quilted allover. 

Those quilted stars from the above picture are stitched by following the stars on the backing fabric! Nice pattern, right? 

 See that yellow star? Mom had the best idea of putting yellow and red stars on the inner border, applique style! Hearts are quilted in the red corner blocks. 

She also made round corners with the Dresden patches of the outer border. And there is crappy binding to match the red and blue sequencing.

 Mom found this awesome Liberty Angel fabric which is the main panel in the middle.
More design notes on our Threadbias page.

This quilt stands at the peak of perfection thanks to our models! Lookin' good!

Flag Day Quilting

Finally dove in the r/w/b stash. I only meant to finish this adorable Debbie Mumm panel.

Instead, I came out with 3 projects!
Decided the panel was so perfect alone that I only need add borders. Inner border has simple corner blocks with Debbie's starts (from panel surround) added in raw edge applique.
The outer border was really fun! I used my favorite Easy Dresden Ruler by Darlene Zimmerman to make 4" wedges for my round corner border; instructions here.

However, this time (because the 4" pieces were smaller and because I wanted lots of blue against the red corner blocks) I used 5 wedges on each corner point and gathered them to fit:

Well, I had so many wedges left over, I was able to make 4 Dresden Plate Flags.

Dresden Plate Flag by Road Home Quilting

So how should I finish these? 11" diameter Dresden plates. Please give me your ideas!

Lastly I salvaged a silk screened flag remnant someone had donated to my stash. But two of the red stripes had been cut off, so I wasn't sure what to do with the poor old thing. Finally decided it could work as two Flag Day Banners.

Finished with simple rolled seam. There are grommets at the top corners for hanging, and Velcro pockets on the bottom - to fill with trinkets (washers, rocks, anything heavy) so Banners will hang straight and not fly around. Will it work? I'll let you know on Flag Day tomorrow :)

This should have been the simplest of my 3 Flag Day projects but, you guessed it, turned out to be tricky splitting the stars. Have you noticed the way stars are tilted on our Flag? Well, thankfully there is enough blue between stars to get full seam allowances for both sides. But one side has single star points, and the other side finishes in double points! And hardest of all to figure out, the stripes only aligned well with the single point side. Here you can see on the double point side how I fudged the red line by growing the seam finish width:

I actually have a reason for ranting like this. The moral of this story is, please tell me, was 1/2 a day entirely too long to spend on a salvage project?

Pearl helps sort Dresden pieces

Quilting Bee Show

Faye stitched this; a whole town paper pieced.

All original blocks, and some historic photos. You can see it is on the loom for Quilting Bee to hand finish.

I especially like the tree trunk...

...and the stained glass in this church window. Sew many tiny pieces!

And I love to see all the very different types of quilts that come thru the museum quilting bee

Faye says computer fabric printing packs have too much polyester, so distort historic photo prints. She recommends making your own toner fabric with wax paper and a bottle of something from Singer.

Here are details from a few more treasures at the museum Quilt Show: