Quilt Shows

I have a good quilting friend.  We've shared a friendship for about 40 years!  That's a lot of quilting.  W started our trips to quilting conferences and quilt shows back when I lived in Kansas City, MO.  Linda flew out from Albuquerque and we drove up to Kalona, Iowa to view a showing of Amish quilts.  (I think that was back in the late 70's or early 80's)   At that time I didn't really know what an Amish quilt was but the show opened my eyes to the simplicity of the piecing and the awesome quilting.  Since then we've traveled to many quilt shows and enjoyed each and every one.

While visiting Linda we traveled to the HMQS in Salt Lake City, Utah and viewed some awe inspiring quilts.  Here are just a sampling of what we saw. 

 

"Gradated Mod Mosaic" by Brooke Johnson

"Shimmering Symphony" by Karlee Porter - loved the quilting on this one.

This is the quilt that won Best of Show by Marilyn Badger - her quilting is unbelievable.

"Magic of the Rose" pieced by Marie Clark, Sandi Kosch, Gloria Miller and Joan Waldman and quilted by Kristin Vierra

 

 

Here's a close up showing the lovely applique and quilting.

 

"Show Your Colors Stand Out From The Crowd" by Kristin Vierra

I took 3 classes - one with Dusty Farrell, one with Irena Bluhm and one with Claudia Phiel - all great classes,  I always end up with system overload!!  So much information.

Will save our trip to Santa Fe, N.M. to two other quilt shows as well as projects here in ABQ for another post.

Happy Quilting

Albuquerque Days 4 & 5

Spent a good part of day 4 and 5 cutting fabric.  Took a lunch break and hand lunch with Linda's sister in Belen (south of ABQ).  Most of today was spent cutting, sewing and pressing.  Here are a couple of photos to show our progress.

 

The photo above is Linda's organized tray for her teal and pinky/salmon scrappy quilt

 

Linda's sample block

 

My sample block (we're both making a scrappy Snail's Trail quilt)

 

Since I got way carried away cutting 1 & 7/8" strips to use for the 4 patches and had a LOT of strips left over I decided to piece them together for a charity quilt - here's the result below.  I still need to add borders, will try to get that done before we head out to Salt Lake City for the HMQS show and classes.

Albuquerque Day 1, 2, & 3

Arrived in Albuquerque late Tuesday evening to visit with my best friend Linda for 3 weeks!  Developed a  horrendous cold.  I blame my SO (Gary) who was sick last week and bad airplane air.  Spent most of day 1 medicating (throat spray, antihistamines, decongestants and throat lozenges).  Yuck!  Will try to get several projects done while I'm here.

Day 2 we headed out to an estate sale that advertised "quilting supplies" - most of the batting was poly, so we left it, but were able to pick up a fair amount of thread and some fabric (surprise, surprise).  Had a nice lunch, then stopped by a fabric store to check on sale items (came back with a few...:-)).  Fabric has been washed and pressed. 

Day 3 (today) we began cutting and sewing fabric for our next projects.  I'm posting a couple of pictures of Linda's sewing room before I arrived and after fabric selection for said projects.

Linda's Sewing room before we started pulling fabric from her stash.  See the red duffel bag next to the chair?  It's full of fabric I brought with me from Memphis for projects.

 

 

 

 

This is the sewing room after we started pulling fabric for the project Linda will work on.

 

I'll post more progress as the days go by.

 

 

Uncle Sonny

I can't believe it's been 4 months since I posted.   Our family lost a beloved member in April after a prolonged decline in his health.   We will miss you Uncle Sonny.

 I come from a large farming family.  My mother was the eldest of 9 children in the family (5 girls, 4 boys) (Kathleen, Ernest, Vera, Alfred (aka Sonny), Robert, Minnie Sue (aka Sissy), Freddie, Rosalie and Clara).  My uncle Ernest died in a farming accident before I was born and my grandfather died the year I was born (1949) .   At last count I think I have 26 cousins (just from my mom's side of the family). 

Grandmother died in 1963 and the farm could have been broken up when 4 of the 8 remaining siblings wanted to sell their portions. The farm was created in such a way that if a portion were sold to anyone outside the family, the entire farm would have to be sold. The remaining 4 (Sonny, Kathleen, Vera and Rosalie) kept their shares in the original farm and Sonny paid them yearly dividends from the profits until a few years ago when my mother (Kathleen) developed colon cancer. At that time Uncle Sonny and Aunt Alma bought the remaining shares from Vera, Kathleen and Rosalie.

Uncle Sonny assumed the management of the farm when he was in his early 20's (1949) and continued to farm until just a few years ago in his late 70's.  He provided for the family all those years.   He not only was a great farmer, but he became the one we all looked up to, essentially the patriarch of the family. 

His health began to decline over the past few years and his memory was not what it once was.  He suffered several strokes which made it hard to understand him.   Over the past few months he began to experience falls, the last one resulted in a broken rib and punctured lung.  He suffered a heart attack which ultimately led to his demise.  The small church in Waldenburg was packed for his funeral with relatives from California, Georgia, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee,  Texas, Mississippi and Virginia who all came to pay their respects.  

This is my favorite photo of Uncle Sonny - he had a great sense of humor and was always kidding us.  I loved to hear him laugh.  This picture was taken at one of the biannual family reunions in the late 1990's.

 
Below is a scan of his funeral announcement.   The photo of his immediate family (1 daughter and her husband, two granddaughters and 4 great grandchildren) was taken at his wife Alma's 90th birthday party in December 2012.