Art of Quilting Show

The Kaleidoscope of Quilts show was held in Mesa. After viewing all the lovely quilts at that show, we drove to Gilbert to view the quilts at the Historical museum for their Art of Quilting Show. 

As with the other show, these are only a few pictures of the many  quilts I took. Some of the quilts were antiques, some newer quilts. Some were for sale, most were not. I might have been tempted to buy one of the sale quilts but I knew there was no way I could fit any quilts in my suitcase.

I don't know what happened to the information for this quilt. I can tell you the quilt is called Windmill Blades and is owned/made by Nancy Ostman of New York.

I think these fabrics were wool. It looked thick! The pineapple strips were very narrow, maybe 1/4"? This quilt was (I'm guessing here) 40" by 40"?

Besides the regular museum staff, some days there are volunteers who demonstrate quilting. We were there on one of those days. 

I took pictures of the of the quilts they were working on. This was an older strip pieced quilt.

One of the ladies told me how she marked this quilt. I had never seen the woven border with the flowers. She adapted the stencil. I'm going to have to try this sometime. Quilters are very inventive people!

This pink basket is an older quilt that was in the room. I don't think they quilted this one. I didn't have them open it up to full sized. It looked fragile so a quarter size was fine with me.

Linking to To Do Tuesday, Midweek Makers, Wednesday Wait Loss, Put Your Foot Down, Stitch Sew & Show,  Needle & Thread Thursday 

Blooms Quilt

I thought about starting an EPP (English paper piecing) project last fall but just couldn't decide what design. I thought about making some random hexie flowers but I didn't want to just start something without know where it was going to go.

Years ago I had made a grandmother's flower garden quilt. I enjoyed the process but I didn't want to make another one. 

While perusing quilt blogs one day, I came across A Quilting Life hosted by Sherri. Her February 1st post was titled January 2022 Favorites and more. When I saw the picture of her Bouquet Quilt, I knew what my next EPP project was going to be, hexie flowers but also piecing! This was very doable so I immediately ordered the pattern.

I decided hexies would be perfect for a traveling project. I prepped squares and took them along to Phoenix. Here are the flowers that were EPP'd.

And yes, I do baste right through the paper on the back of the hexies. That's fine if you don't baste your hexies this way, just don't Quilt Police on me!

I didn't buy special fabrics for Blooms, I'm just pulling from my stash, the backgrounds fabrics too. Right now I'm planning on this quilt being a red and white wall hanging with 12 blocks.

In Sherri's post, she calls the quilt Bouquet but the pattern title is Blooms so that is why I'm calling my wall quilt Blooms.

I'm not in a hurry for this project to be finished. I do have a quilt I'm appliqueing (Hearts & Wreaths) and a quilt in the hand quilting frame (Welsh Beauty) besides other quilts to be pieced. This project was not on my list of Challenges for 2022.

I also took along a skein of cotton yarn and knitted a dish cloth which I left it with my daughter.

Linking to Kathys Slow Stitching Sunday, Stitching Stuff, Oh Scrap, Show & Tell Monday, Monday Making, Handmade Monday, Design Wall Monday

Quilt Arizona! 2022

I purposely scheduled my trip to Phoenix so I could attend the Quilt Arizona! 2022 quilt show sponsored by the Arizona Quilters Guild. This year's theme was Kaleidoscope of Quilts.

So many beautiful quilts and of course I took more photos than I could possible show you. I had hoped the Guild would post online pictures so I could link to them but I can't find one. If someone there in blog land finds a link, please send me the information and I'll put a link to the show here in my post.

Here are a few of the quilt photos. I took a picture of the information label and then the quilt.

The narrow orange border was perfect for this quilt. The planning for this quilt took some time.

I loved this blue quilt!!!

We took a walk through all the vendors but I didn't buy any fabrics or other quilting items. We did buy a bag of this delicious white chocolate/almond/toffee though, it was delicious! 

Here is a link to the 2023 show with basic information. I'm sure I'll be traveling to Phoenix again next year!

I have more pictures but, as usual, Blogger is challenging me.

Linking to Put Your Foot Down, Needle & Thread Thursday, Peacock Party, TGIFF!, Finished Or Not Friday, Off the Wall Friday, Patchwork & Quilts

The Grand Canyon & Around Phoenix

During my trip to Arizona, we spent a day at the Grand Canyon. This was my 2nd visit and I have seen .002% of the whole beautiful place. 

Photos don't even begin to described the beauty and size of the canyon! 

We walked paths for several hours and of course I took some pictures. I'm not one of these people who walks to the very edge and take photos so you won't be viewing edge pictures on this blog.

Just so you know, Blogger won't let me rearrange the pictures in order. 

There were elk wondering around the trails. They weren't afraid of people at all. We saw a large group dozing in the shade of some trees.

Another wonderful photo of the canyon.

There were a lot of this kind of tree blooming in Phoenix. They smelled so sweet!

Now we're back to the canyon again.

The elk just wondered around and ignored the people. We didn't try to pet them. I didn't see anyone try it but I wouldn't be surprised if some people do.

Here are some random pictures of flowers around Phoenix. The above picture is something blooming. I think my daughter said it was Agave but I don't remember for sure. Bougainvillea is still blooming. 

And another picture of the canyon.

My daughter had a work event she needed to attend in Flagstaff on Friday.  

We did visit one fabric store in Flagstaff on Thursday evening, Odegaard's Sewing Center.

A very nice store but $15/yard for fabric was out of  my price range. They had a wonderful selection of native fabrics but I wasn't going to pay that much for any kind of fabric.

I found some treasures on the marked down shelf that were more my price range.

I took all the fabric that was on the bolt of the autumn leaf fabric and a yard of the green/gold fabric. One third yard of the red was purchased for a future quilt project that uses a variety of reds. Red is one fabric I don't have a lot of. Are you surprised I didn't buy any blue fabrics? There weren't any on the marked down shelf.

Odegard's wasn't downtown with the other stores so we stopped there on our way into Flagstaff. We spent the night at an inn. While she attended her event, I played tourist.

I'm not a very good tourist. I browsed through a lot of stores. I had a lovely lunch at Collin's Pub but mostly I enjoyed myself by sitting on a bench by the old train station soaking up the sunshine and rays. I will say though, if you get to Flagstaff, you need to buy some ice cream at the Sweet Shoppe Candy Store. I'm not the ice cream fanatic my husband is but I do enjoy ice cream when the temperature is in the 80's. 

I go for a lot of walks when I'm in Phoenix. I like to walk along the canal and view the painted privacy walls.

I didn't remember this painting from when I visited in December. Just now, looking at the photo, I see the artist signed 2022 under her name so it wasn't there in December.

* * * * Update, my daughter has sharper eyes than I do. She says the date is 2021 so it was there in December. Oh well. It's still pretty!

I don't know what kind of bird this is beside the cactus flowers. I bet it sings a lovely song this time of year.

Linking to To Do Tuesday, Midweek Makers, Wednesday Wait Loss, Put Your Foot Down, Stitch Sew & Show,  Needle & Thread Thursday 

Welsh Beauty

Before I left for Phoenix, I quilted a 6" swath across the center of Welsh Beauty, I'm on the downward path to the finish! It took me 7 months to get to the center of the quilt, 7 more months would be sometime in December. Maybe I'll have this quilt finished this year!

Here are pictures of my progress from the left side of the quilt to the right side.

As usual, here is a link to the first post about Welsh Beauty.

Linking to Kathys Slow Stitching Sunday, Stitching Stuff, Show & Tell Monday, Monday Making, Handmade Monday, Design Wall Monday