Saturday I got back to the sewing, tweaking what was already sewn as these past two weeks of just looking at it made me see some places that could be improved. Also sewed a few of the section seams. This morning’s e-mail brought a couple more leads on the fabric search so perhaps I need to wait a bit longer before cutting background!

Yesterday afternoon a friend and I went to see the musical Parade, a show I had never heard of, and it was VERY good! So no sewing yesterday.

Probably not today, either, as I need to prepare two quits for shipping – “Colorado Kids” to AQS, Lancaster and “Who, Me?” to IQA for Celebrate Spring. Last week I sent “Foxglove Fairy” to Mid-Atlantic Quilt Fest.

We have a crew of workers here installing new Pella windows so today  looks like a good time to go to town, anyway!

Ooops, it’s been awhile, and I was doing so good!

Last Friday was First Friday and I attended the reception for “Inspirations”, that collaborative exhibit of art inspired by photography. This year we had the main show of new work at the Classic Bean in Topeka and my entry “Prairie Power” won first place in the “People’s Choice” voting. It’s always gratifying when a quilted piece is recognized as art amongst paintings.

We also had an exhibit of some of previous years’ entries at another venue, Nexlynx in Topeka and “Majesty” received a Second Place there.

The Boxer is finished and I am happy with how it turned out. I always prewash all of my fabrics because I still do find some that will run, and when I wet this piece to block it one of the hand dyes did run in spite of that. It was a green so any bleeding it may have done on the front is not noticeable, but can be seen very slightly on the back. Luckily it was not a problem, but it does reiterate the need to prewash.

This shot has too much pink showing, because the morning sunrise was hitting it. Adding green helps but makes the background greenish.  It is nice and sharp though and shows the quilting nicely.

Since I had to fly out of Houston Sunday morning, I missed the entire last day of the show. It was not until I was back home that I was told that “Prairie Fire� had sold during the show. I had several inquiries about purchasing it, but so far I do not know who bought it. I hope they enjoy living with it as much as I have.

Before I left on Saturday, I checked the status of my “Prairie Fire Mini� in the Silent Auction and it was at $260.00. I’m anxious to see what it eventually brought and who got it.

There were lots of opportunities to purchase quilts at Festival, and I was lucky enough to come away with two 12 x 12� pieces from the SAQA Auction.

“Squirrel Food� by Nancy G. Cook and “Woman Of The Year� by Bodil Gardner. I feel very fortunate to have them as they are both beautiful and made by artists that I admire. It was great to see the actual quiltlets on display- they are even better in person than on-line, and I am thrilled to have them.

The purchaser of my little Yorkie postcard for the Pet Project came by where I was sitting with “Prairie Fire” to tell me how much she loved it and I was so glad someone got it that really appreciated the work in it.  I think I heard that this will be an ongoing feature at festival so I hope to get an earlier start on some cards for next year. I know that this year’s event surpassed the goal for the no-kill shelter in Houston.

Receiving my award- can you believe I forgot to pack the sparkly top I meant to wear? This top has a black border , it is not really raggedy edged!!!

The projected images didn’t do justice to the actual work, seen below, which literally seemed to glow under the lights and against the black drapes..

After the awards were given and after the crowds were gone.

Lyric Kinard, Ruth Powers, Gloria Hansen. These pictures are courtesy of Gloria who had her camera handy.

We are back from the luncheon to change clothes and return for the SAQA Seasonal Palette Reception and preview night. We caught the free Greenline Shuttle and did the whole loop before returning to the Hyatt just to get the lay of the land and look for places of interest to explore.

How exciting! We had the awards ceremony last night here at IQA in Houston, and I discovered that the award that “Prairie Fire” has won is The Fairfield Masters Award For Contemporary Artistry! The award comes with a check for $5000.00! We got to see slides of all of the winning quilts and all of the first place and top winning quilts were unveiled one by one. Just beautiful!

Now I need to go and get ready for the Awards luncheon. Later at 5 there will be a reception for the SAQA Seasonal Palette exhibit and I can’t wait to see the whole exhibit and how “December Dawn” fits in. Then at 7 I am required to go and sit by my winning piece until the show closes at 10. It’s going to be a long day!!

Pictures later.

This time next week I will know what I have won in Houston! I have been busy wrapping up loose ends and making arrangements. Trying to figure out what to wear and getting things ready.

Since my friend Rose, who usually travels with me to Houston was unable to go this year, I offered the extra bed to Gloria, the GLO in Gloderworks the company responsible for my wonderful website. She accepted and I am looking forward to getting to know her better. I admire Gloria‘s quilting work as well, and she is also a winner this year, in addition to being an author and computer guru.

I have permission from Quilts, Inc and SAQA to show the two pieces that have been kept under wraps so far and they can be seem in the “Upcoming Events” section of the website. “Prairie Fire” the winner in “World of Beauty” and “December Dawn” in “Seasonal Palette”.  They did ask that I announce that there is a catalog available for “Seasonal Palette”.

“Longhorn Splashdown” at LaConner in WA, and “Cloudy With A Chance of Rain” at TAG in Topeka, both won only Honorable Mentions this year. It’s nice to have the big win at Houston to soothe the disappointment!

I am currently working on drawings for a couple of new works inspired by Pokey Bolton’s announcement that they will be doing some exhibits/contests with pet themes in the future at IQA. These may have to be kept under wraps for a while, but I wanted to get the layout done for scale, so I could be on the lookout for fabric while I am shopping the vendors at Festival!!. That’s coming up fast!

I sent “Longhorn Splashdown” up to LaConner, WA for the LaConner Quilt Museum show and have received word that it has won an award. Won’t know what til after they have their awards presentation on the 9th I think.

“Bignonia” has been juried into it’s first show, Pacific International and was shipped out Monday to go there.

They are having a quilted post card sale at IQF in Houston this year to benefit a big Houston dog rescue organization and I started a little pieced postcard for that yesterday. It feels good to be sewing again, even if it is small!  I’ll show you a picture when it is done.

I got THE call last week! The call from IQF – Houston that my entry this year has won one of the eight top awards!! This comes with cash of at least $5,000.00, plus transportation and lodging for the show. WOW! I’m excited, it was certainly a surprise! They don’t tell which award, you have to wait for the official ceremony.

So I decided I’d better get busy and make them a donation piece for their Silent Auction. This was still on my “to-do” list but time was running out. Now it is a priority.  This is inspired by, but not the same as, the winning quilt. It uses some of the same fabrics and some different ones.

I seem to run on deadlines. So much time has been wasted since returning from the trip to Maine this summer. Perhaps “wasted” is the wrong word as I have done other things, like gardening, but quilting has been on the back burner. A couple of weeks ago with the deadlines approaching, I finished changing the binding on the turbine piece and started the quilting on the KS scene – that is what I was doing when I got THE call……

Yesterday I spent the morning judging the quilts at the County Fair. Judging is not something that I enjoy doing, but it does make one appreciate the whole process a little more! There were a lot of great quilts to consider and this white work quilt by Jean McDonald ended up being my Best Of Show. It is an original design, machine quilted and trapuntoed made for her husband to commemorate his years as a Navy Commander. It has many meaningful designs worked into it including the four ships he commanded during his career, if I understood correctly. Of course I did not know all of that until the ribbons were awarded. There was just not much to fault in this quilt!

It’s hard to get a good photo of white work and I had to get at an awkward angle to even get it this good. It really hung better than it looks like here!

Today I can get back to working on my current piece. This is an old farm implement storage shed near here. I made it shorter, cleaned out the machinery and added the horse. I’ve been wanting to do this for some time, but only just recently found the fabric that I needed for the rusty roof.

Sorry it’s a bit out of focus, I didn’t use the tripod and I do know better!!