Late Thursday I arrived back home from my trip to the Rocky Mountain Quilt Guild in Fort Collins, CO. They are a great group and I had a wonderful time there; they took great care of me! The two day “Coneflowers” workshop was a lot of fun for all of us, I think. Some beautiful work was started and I hope to get finished photos to share with you!

Yesterday I had another commitment so I don’t even have all of the quilts put away yet – that is on the agenda for today.

Bad news arrived while I was gone – “Longhorn Splashdown” was not accepted to go to Houston this fall. This will be the first time that my work has been rejected there, and since they send their cattle up here to get fat, it’s not very nice of them not to take one back!!! Oh well, it will go somewhere else, I hope.Click on Longhorn in the side bar to see a photo.

For the last few days, I have been working on catching up the books for sales tax which is due next month. It’s just eleven days til I fly out to CO to visit with the Rocky Mountain Quilters for a few days. I’m really looking forward to that! There will be a trunk show/lecture followed by a two day Coneflowers workshop.

Since the weather lately has cooled a bit, it’s been great to get out early and do some gardening chores. I got the new plants into the ground and they transplanted beautifully with no wilt whatsoever.  Yesterday I spread some compost and did some deadheading.  The two Sunny Knockout roses that I planted this spring are blooming.

They start out a cheery yellow and fade to pure white.  I want to get some of the double pink ones next.

Wow, it’s been a week since my last post – times flies!!

I was really working hard to finish the Longhorn before my trip to Lincoln, Nebraska, but that didn’t happen. I still have just the “splash” to finish. With Mother’s Day in there, I had to quit and get the quilts organized on Saturday to pack Sunday evening for an early start on Monday.

Monday turned out to be a stormy, rainy day so the drive was NOT fun. That kind of torrential downpour that makes you want to stop and have a gooey dessert and wait it out. But there was not time for that so I just pressed on. I had a lunch date and a personal tour of the International Quilt Study Center/Museum planned. Fortunately about an hour and a half into the trip the rain cleared and I was only a few minutes late.

I had a wonderful time in Lincoln. What an amazing resource they have there in the Quilt Museum! The guild was warm and friendly; an inspiration with all of the activities and public service projects they have planned. The Coneflowers workshop was full, with a waiting list and everyone seemed to be having a good time. Some really beautiful works were started.

Yesterday was spent putting quilts away and dealing with inventory and book keeping for the trip, shipping orders and generally wrapping up loose ends. Today I will get my suitcase unpacked and hopefully back to normal – whatever that is! Since we’ve had so much rain, I hope it can include some weed pulling!!

There was a nice article in the Sunday paper yesterday about me and my quilts that did NOT start out with “Not your Grandmother’s quilts” as so often is the case with art quilts. That’s a GOOD thing! If you want to actually read it click here.

The only thing I wish had been added,  is that the photo cited was used with permission of the photographer.  But all in all, I think the reporter did a fine job!

Saturday I had a Machine Quilting class at Prairie Pieces which is about an hour away that was very well attended – we were really stacked in there! A great group of ladies and we had a lot of fun in spite of a few machine problems. Added bonus – I found some great fabrics to start replenishing my “rock”fabric that the mountain goat project ate up!

Yesterday I began the 12 x 12″ piece for the SAQA Auction.  I’m hoping to get it finished today as tomorrow I plan to take my Bernina in for it’s annual checkup while I am away to PA and the AQS show next week. Busy, busy!!

http://cjonline.com/life/2010-03-13/womans_quilts_make_the_cut

This lovely quilt, “Do Wacka Daisy”, was made by Karen Kielmeyer, started in a “Coneflowers” workshop in NW Arkansas last summer. Karen was using her own hand dyes, strip pieced, for the background pieces. I think it’s wonderful and so did AQS! It will be at Paducah next month!!

Congratulations Karen, and good luck!  Thanks for sharing…….

Yesterday we spent most of the day in town running errands so, again, I didn’t make a lot of progress on the kids. Today I’ve got to give that baby his ear!

A new exhibit goes up this month at the Topeka Art Guild Gallery and I have three pieces there. The theme this month is PINK so I entered “The Merchant’s House”, “Spirit Horses” and “Cornflower Pink”. I had to scramble to find pink things.

“Cornflower Pink” is an old piece, from 2001! It was one of the pieces shown on yesterday’s local news to advertise the show which will benefit The Marion Clinic for Women’s Heart Month in February. The gallery is very pink this month!

More good news, “Burlingame Fire” has been juried in to AQS, Lancaster, PA. March 24-27.

Finally! Photos from Wichita. The focus could be better, sorry about that, but the work still shines! We had lots of fun and these ladies really produced!

Hard at work.

Beautiful rich color.

Too much fun!

It’s always fun to see the Coneflowers in other colors.

Yummy!

Bits of light in the background just sparkle!

I’ll try to get the rest up tomorrow.

Wichita was great! Rushed, but great. Two different lectures and a workshop plus travel in two days is a lot, but it was fun because the Prairie Quilt Guild was so nice and friendly! Yesterday I got the quilts put away, the finances dealt with and the inventory started. The before and after chores add at least three days to a trip! I hope to have some pictures to show from the workshop but I have not checked the camera yet. Some wonderful works were started.

Just before I left, I got word that “Baltimore Oriole” exhibited at the Aullwood Audubon Center’s show was sold to the Executive Director! How cool is that! A sale is always good but even better when it goes to an expert like that.

Continuing from yesterday- I’m still on dial-up and needed to free up the phone lines for an expected call.

More photos from the recent workshop: I wish I could remember names, but you know who you are!! I think that there were some great starts made and I do hope to see finished projects at some point.

As for me, I’m finishing up the sample that I started because in September and October I have four back to back workshops and not enough samples to go around!!

Missed one!

And I do like this one pretty well– see the thing was — we were not supposed to really think about it, just knock ‘em out quickly. I tend to overthink.