Word just in that “Who, Me?” currently showing at the QuiltFest Destination Savannah in GA has won an Honorable Mention in the wall quilts category.

I’ve been machine quilting on the next dog quilt, the one that I had put aside to focus on the Jesse quilt. If you were following along, you may remember that the exhibit that I am making this one for does not allow photos to be published before the show, so I’m sorry not to be able to show you the progress. It’s a big one, and the going is slow.

I never imagined when I started INNOVATIONS that it would have been this good!

Every year when I finish up the books for taxes one of the things I enjoy is to tally up all of the sales for the year and for each pattern individually. Since it’s publication in 1997, Third Weekend In October has been my very best seller and continues to excel, having sold, over the years, 31,399 patterns! This is the only pattern that I have had as many as 5,000 printed at a time.

It was a rainy Sunday afternoon when I sat on the sofa with a piece of graph paper and designed this quilt to look like leaf litter on a sunny autumn day. Notice the slash of blue that accents the yellow/orange leaves diagonally from upper left to lower right against the reds.

Being from New England, I had always wanted to do a maple leaf quilt, but wanted mine to be different – not the usual repeated traditional block. I was designing for a one of a kind contest quilt, never intended to be a pattern, but after hundreds of requests I finally gave in and published the pattern. And thank goodness I did! It’s been amazing. Time marches on and I probably will not re order as it is time to slow the business down.

Maybe you already have “Third Weekend”, but if not it is still available over on the pattern page until this printing sells out. It’s 84 x 104″, a true scrap quilt . Lots of pieces, but all straight seams, partially paper pieced to make the odd angles easy.  I have never raised my prices, so this is a bargain at $7.00.

The winning weekend continues!  At the Award Ceremony Sunday afternoon I found out that “Harrier Hunting” was given Second Place in the judging. This came with another cash award!

This is the annual Kansas Artist’s Show at the Topeka Art Guild featuring Kansas themed art.  I am always especially pleased when an art quilt wins in a predominantly “fine art” show of mainly painted works.  I wasn’t sure if it would even be recognized that the Northern Harrier is a year around resident in Kansas, but it was well received.  This annual show is open to any Kansas artist, not just members of TAG.

The American Quilter’s Society in Des Moines is this weekend and “Colorado Kids” has won second place and $1000.00 in one of the wall hanging categories!

Further away, at the LaConner Quilt and Fiber Arts Festival in La Conner, WA. “Foxglove Fairy” received an Honorable Mention.

Pretty good weekend, so far!!

I just got word that “Majesty” won third place at the Machine Quilting Today, Upper Mid West Show in Wisconsin! Click to see all of the winners.

Since the rain cleared up, it’s been perfect conditions to plant, transplant and weed, except for the high humidity. I worked til the sweat was literally dripping off my nose! Then went to town to run some errands. Most of the stuff is put away from the trip and soon things will be back to normal routine.

Friday evening is First Friday for August and I will be at the Sabatini Gallery at the Topeka and Shawnee County Library for the opening of Material Conversations, an art quilt exhibit by members of the Edge group of art quilters.  That’s from 5:30 to 8:30 and continues through to the middle of September.  Three of my works are included. I also have a piece in the show opening at the Topeka Art Guild gallery at the Fairlawn Mall. Please check out both shows if you are in the area!

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.