Here is the finished Silent Auction Donation quilt for Quilt Festival in Houston. I am pretty happy with the way it came out and I hope it makes them lots of money!

Prairie Fire Mini 15w X 17h” Machine pieced, machine quilted.

Now that that is done, I need to go prepare for my trip to Bella Vista, Arkansas tomorrow where I will do the guild program on Monday.  Looks like great weather to travel!

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……

June must be a month for Charity Auctions! Earlier in the month The Helping Hands Humane Society where my daughter is a Foster “mom” had their fundraiser and I donated this little Border Terrier piece mounted on canvas.

Last night was the Shooting Star Horse Rescue Auction and I was the featured artist so of course we went to that one! I had donated Dogwood Pasture

Detail shot

and it went for more than the reserve that I had set on it. I was outbid on the two things that I bid on, but I did get a lovely necklace in the Silent Auction. It was a fun and rewarding evening!