Sibling Revelry!

I was thrilled one of my quilts was exhibited at AQS in Des Moines.  This was my first opportunity to exhibit at a 'big' show.  I was even more honored by my family who drove from Minnesota and several different cities in Iowa to converge on, for most of them, their first 'big' quilt show too.  Here is my fan club with my quilt in the background.

Stephanie, John, Jane, Lloyd, Julie, me, Beth, Judy, Jo

Stephanie and myself

Julie, me, Jo & Judy

Here is a photo of me with my quilt.

High Trestle Bridge Quilt

I traveled to the eastern part of Iowa with my sisters after the show and stayed with them for the rest of the week.  This is where the sibling revelry begins.  I'll just touch on a few of the highlights.

Julie, me, Jo & Judy

They took me to a wonderful quilt shop' Helios Stitches N Stuff, in Mount Vernon, Iowa.  The owners are so nice and very knowledgeable about their fabric.  We learned some fun facts about the origins of some of the fabric designs.  I bought quite a bit of fabric to bring home and play with in the coming months.

Christmas is coming!

The next day started out a little drizzly so we had a mini quilt-in with show and share as well.  I brought supplies with me to make blocks for the 70,273 Project.  

supplies

I borrowed this explanation from Jeanne Hewell-Chambers blog as she explains it best.

"Between January 1940 and August 1941 (before the Holocaust began), 70,273 physically and mentally disabled people – men, women, teens, boys, and girls – were murdered by the Nazis. Though they never even laid eyes on the disabled person they were evaluating, the Nazi doctors read the medical files and, if from the words on the page, the person was deemed “unfit” or an “economic burden on society”, the doctor placed a red X at the bottom of the form. Three doctors were to read each medical file, and when two of them made a red X on the page, the disabled person’s fate was sealed. Most were murdered within 1-2 hours."

This month and November there is a sibling challenge.  I put one X on a square and one of my siblings puts the second X on a square.  If you need a refresher on the 70,273 Project you can find more here.  There are three different sizes of squares so I made one of each for each of my three sisters who were at the 'party.'  I'll have to mail some to my fourth sister(wish she could have been there too) and maybe my brothers. We figured three of the four of us might have received red X's and sent off on the buses never to return.

Julie's blocks

Jo's blocks

Judy's blocks

snacks and provenance forms

hard at work

We let the guys join us for dinner!

One of the reasons I might be on one of the buses is because I have lymphedema.  Last Sunday I went to a 5k to raise money for lymphedema awareness, education and research.  My husband and I are on the far left in this photo. 

Emma's Lymphedema walk/run 5k

We are all members of the Minnesota Lymphedema Advocacy group working to get the Lymphedema Treatment Act passed in Congress.  Please consider contacting your Congressman and urging them to support this bill.  Here is a link to send a prewritten letter to your Congressman.  Quick, easy and painless.  Thank you for your support.

Just before I left home I finished piecing and quilting this small quilt for the project.  Eventually there will be 70,273 squares with two red x's in over 1,000 quilts.  It isn't quite finished in this photo but I guess I was so excited to send it off in the mail I forgot to snap one when it was done.

Two of my sisters brought their inherited antique quilts for show and share.  Enjoy the show.  They are beautiful.

We also did some antiquing around the area.  One of the places we went is called Sisters Garden and Bloom in Kalona, Iowa, so of course we had to take a photo of ourselves in front of their sign.

When you see anything with blue type that means you can click to link for more information.
Have a Creative Day
Janet

Project Quilting 7 Vacation

I am calling this quilt Unexpected Treasures in Unexpected Places.  When my family goes on vacation we are all about new experiences in new places.  Sharing these treasures with the people I care about most in the world only enhances the experience.  While I wasn't on vacation when I found this treasure, I was with a huge number of people from my family.  Yes, this really is most of my brothers and sisters and my nieces and nephews.  If you look through the gap in the people, you can see the trestle bridge in the background, just beginning to light up.

My husband suggested I add a little police car with flashing lights at the end of the bridge.  Our car was almost towed because there were too many of us to fit all the cars in the tiny parking lot.  (They have built a bigger parking lot since we were there.)  One of my sisters suggested adding a bike, since it is a bike trail.  Another sister suggested adding my two kids from this picture.  

I didn't think I could get any of the extras done by Sunday at noon.  I may add one or the other at a later date.  Don't forget from noon on Sunday until Thursday or Friday you can vote for your Project Quilting favorite.  Please be sure to go and look at all the entries they are spectacular.

This is the photo I used to create my pattern, I took this one while I was there.  It was fun and a challenge to create.  It has raw edge appliqué, paint, fabric paint sticks, the white lights on the trestle beams are from a t-shirt iron on that you can cut to whatever shape you want.  This one is a little bigger than my other challenges.  It is 35" X 29".

If you ever go to see the bridge be sure and stay until dark so you can see the lights.  This photo is blurry but it gives you an idea of how spectacular the whole bridge really is.

The scenery along the way is beautiful as well.  You can look up more about the bridge here.  

Have a creative day

Janet