Minnesota Quilt Show

This week St Cloud, Minnesota is hosting the Minnesota Quilt Show, "Quilting in the Quarry"
I have only entered the show twice before this year, one quilt each of the past two years(pictured above). For some reason I went a little overboard this time. I have four quilts in the show.

The first is with Minnesota Contemporary Quilters. The theme this year was Melange a Trois. I just posted about this quilt recently, it is my Cathedral Quilt.


The next two are with SAQA Minnesota. One is the quilt I made for the rust dye competition, since mine wasn't selected for that exhibit I tried the SAQA exhibit instead. I used a fabric I had shibori dyed, the red circle with the blue and yellow on the outside. I than used an old fashioned popcorn popper, the kind you would use over an open flame. I rusted the center of the dyed fabric. I painted the petals with shiva paintsticks. And, there you have a Moulin Rouge Sunflower. This is one of my favorites.

The second is Grape Harvest and is a combination of photo transfer on fabric and metal, and using metal for the first time on a quilt. I used recycled diet coke cans and Arizona Iced Tea cans. I prefer the diet coke cans as the metal is thinner and easier to manipulate. This was a fun quilt to make.

The final quilt is in the non-judged portion of the Minnesota Quilters Exhibits. This is the first quilt I have completed on my longarm that has given me hope that I might actually be able to call myself a longarm quilter one day. I have new wheels for the back of my machine that have made a huge difference in the amount of control I have. I'm still not very good at sewing straight lines, maybe my next purchase to add to my machine will be the electric channel locks. The thing I like about the Innova is you don't have to be able to afford everything at once. It is easy to add on to the machine. The photo isn't the best since I am not used to taking pictures to show off the quilting. Maybe by the time I figure out how to take good photos, I will be at the point where I will not mind showing the details of my quilting.

Hope you get a chance to go to the show. The quilts are always inspiring.
Have a creative day
Janet

Go Native!

The theme for our Rosie Quilter challenge this month is Go Native! That can make me think of many ideas so it will be interesting to see what everyone comes up with. I've been working diligently on my seminole quilt. Man, that has a lot of pieces! I have all the rows finished now, just need the border and quilting.

I think the seminole pattern influenced my train of thought for the Go Native! theme. I immediately thought of Native American. I've been wanting to do something with a photo I took of Montezuma's castle when we were on vacation in Arizona.

I've also been wanting to use the ExtravOrganza that I bought several years ago. In case you have never used ExtravOrganza it is semi-transparent silk sheets for inkjet printing. You can see through to what is underneath. I put a skyline photo underneath that my husband took while we were in Arizona. I actually used the skyline right side up and upside down. I just thought it was a cool effect.

Metal and turquoise are two things I associate with the southwest as well. I just received a propane torch for Mother's Day!! How cool is that. So I am excited about heating up copper to change the color. I want to get some wire to make some things with it as well. Here is the metal I played with today. I was just weaving it. We used to make placemats out of construction paper when I was little using this technique.

I was supposed to have this done for tonight but I'm not quite finished. I did the hand stitching on the top but not the bottom yet. I want to add some turquoise beads all along the edge when I bind it. It's a little smaller than 8 1/2 by 11.
Have a creative day
Janet