My Quilting Medley

My Quilting Medley - my solo exhibition is now open at the National Quilt Museum and runs through Feb. 20, 2024!!

I am beyond honored to have an exhibit here and to share my quilts! I'm inspired by colors, music, pop culture, travel, & family, and hope to reflect those in my work along with a love for free motion quilting. 

Quilting is my creative passion and I enjoy trying a variety of techniques, methods and styles. Of course they each have my signature bee hiding in the stitching, and it'll be fun to see visitors discovering them!

Exhibit at Hotel 1857

I am thrilled to say that I'll have some of my quilts in a show at a local hotel! It's 2 months, and my works are featured alongside quilts from several quilty friends fiber art works, and all of them are for sale. 

Once I was asked to contribute some pieces, I started making lists and digging through my wall pieces for things to submit. I pulled some older small quilts, and made a couple new pieces as well, trying to include as many as I could have ready.

Of course, I made sure that each of the pieces had my signature bee quilted into them, which turned out to be a good plan, as some friends told me they stopped by and went looking for the bees! I love that by making this my signature and adding it into my quilts, it's also something interactive for viewers to try and find in my quilts. Really makes me try to be sneaky with blending bees into the fabric colors, tiny bees hiding out, and adding multiple bees occasionally in the free motion quilting.

Once the show was up I went by to see them all on the walls, and grab some pictures. We'll see if any sell, but honestly it's a thrill to even have them on exhibit somewhere in public! How awesome!

Fall Paducah Quilt Week

A couple weeks ago we had the 2nd ever Fall Paducah Quilt Show in town! We were a bit more prepared this time around and it was a week of quilts and fun and quilters and work. My work hours were fairly normal for a Quilt Week (hooray!), and I managed to duck over to see the show & exhibits on occasion.  Mostly, my duties include manning a register, taking pictures for social media, helping out when artists visit and agree to photos &/or a video interview, and generally being useful and building relationships with artists.

Oh, this guy? He flew into the museum and is covered with fabric - a patchwork pelican!

Here are just a few of the quilts that caught my eye at the show - some really great quilts being exhibited. These first two were part of the Taiwan Art Quilts exhibit.

Growing Continually II by Huei-Lan Chaung

Coexistence by Lien-Chao Tseng

Sunshine by Kat Jones, Australia

Arches by Caryl Bryer Fallert-Gentry

Faces of Four Seasons by Joann Baeth

Hello Harvey - Hello Irma by Beverly Blessing & Lynette Mart

Found it interesting that while the Quilt Show took place, the East Coast was preparing for Hurricane Florence, and there were 2 hurricane-inspired quilts.


Both were eye catching, though different in size, and very on point with their appeal for the current events ongoing.

Infrared Maria by Ann Harwell

This quilt stopped me in my tracks on the floor. The detail and design was intriguing and I had to take a closer look for sure on the quilting. What a cool design and such workmanship! The Scenery of Gameunsa Temple by Hyesook Kim, South Korea.

The colors! The white water breaking over the curl! The spray of the water! Love this!

Wave by Debi Webb

One of the special exhibits was Bourbon in the Bluegrass: quilts inspired by KY bourbon makers, made by MJ Kinman. While they are striking through the camera lens, in person they were excellent! Makes me want to like bourbon more....haha.

Between River and Sky

Kentucky Honey

 This made me smile! How can you resist?!

Making Amends by Carol Cote, Canada

Casting Shadows by Paige Alexander

That's Life by Mary Landon

One of the other special exhibits was Tula Pink's quilts! These were really fun to see in person, face to face if you will, after seeing them online as patterns or fabrics in progress. Tula's quilts are quilted by Angela Walters and it was awesome to see so much of her quilting in person too! Extra bonus fun? I went to Tula's evening talk Thursday night. So good! Seriously, so. good.

 Tula gave us an insight into her inspirations and creativity and process as she works her magic. Takeaways from her talk: Don't be afraid to have bad ideas, the good ones are in there too!
Make it authentic to your hand, to you. Art is the artist telling you who they are.

I have to say, Tula lives up to her reputation in a great way and if you have a chance to go see her-go!

me & Tula!

 All in all a great week, and a fun Fall Paducah Quilt Week!

On My Honor

Happy 106th Birthday Girl Scouts! 

As a lifetime Scout, who earned both the Silver & Gold Award, celebrating Scout anniversaries is second nature. Back in 1912, Juliette Gordon Low founded Girl Scouts in Savannah, GA to give girls a place to explore the world around them, learn a variety of skills, & grow into leaders.

In working on a grant proposal for work, I needed to make a sample related to inspirational/influential women and Juliette is my go-to. This was fun to make and pretty quick to pull together.

I used some fusible applique, machine applique, free motion quilting & a pigma pen to write the quote by Juliette. It measures about 18" square and I'm looking forward to running a couple workshops later this year so I can use this one often!

My experience in Scouts was excellent - we sold cookies, earned badges in a variety of subjects/skills, visited Savannah & Juliette Low's house, took Wider Opportunity trip to St. Louis, traveled to Our Chalet in Switzerland, went camping, and had a whole host of other great experiences & adventures that made it so much fun. A large part of that was having an awesome leader (shout out to Momm for making our troop the coolest)! :D

Project Zebra - Complete!

Another finished quilt to share with you dear readers! Project Zebra was the code name I assigned since this was a secret surprise quilt for the recipient.

Two weeks ago, we found out a coworker was retiring and a couple of us decided we'd make a quilt for her as we've done for other staff members that have moved or retired or had a baby. S has been with the Quilt Museum since we opened almost 27 year ago so it was clear to me that she deserved a full-sized quilt and not just a small wall piece.

I modified block 1755 : Prairie Flower : from Barbara Brackman's book and decided on black and grey fabric for the background. Then I rounded up each staff member to choose a fabric to be the center of the block (flower) and pulled several staff to help cut and draw lines for making stitch 'n flip corners.

This was a lot of fun to piece and see how fabrics chosen by 25 different people can look amazing in the same quilt! It measure about 60"x 72" and I call it Stained Glass.

I quilted it on Gilbert - my trusty Janome. Using a variety of Aurifil threads to echo inside the center flowers and then in black thread to stipple in the black background fabric. Stitching black on black was a little tricky to follow, especially in the evening with less natural light - but I had a tight deadline and made it work.

We gifted it to S today and she loved it! :D  There's a piece of all of us in it to remember her many years of dedication to the Museum and I know she'll love it forever. Gifting quilts is the best!
Linking up::
Needle and Thread Thursday - at My Quilt Infatuation
 TGIFF - Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday - at Celtic Thistle Stitches
Finished or Not Friday -at Busy Hands Quilts
Finish It Up Friday - at CrazyMomQuilts

Spring Quilt Week

So just like that, Spring Paducah Quilt Week is over and done. This year marked my 7th show!

It's still exciting to meet quilters & see amazing quilts from all around the world.  We host a reception for our members- Friends of the museum- at the start of the week to get the party started. Momm & I even managed to get a photo that night which isn't always the case. We also went to see the Rotary Antique Show and shop a little for fabric.

  

Tulip Quilt by Kathryn McClintock, 1970 

Tuesday night means the awards ceremony to get first looks at the winners & then sneak preview where E & I explored all of the quilts in the show itself.     

A few things I noticed this year about the show: brighter colors & more modern designs in some of the Japanese quilts, quilts from Brazil, quilts from Spain, a handful of wholecloth designs and lots of great ideas!

The Woman by Kyoko Ochiai, Japan

   

  

Anne's Favorite Cherry Tree Road in Avonlea by Mutsuko Shindo & 9 Friends, Japan 

 

Moonflower by Molly Hamilton-McNally, CA, USA

 

Wearable Art by Philippa Naylor, UK 

 

Golden Glow by Mary Ann Van Soest, IN, USA

 

The Navigator's Star by Aline Bugarin & Natasha Bugarin, Brazil 

  The rest of the week at work I'm kept busy working the shop registers, minding the shop and taking the occasional turn through the galleries to soak in the sight of loads of people admiring the Museum. I did get to meet/see some familiar names including: Shirley Kelly, Victoria Findlay Wolfe, Sue Nickels, Pat Durbin & Philippa Naylor - what a joy! Even managed to say hello to our resident superhero: Quilt Man!

 

A Garden for All Seasons by Victoria Findlay Wolfe- 9' x30' !

 I'll be taking today to chill out & catch up on house things. If you didn't make it to Paducah this past week, never fear! Mark September on your calendars and join us here for Fall Paducah Quilt Week!

Quick selfie with Victoria Findlay Wolfe's quilt