Happy Friday everyone!
The NW Quilt Expo last weekend had so many great quilts! I tried to take a bunch of pictures with my little point-and-shoot camera, but it was very crowded and the light wasn’t ideal. However, I did get a few pictures for you to enjoy! If you made any of these quilts, please comment so I can attach your name to the photo.
I hope these pictures give you some quilty inspiration!
Enjoy,
~Jennifer
Hi everyone!
I’m so excited to shared that I had a quilt accepted into this year’s NW Quilting Expo, held during the past 3 days in Portland. It is the Hummer Storm quilt that I also displayed at the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show over the summer.
Here it is at the Expo show:
Hummer Storm at 2013 NW Quilt Expo
There were so many beautiful quilts in the show! I hope to finish cropping and uploading some of the photos that I took to display in a future post soon.
Here is the first place winner from the Pictorial Quilts category, made by Claudia Pfeil. It is stunning and the photos do not do it justice! Since I love turtles, I think it may have been my favorite quilt at the show.
First Place, Pictorial Quilts, Made by Claudia Pfeil
I had a great time at this year’s event! I purchased some fun fabric and seriously looked at buying a hobby level 18″ long-arm and frame. Unfortunately, I came home without the long-arm, but hope to get one sometime in the future.
Happy quilting!
~Jennifer
The last two weeks have been very bittersweet. My grandfather passed away on September 8th at the age of 92. Although the whole family knew this day was coming, it was still quite a sad shock!
My grandfather absolutely loved the outdoors. He was an avid hunter and fisherman throughout his life. We decided to celebrate his spirit by going camping this weekend at Scott Lake.
Here are two of my favorite photographs:
For the sweet part of the past two weeks, I finished the Star Surround QAL. Thanks to Melissa at Happy Quilting for designing and hosting this fun project!
I decided to straight-line quilt to echo the star shapes in each block using my domestic sewing machine while my cat helpers sunbathed just out of view:
Quilting the Star Shapes
Here is what my final Star Surround quilt looks like all quilted and bound:
Star Surround Completed Front
Star Surround Front with Three Sisters in Background
Star Surround Closeup
Star Surround Completed Back
The back also uses fabric from the Mama Said Sew line plus a label and some more Essex Yarn Dyed in black. I hope that enjoyed looking at my completed project with central Oregon as a background!
Finally, a bit of fun and wicked news! I have joined the Wicked Blog Hop, hosted by Madame Samm at Sew We Quilt. This blog hop runs from October 22nd – 31st so I do hope you’ll come check out all the great blogs featuring wicked Halloween projects.
Have a great week and happy quilting!
~Jennifer
In early August, some co-workers and I went to a local glass studio for a team building event. Each attendee got to create their own 6-inch fused glass tile masterpiece!
At first, I wanted to make a quilt pattern, but it quickly became too difficult since I couldn’t cut the glass pieces to exact sizes like I can with fabric pieces. Instead, I decided to create one of my favorite flowers – the sunflower.
I got to pick up my finished piece this week. The finished project is completely smooth with a “sushi” dish like shape (meaning it curves up slightly on all sides). I plan to use it to hold notions in my sewing room.
The first picture shows me holding it up to catch the afternoon light shining through the glass. The second picture shows the dish inside on a kitchen counter. I think it’s really interesting how the yellow and orange “petal” glass pieces seem to change positions, depending on the lighting.
Here’s a look at the tile before it was fused. The colored glass pieces are positioned on top of a clear glass tile.
Pre-Fused Glass Tile
I think I’ll return to the glass studio in the future. I have some ideas for unique Christmas gifts!
Have you ever made a fused glass or blown glass piece?
Enjoy!
~Jennifer
With summer winding down here in the Pacific Northwest and the kids almost ready to go back to school, I went with my family on a last summer trip to visit Glacier National Park. We did some hiking and saw wildlife from bears to goats to cute little rodents!
Although the mountains in Glacier were a bit obscured from local wildfires, we still managed to get a few good pictures.
Here’s Swiftcurrent Lake:
Swiftcurrent Lake, Glacier National Park
We hiked up to Grinnell Lake:
Grinnell Lake, Glacier National Park
I missed a week on the Star Surround QAL project so I had to catch up on the last 2 weeks once I returned home from Glacier.
Here’s a pic of the block surrounds pieced and ready:
Star Surround Pieces
Once I completed all these building block pieces, I could then begin assembling my 9 star blocks:
9 Star Surround Blocks
The last step to get all caught up with the quilt-a-long was to assemble the stars into 3 blocks by 3 blocks to create the finished quilt top. I decided to take a picture of the complete top outside in the afternoon light when, to my surprise, my Cow cat decided to check out the quilt and give his approval:
I had so much fun on vacation, but I’m happy to be back home!
Here’s a last look at one of our mountain goat friends at Glacier:
Goat at Glacier National Park
Hope everyone had a great summer and here’s to a great September!
~Jennifer
NW Quilted Cat 