WIP: Diane Went to Quilting Shows, E-I-E-I-O

Last weekend was a great one for quilting. My neighboring town of Pleasanton held a Quilt, Crafts, and Sewing Festival and my local nursery, Alden Lane in Livermore, held its annual Quilting in the Garden display and event.

At the Pleasanton Festival I bought some fabric. E-I-E-I-O. 

At Quilting in the Garden I bought a pattern. E-I-E-I-O.

The reason for the E-I-E-I--O theme is that I bought a cloth book at the Pleasanton festival for my granddaughter and I have already sewn it up. That is less than one week from purchase until completion. I think that is a record for me. It worked up quickly and the illustrations are really cute. The colors are cheerful and have a soft appeal to them.

Here are the duck pages. Quack, Quack! There are also pages for pig, cow, lamb, and horse. Oink, Oink! Moo, Moo! Baa, Baa! Neigh, Neigh!

I bought other fabrics at the festival, but mostly what I call basics such as a medium blue that reads as a solid. If you look closely you will see the states. There is also a grey, some black and white graphics, and a fat quarter medley of polka dots.

I also expanded my collection of stripes. 

I am chagrined to admit I caved and bought yet another quilt kit. The color combination just called to me and resistance was futile especially due to the clearance pricing. Here are the fabrics in an array of bright greens, purples, oranges, and turquoises.  They are much richer than this picture shows since the camera flash washed them out a bit.

Here is the pattern that accentuates the wreaths of acorns and berries and flowers.

I also bought five different novelty prints representative of, or at least symbolic of, four of my college suite mates and me. The girls' dormitory at my college, McCormick Hall at MIT, is having a 50th anniversary celebration and there will be a quilt made to commemorate the event. I have made five blocks, one for each of us. I have yet to scribe them with our names. After the event, once my friends have seen them, I will be sure to post the pictures on a future blog along with their feature fabrics. They count as my work in progress for this week.

At the Alden Lane Quilt show I bought this pattern by Sandy Klop that appealed.

Here are photos of some of the quilts displayed that I found inspiring or striking. I love the bright colors, hexagon shapes, and crispness of this one. It is called Flying Circles by Sandy Klop.

I liked the bold shapes and strong primary colors of this one. It reminds me of the game Quirkle. The quilt, like the game, is just plain fun. Is is called Sparkle Clean, also by Sandy Klop.

Just look at all those flying geese!  I can really admire the applique, even though I rarely (actually, never) do it. It too is by Sandy Klop and is titled Folk Art Fancy. It was not until I wrote up this blog post that I realized that my favorites quilts, the ones that I chose to take pictures of were all by the featured artist, and that the one pattern that I bought was also by her.

I was quite surprised to see this quilt made up and displayed at Alden Lane. The quilt top is made from Jo-Ann Fabric's 2006 QuiltBlocks Collection titled Rhythm & Blues and assembled as intended. The quilt artist was listed in the program as Robin Towers.

I, too made a quilt from these blocks but combined them very differently. The story behind my version of block assembly can be found in my June 20, 2012 blog post. I find it quite amazing how different the two can be, starting from the same basic building blocks.

I finished my second Christmas pillowcase, this week. I just re-read my last blog post. Talk about verbose! Yuck! One picture would have said it all. Actually the final paragraph did say it all. I did not need all the other paragraphs. Here is a picture of the two completed pillowcases, illustrating handedness and correct fabric orientation for when on bed.

I am off now to check out other folks' creations at WIP Wednesday at http://www.freshlypieced.com/  Here are my stats:

Completed projects since 9/25/13 WIP post:

1. Firetruck pillowcase - completed fabric orientation post
2. 2nd Christmas pillowcase
3. Old MacDonald Soft Book

Ongoing projects:  

1. Quilt blocks for four college friends and me
2. Classic Cars strip quilt (August 3, 2013 post)- need to back, quilt, and bind
3. Grinch quilt (May 22,2013 post) - all borders added, need to back, quilt, and bind
4. Jack O'Lantern Trio (February 2, 2013 post) - awaiting FMQ
5. Chicken quilt - awaiting FMQ
6. Overlapping square wall hanging - awaiting FMQ
7. Mask quilt (October 19, 2011 post) - hidden away awaiting inspiration for arranging hexagons

New projects since 9/25/13 WIP post:  

1. 2nd Christmas pillowcase
2. Old MacDonald soft book E-I-E-I-O
3. Quilt blocks for four college friends and me

Stats since last WIP:

     Completed  projects - 3

     Currently in progress - assembly completed on 6 of 7;  finishing is my bottleneck

     New projects - 3