My month of June

It's been far too long since I've posted but I think I've got a few good excuses!

Besides working like mad trying to complete my quilts for Prairie Quilt Guild's Common Threads Quilt Show, I've had a few interesting things happen. Everything from my mother's fall, hospitalization and eventually helping her move to the nursing home to having the brakes go out on our car while I was driving. I am all in one piece and trying to recuperate from the month of June! Hopefully, July will be better month because that's a special month for me! Details later.

Here's my Rocky Road to Kansas embroidered quilt which won first place at the show in the "Other Traditional Quilt" class. Its inspired by an antique quilt pictured in a Crazy Quilt book I own. This quilt was made to showcase my home state of Kansas' 150th. birthday and each embroidered center block features a state fact, symbol or nickname. Some of them are our state bird, animal, amphibian and even the state soil which I had no idea we even had!

This is my clamshell quilt hanging in the show. It won third place in the Hand Quilted class.

And then came a surprise!

My selvage quilt, "The Parlour's Tin Ceiling" won one of the Celebrity Judge's Awards!
It wasn't entered into the judged portion of the show but it won a ribbon anyway. Thanks to anyone reading this who sent me selvages and thanks again to Jan who did the beautiful machine quilting!

Until next time, Mayleen

Shell Shocked!

After two years of working on my clamshell quilt off and on, I'm happy to say that its finished!

Measuring approximately 88x89 inches, it turned out a little larger than I'd expected.
All the applique and piecing has been done by hand. I even hand stitched the binding on to the quilt. There have been a few things done by machine though. Before I knew that I wanted to make the quilt by hand, I basted the edge of the clamshells using my sewing machine.
The big stitch quilting was done with orange perle cotton #8 in the clamshells and border and green perle cotton #8 on the scalloped sashing.

The sleeve and label have been sewn on just in time for the quilt to be shown at the Common Threads Quilt Show in Wichita, KS next month. I've entered it into the judged portion of the show but am wishing I hadn't because I've found so many things the judge will not like. In fact, I'm thinking of making a list of things I wish I could do over to compare with the judge's show comment form.

My quilting bee was stunned to learn that I plan to use this quilt as a wallhanging and not a bed quilt. I have the perfect spot for it - over the open staircase to our basement. I think it will brighten up that wall which I've been ignoring for the past 12 years. Now if only my husband can figure out how to rig a scaffolding over the stairs to hang the quilt!

the Hollyhock Bride

Did you make these when you were growing up?

My only memory of my paternal grandparents' farmhouse involves me and Delia, a neighbor girl, sitting on the wood front porch steps making a hollyhock wedding party. The wedding colors were whatever colors were blooming. We'd line them up and march them in while humming the wedding march. Fun memories!
My white hollyhock plant is blooming but unfortunately, my hollyhock bride has no attendants because no other colors are blooming right now.

I hope you all had a good Mother's Day! I was able to spend the day with my daughter and husband, visit with my son and daughter-in-law in Florida and spend some time with my mom. I don't think I've shared this yet but I'm going to be a first time Grandma in fall!

In response to Linda of Flourishing Palms encouraging me to post more photos of myself on this blog, here is a 3 generation photo taken yesterday of my daughter, myself and my mother. My goodness, how did my hair get so gray? I'm actually comfortable with my hair being gray but am always surprised to see just how gray it is. In fact, I hope it turns totally white someday!

PS - Quilting, oh yes I still am! I'm half done with the clamshell quilt border and have decided to split my days between working on it and the Rocky Road to Kansas quilt. I hope to have photos of the finished clamshell quilt soon!

Later this same evening - OK, this is really strange. Go to the first picture and click on it to make it large. Do you see my hollyhock bride's happy face?!?

Flower Therapy

If this post doesn't make sense, its because I'm tired of quilting! Can't believe I wrote that but yes, I'm tired.

The quilt show is in roughly 5 1/2 weeks and I'm still quilting the clamshell quilt. Am working on the outer border now and still have some of the sashing to do too. Everything is taking longer than I thought and there seem to be a lot of interruptions but I keep at it.

Instead of showing you yet another picture of the quilt, here are some photos of flowers growing at my house and one more of Charlie. In other words, flower therapy. But first, a disclaimer. I'm not very good with plants except for weeds. This year seems to be a banner year for bindweed and sunflower plants, even more so than last year.

This poppy is growing on the north side of our garage. Apparently a bird planted the seed for me because last year, they were growing on the south side of the house.
They never seem to grow where I scatter the seed but they love to come up next to the foundation, in the lawn and this year there are several under the evergreen tree. I love their color and try to transplant them to a better spot when I can. Sometimes they even live after I transplant them!

Part of the Clematis vine - Jackmani, I think. By the way, the Butterfly Bush in the background is Charlie's favorite plant. ???

The Help.

For some reason, Charlie likes the garden hose too. I think we keep him around just because he has so many interesting quirks. He fits in fine with our family!

Lanolin Love?

Can anyone tell me why Charlie likes Bag Balm?

The listed ingredients: B-Hydroxyquinoline Sulfate in a Petrolatum Lanolin Base. Is it the Lanolin? Its been too long since my college Biochemistry class for me to even guess what the chemical is! Charlie loves to rub his cheeks against my fingertips when I rub some of the Bag Balm on them. I'm curious why he's doing this so if anyone knows, please let me know.
By the way, please excuse my very messy desk!

I've been working hard big stitch quilting the clamshell quilt and here it is draped over the ironing board. Those are freezer paper templates which I quilt around in the hoop in the upper right hand corner. As of tonight, I've finished 8 full diamonds, only 5 more to go!

Stitchin', stitchin', stitchin'

Keep those fingers stitchin'!

Just a quick post about my projects but first ...

I want to thank Linda from Flourishing Palms for awarding my blog the Liebster Award! Linda is a wonderful blog friend and someday before her move to Florida, we're going to meet in KC. Looking forward to that very much! My blog is officially a "No Award" blog but when Linda told me about the award, I really need some encouragement so again, my thanks.

Now back to quilting, you'll probably not be reading anything new on my blog for a few months. My life is just way too full right now taking care of my family and mom, quilt guild responsibilities and trying to get two quilts done in time for the June quilt show.

At our guild meeting on Tuesday, the president announced we are no longer able to withdraw quilts and I hope she was joking when she said they'd be displayed unfinished! I guess I could always call mine art quilts or folk art or maybe I'm just making a statement, ??? LOL

Here's the progress on my show quilts:

Clamshell quilt - I've begun big stitch quilting the clamshells. This is taking me a lot longer than I thought it would. Making those big stitches in a smooth curve isn't easy! The stitches on top look OK to me but underneath, not so good (if you can see them at all).

Rocky Road to Kansas - Is this a crazy quilt or an embroidered quilt? I'm sorry about the washed out photo. The gray is actually a little darker and the fabric used in the middle square is not quite so bright.

Thanks for stopping by!

It's done!

I finished the binding, sleeve and label on the donation crazy quilt tonight and tomorrow morning will check it over once more and give it a quick press before delivering it. Don't laugh but after putting this much work into it, its a bit hard to give it up!

Here are some close up pictures of the embroidery on the fans and middle block. I brightened the colors to make it easier to see the details.