On my flights to Kentucky, I finished reading “At Home on Ladybug Farm” by Donna Ball.
This is the author’s second book in the series. It follows the life of Cici, Lindsay and Bridget, three very good friends who purchased an old “fixer-upper” house in the country. Life in rural Virginia is picturesque but has it’s trials and tribulations. Cici’s teenage daughter has moved in with them. They are also taking care of a teenage boy who lost his father. As renovations occur on the old house, they find things in the walls which help them to learn more of the history of the area, the house and the people who lived in the house. I enjoyed reading the first book in this series, “A Year on Ladybug Farm”, along with this one. Enjoyable and comforting.
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OK, I said I had more quilts to share with you from my trip to the Kentucky Heritage Quilt Society and I do. Here are some more quilts from the challenge.
“Color Play” was made by Mary Bauer from Crestwood, Kentucky. She writes, “I was excited about this year’s challenge since my favorite quilt projects are colorful geometrics, something I used to draw as a child. Drawing circles, squares and triangles was just “my speed” artistically. Stick figures were far too challenging for me. As I started to plan the quilt, I just happened to have a large section of strip pieced fabric (strata) left over from another project. It had every color stipulated in the challenge except black, white and purple. So I found a purple fabric with black in it, made a circle pieced into a white background, then sliced it and inserted 1′ strips of the strata. As I was finishing I realized I needed another shape so I inserted the triangles in to the border. What fun! Thank you Claire!” I think Mary was awarded “Best Workmanship”.
“Circus Dot-To-Dot” was made by Debbie Lewis Poole from Frankfort, Kentucky. Here is what Debbie wrote about her quilt. “I loved to color and paint when I was a kid. Actually, I still do! This quilt was made by enlarging pages from a coloring book. I copied the pattern onto fabric and painted it with fabric paints and markers. I quilted it and embellished it with beads, sequins and crystals. I have used all 8 colors in the basic box of crayons. There are many shapes in the elephant and lion. The background quilting has triangles, squares, circles, rectangles and lots of unusual shapes.”
“One Brown Button” was made by Cindy Vough from Lexington, Kentucky. She writes, “I started this challenge a number of times, I was probably making it a bit complicated and not at all happy with the results so I simplified and designed a diagonal strip pieced quilt. It was made using a “quilt as you go” technique, so when it was pieced it was also quilted, got to love that efficiency. I found a package of pretty buttons at JoAnn’s, chose the fabrics to coordinate, when I had most of the buttons sewn on the quilt I read the challenge again and realized I had omitted the color brown. If you know my work, brown is my favorite color. I use it extensively in every piece. So to compensate for the omission I found a brown button and added it to the quilt. Can you find it?” I believe Cindy won “Best Use of Color”.
Joanne Rigsbee from Union, Kentucky made “Longing for a Box of 64″. Had to Settle for a Box of 24!” She wrote, “This is a Teri Henderson Tope pattern, called ‘Doodle in Reverse”. Teri taught at the 2012 KHAS Retreat in March at Blue Licks State Park. She was an upbeat energetic teacher and I thoroughly enjoyed learning this new applique technique. As I was completing the piece, I thought it fit the theme, “A New Box of Crayons” because almost every color required in the specs were in this piece. (I used a pigma pen to make sure every color was represented.) I hand quilted in the ditch of the recessed applique and echo quilted around the design.”
Here is a photo of my students at the Kentucky Heritage Quilt Society workshop hard at work.
On day one of teaching, we worked on blocks for the Ocean Sunrise quilt. At the end of the day, we taped all of the finished blocks onto the wall. There were a lot of finished blocks. Way to go ladies!!
This week I will be at the Vermont Quilt Festival. I’m sure I’ll have lots to share with you when I return.