Tuesday, July 26, 2011

A Week in Sisters

The Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show has been a staple in this sunny Central Oregon Community for over 30 years.  When my friend, Judy, and I started attending, there were three days of classes, called the Quilter's Affair, preceding the one-day show. In the 18 years since, Quilter's Affair has expanded to 5 days of classes and includes three evening events.  Our friend Jean joined us 9 or 10 years ago and 4 years ago, Barb started coming with us. This year, Judy's friend Jan from Minnesota came out to experience quilt week.  I'm pretty sure she liked it. Jan took 5 days of classes and about 500 pictures.

Classes are held at the local high school.  The Stitchin' Post Quilt Shop puts on the Quilter's Affair and stocks a small store at the school for Quilt Week.


The lobby of the school looks like this during class time.



And like this at lunch.



Outside the school we're treated to views like this.



And this.


 And of course a little bit of this.



The day of the show (and the day before, to be accurate) busloads of quilt-lovers stream into town.  Quilts are hung on buildings,


between trees



and under tents.




The main highway through town is closed for the day and it's really fun to stand in the middle of a street where on any other day dawdling could be life endangering.

In addition to quilts, there is food and drink,








Entertainment


And of course something like this:






Barb and I ate lunch at a restaurant/garden store:


It was really charming and the food delicious.




Ever seen an actual flower bed?



It was a wonderful week, full of quilts and friends and inspiration.  Then Barb and I went home and slept for a week.

Friday, July 1, 2011

Group Quilts

A couple of years ago a few quilter friends and I formed a small quilt group.  My friend, Judy, and I had talked about it for some time and when our friend Jean started going on quilting field trips with us, we kicked it around some more.  With a fourth quilter friend we knew well and another we had just met after joining a quilt guild, we finally took the plunge.

I must admit to being a bit nervous about the whole thing.  Working on a quilt that was ultimately going to belong to someone else is a bit daunting.  What if my addition stuck out like a sore thumb?  What if I didn't love what others did on my quilt?  What if working on a short deadline made me crazy? (Or perhaps that should be crazier.)

So with pizza boxes, some basic rules and fabric in hand we jumped into the deep end.  Five of us started the round robin and it turned out GREAT!  Every one wound up working out of her comfort zone, stepping up her game and thinking about pleasing the woman whose quilt she was currently working on .  Every two months we shared what we'd added with everyone except the woman who started and would own the quilt.  The last meeting was the "big reveal."  They were wonderful.  I'm missing a picture and want to show them all at once, so I'm going to start with year two.

Four of us participated in year two and we decided to try a technique we'd seen in a magazine.  The project was called slice of life.  Two of us started with photographs and two with patterns.  What we ended up with was amazing.  We sped up the process at the halfway point so they'd be done in time to hang at our guild quilt show in May.

Each design was cut into four slices.  The slices were fused and at the end the owners quilted and finished them as they desired.

The first quilt is Jan's.

 Jan started with a pattern, sliced it horizontally into four pieces and traced each piece onto muslin.  She fused one section and passed it on, not seeing it again until the reveal.  Jan chose to put narrow sashing between the slices and border it like a window.  Even though everyone used different fabrics, the result is smashing.  Now I  want to plant more poppies outside my window. 


 Jean used a pattern of a giant poppy and asked us to stay in the color groups of the original design.


She cut the pattern horizontally and sewed the slices together without sashing.  The differences in the slices are subtle and the bright colors give it big impact.

Judy took a photo of a zebra taken by a photographer friend, traced it, enlarged it and asked us to make the zebra different colors in each horizontal slice.


What she got was realistic features on a horse of many different colors.  Her accurate drawing and the careful piecing of each of the ladies allowed her to sew the slices together to get a unified image of a very funky zebra.

I used my own photo of peppers and asparagus, traced, enlarged, and sliced vertically.


 The ladies stayed within the basic colors of the original photo.


I loved the result and thought it would be interesting to see if I could bind them separately, hang them together and have it look like one quilt.  Everybody did such a great job and I love it.

The most interesting part of the whole exercise to me is that what started out as a push toward trying new things produced such wonderful results and also acted like a trust exercise.  I can hardly wait to start year three.

Thank you to quilterblogs.com for including our blog.  Check them out to see what other quilters are up to.

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COMING SOON:  PICTURES OF YEAR ONE