Thanks everyone for the congrats on our win. The dress came back to me in the mail this week, all in one piece and with it’s blue ribbon. Still can’t believe that.

I had never been to a quilt show of this size, and what I was definitely not prepared for was the level of workmanship in the quilt competition. Everywhere I turned there were absolutely stunning quilts. Things I cannot imagine making in my wildest dreams. These people have some serious talent. My pictures definitely do not do them justice, but here are a few that just took my breath away.

This one had incredible applique. It was one of the first I saw, but I loved the colours.

There was a whole category for picture style quilts (I am sure there is a more technical name for it). This was one of my favourites in that category.

Although this one was pretty neat too. The further away from this one you were the more it appeared to be a photograph.

This one had photographs on the quilt, showing the history of the lighthouse that this stairwell was in.

Some had 3 dimensional elements, like the fungus on the trees here. This piece was simply astounding – can you believe that is a quilt?

This one was an advent calendar, with 24 little doors that opened to show a little something in each one. Each door had a little bead on it to hold it shut. Amazing.

This one was one of my favourites both in colour and perspective. When you looked at it you really got the feeling you were laying on a forest floor. A lot of hand dyed fabric in this one.

And then there was the embroidery. The stitching! Look at her hair! It looked from a distance like it was some sort of fabric, so people were passing it by. But when you get up close, HER HAIR IS ALL THREAD. All different colours of thread. Unbelieveable.

Look at all the stitching on this lion. He was incredible. He looked so soft, I would have loved to touch this one. (But I didn’t no white gloves for me).

This one used an amazing collected of threads, yarns, fibres, and fabric to make a quilt that could not have looked more like a gorgeous carpet. I kept trying to figure out how she got it all sewn on there.

But this one, oh my. There is a reason why this quilt won best in show. I came around the corner from seeing our dress and literally stopped dead in my tracks. You all know how much I love rainbow type things. Well, this one had that and so much more.

It was hard to get near this quilt to take any pictures because there were so many people around it all weekend. Each of those little flowers is individually appliqued onto that quilt. There is such an amazing use of colour throughout the whole piece.

But what is the most amazing this about this quilt was the quilting. You can see a bit of it above (I encourage you to click on these pictures to see the larger views), but the back really shows you how much work went into this piece.

The back was a solid piece of the grey batik. The gold you see? ALL QUILTING. Each of the little flowers is individually stuffed to stick up off the quilt (there is a name for this too, I can’t remember it). There are feathers, fans, teeny tiny repeating motifs. It was so gorgeous. I really wanted to take it home with me. Me and everyone in the quilt show. It deserves to be in a museum for people to see for years and years to come.

I think there was a point in the show when I said to Laura “Can you imagine the total number of work hours in this place? If you added up all the hours spent on all the quilts, all the wearables, all the wall hangings, what do you think it would sum to? A million? Several million?” It was very overwhelming. I will definitely be going back next year more prepared for the kind of work we will see. Next post I will show you a few of the simpler quilts I saw around the show that have given me some inspiration.

Yes folks, that is Laura and I standing beside our blue ribbon winning dress. We won “Best Amateur Entry”! I am still in shock. Can you tell we are excited?

What a great weekend we had. I really didn’t understand the size of this quilt show. It was HUGE. We had a great time wandering around checking everything out. I will post some of the unbelievable quilts soon, but here are some of the other wearables that were in the competition with us.

This piece won the best in show award. It was so masterfully put together. The picture really doesn’t do it justice. The quilting on it was stunning.

And this piece won the viewers choice award. My camera really doesn’t do this one justice either, red is so hard to photograph. It was such a pretty shape.

As Laura and I have never been in a show, we learned a lot about how the competition works, what kinds of things display well, and I think I picked up some tricks on construction if I decide to do something like this in the future (like buy a serger. BTW – does anyone know of some good references for learning how to use a serger and what to look for when buying one?). This will be the only time that we are able to enter as amateurs since we won this year, so I am not sure if I will enter again or not. The competition at the professional level is really stiff. But we shall see.

In the true spirit of a quilting weekend, Laura and I even busted out the sewing machines in the hotel room.

Laura is making some quilts for a charity event, and I told her that I would give her a hand.

If the hotel had not been packed floor to ceiling with other quilters, I might have been concerned about disturbing someone. But as it was, I am sure our neighbours were relaxing to a familiar sound.

Thanks to Laura, her stepmom Jeanne and her friend Clara for a wonderful weekend. You are just a great bunch of folks!

I can’t wait to show you all the quilts we saw. Stunning.

Well, I am off to the quilt show to see our dress! Wish us luck – I just hope no one laughs at it

I finally got around to doing some proper galleries of my finished objects. If you refresh you should be able to see them all along the top of the page. Have a look, poke around, and let me know if anything is wonky. If you click on one picture, it will let you scroll through them all. Or you can just click on the picture again and it will take you back to the gallery.

It is good to see them all on this page and organized so nicely. Lets forget the fact that I have been at the computer all day doing this when I should be doing things like cleaning and finishing 20,000 other crafting projects I have on the go.

I also have updated the card gallery to include a whole bunch of cards that I have made over the last little while. Here are a couple of my favourites.

One of the new yarns that we got at the shop I work at is Unplanned Peacock Silk Boucle. This stuff is to die for – so soft, so shiny, so….silky! Whitney asked if I could make a shop sample, and mentioned that I get to keep the sample when we are done with it. That I can do!

It is a simple drop stitch pattern, which I think shows off the colour and texture of the yarn so well.

I used US9 needles, so that it would be nice and airy. This is the best boucle I have ever worked with. It is kind of bunched, rather than looped, so there is nothing to snag your needle on. It’s lumpy and bumpy without all the annoying parts.

And because it is silk, it has a wonderful drape too. It really does feel like a cocoon around my neck.

Secretly I wish I wasn’t so happy with it – because I want to wear it rather than display it!