More Local Guild Faves...

It's hard to believe after a year of planning, the Bayberry Quilter's of Cape Cod annual quilt show is over in just three short days! I always heavily photograph the entire thing for later enjoyment... as I said before, the ones that don't get ribbons are as good as the ones that do. Here are a few of my favorites.




I LOVE piecing... it's actually what attracted me to this "sport" in the first place. These two quilts were EXQUISITELY pieced.

Above: "Orca Bay Revisited'" by Paula Faria

Below: "Sea Swept'" by Ann Bermingham, 
Quilted by April Gillroy

Another pieced beauty, but I especially LOVE this because I am making it... it was a BOM pattern in 2017(?) by Inspiring Stitches called Heartland Heritage. 

What's not to love about sewing machines?

I got halfway, but got hung up on the Old English Sheepdogs-- I thought my quilt should have cats.
Really tempted  to pull this out again. It looks so much better FINISHED.

"Heartland Heritage" by Donna Fitzpatrick




Another pieced beauty and I always love a good quilt name...
"Escargot'" by Mary Spurr

These fish were in the Wall Hanging Category... they jumped right out at you when you walked in--no pun intended. Simple and sensational. The fabric are SO perfectly chosen.

"Swim Team" by Carol Green-Weishaupt

Now this was my Best-in-Show bet-- it didn't win, but we're all entitled to our opinion, aren't we!

This is one of those Pearl Pereira Baltimore Album quilts.

 I mean, just for finishing it... 

but so well done and also "By The Sea" was our show theme. I believe it did get a blue ribbon at least.

"The Octopuses Garden" by Sandra Davidson

Those seahorses!

More pieced beauty... I'm feeling a medallion quilt next year? 

But not HAND QUILTED, like this one!

"Confetti Explosion," Mary Ann Karpinski

Those who know me, know I love Christmas. So this was just the most heartfelt thing, with dozen of charms and beads attached. I kept going back to it.

"Dad's Christmas Tree," by Kathleen Andreoli

A fabulous art piece. 

"Bits and Pieces," by Jean Howe

 

This should have gotten a special award for "Best Cape Cod Quilt"!

"Whale Tail" by Pat Murphy

Here is a fabulous flower that did get a special award. I think you could call me this person's fan, because every time I fall in love with something unusual and gorgeous, it's hers. This belongs in an art gallery, next to Georgia O'Keefe.

"How We Met," by Cathy Papazian

This is Cathy's bike. I mean, just look at those people. I hope this person has considered entering the national show circuit.

"Kaleidoscope," Cathy Papazian

If you want to applique a gorgeous flower basket, but have no needle turn skills, never fear. Look at these clever pieced flower blocks and buttons! Clever.

"From My Garden," by Cindy Ehrenreich

Now this is machine embroidery-- I was asked by the show chairperson if we should have a machine embroidery category, and responded that I didn't think there would be enough entries. Well, I couldn't have been more wrong. I guess the only fault here is that they aren't San Francisco Stitch Co. designs!

"Hop To It," by Lois Johnson

I've been obsessed with the orange peel pattern for quite a while. What a stunning setting for someone who does have some applique skills-- this is also in the hand quilted category--

"Bird Orangery" by Mary Ann Karpinski

"Long Winter" by Nancy Mueller

 "Retro Truck Christmas Tree" by Dawn Gauthier

An example of how machine embroidery makes the quilt.

And now we end with beautiful swans...

"Seven Swans" by Nancy McConnell

The quilt below was a gift to Nancy who was our guild president for two years-- not only did we have to move our meetings, but we had to move the quilt show, too! Boy, did she earn it. Quite a few people worked on this, but you could never tell-- it's one harmonious quilt. A treasure.

All in all there were more than 300 quilts at the show. There is nothing better to me than to see the work of all these people, beginners, advanced, traditional, modern, fiber artists-- all pouring out love in needle and thread. A true inspiration. See you next year!

xox

Carol

Local Quilt Guild Fun!

This month was my local quilt guild's 38th annual show... 

The Bayberry Quilters of Cape Cod.

After my babies flew the nest about five years ago, I joined to broaden my horizons. I had pretty much been quilting in a closet for years, so with new friends, classes, and lectures, an entire new world opened up to me!

Artists always pick nice places to live, and Cape Cod is no exception, so there's a deep pool of talent here. If you have a Facebook account, you can visit the group page (link at the bottom), and they have photographed the ribbon winners--it is all "Viewer's Choice."

 The quilts that didn't win ribbons are as good as the ones that did,

so in this post I am going to share most of the Challenge quilts.

If you are ever stuck for an idea-- enter a challenge-- it really gets the creative juices flowing, and it is beyond fun to then see what everyone else has come up with. 

 This year's show theme was "By The Sea..." the challenge quilts had to be 24" square and rhyme with "sea." Other challenges have been more specific, but it depends on the artist if you find this freeing, or without enough framework! 

So sweet chickadees!

You can read the names on the tags... I like to give credit to the artist, but it's viewers choice, so they don't list the names-- it's a secret. (Unless you blog about making it--LOL) You find out after the voting ends. If you do see yours and would like credit, just comment below and I'd be happy to add it.

 I tried to get pictures of them all, but they were stacked three high in a busy corridor with vendors behind them, so I apologize to those I missed. (We changed show locations this year, and traded square footage for air conditioning.) 

Love this bird-- piecing, quilting... both as free as its name.

 There were three "Bees." All wonderful. 

Love these fabrics. Deb Strain's?

Can't you just feel the love for this pet? THOSE EYES!

"Gracie" by Diane McGuire

Someone is a fearless foundation paper piecer! Usually the sliced up backgrounds are so distracting to me, but this one is cleverly hidden by a lattice and tiny stippled quilting.

I'm pretty sure I know whose this is based on last year's winners! So fun to look at... all the tiny details are awesome. Love Alice and the rabbit... THAT. VELVET. OCTOPUS...

Garden fun. 

This is a really beautiful piece-- love the wave on the shore-- it's almost photographic. Says: "No words can express her contentment as she walk along the beach."

Ditto that.

Here's another bee. A BIG BEE. A beautiful bee!

Unluckily for me, it was right next to Mon Cheri--

like, you couldn't take your eyes off that bee.

Now I said before I didn't get a ribbon when I picked up my quilts.

But one trend I saw in the show was more machine embroidery like this ABC quilt. This is a guild that started off with not a lot of machine embroiderers, so I consider that a win. 

I was congratulating myself for being a good sport, and went on line to see the winners.

 A beach scene won first, not surprising for a Cape Cod quilt show...

The big bee got second... (there's mine next to it)

And WAIT, WHAT?

Apparently, my third place ribbon got separated from the quilt at checkout time! So all's well that ends well for another great show.

Be sure to check out the winners on Facebook-- I heavily photographed the show, but the ones they posted are better. 

Click the words below and give it a minute to load.

Bayberry Quilters of Cape Cape Cod Show Winners

In the next post, I am going to show you quilts with machine embroidery-- there's enough of them to get their own category next year, I bet!

And in the meantime, I am just back from World Quilt New England, so there will be more quilty goodness to come when I catch up! Thanks for reading.

xox

Carol

Sewing Room Forensics...

The summer is flying by for all of us!

We have had gorgeous weather-- not too hot, and nice and dry-- in short, this has been one of our best summers evah, as they say here in Massachusetts!

It is with some pride that we now have a complete collection of eight cross stitch of the month designs, all out ON TIME, and even completed with binding all hand stitched to the back!

We have been trying to use a different color of grunge for each month and so far we have succeeded. It gets harder as the months roll on. That is-- until we found WEBFABRICS.NET. We first discovered them at a booth at Houston Quilt Festival... they had a HUGE selection of fabrics that are in the category of "Background Textures,"-- it's the stuff we love for embroidery-- not a solid, but not too busy to show off gorgeous embroidery. Of course they have a huge selection of grunge--and what do you know? You can buy 1/4 yd. (most sites have 1/2 yd. minimum) for $3.10. So we'll be doing some picking for the four remaining months of the year.

In other studio news, if a detective came into the office right now, he'd note...

"There appears to have been signs of a struggle..."

And "fiber evidence is in abundance..."

Yes, they'd be right on both counts, getting "My Christmas Album" ready for show!

Quilting took about three days... not the ONE I anticipated!

First, I stitched in the ditch around all the blocks, then tightly stitched around each embroidery. I added a 1/8" outline around each.

Next, I quilted tight swirls around each block. It was amazing how this gave a little POOF to the little bodies of the birds and other motifs.... I tried to capture it on camera, but you really need to see it in person. 

The sashings were a little too POOFY after all of that, so I nailed them down with x's in each wreath.

Finally, in the plaid, I decided to stitch a grid in invisible thread. Going around each bow was a real time killer. Everything went really well though-- just took TIME!

 This is a moment that causes extreme anxiety for any quilter-- I don't prewash my fabrics and there was a lot of RED. But soaking and blocking is really essential to getting a pristine finish. I pinned a color catcher sheet  over each embroidery, because I would just be totally disappointed if my dove turned even a little bit pink.

Of course, a piped, scalloped border was the perfect finish. 

(Read: binding took THREE more days.)

So there it is!

I volunteered as much as I could for the show-- most of it was behind the scenes. One of my jobs was to embroider the names of the sponsors on the VIP ribbons...

Now I know you were all rooting for me, 

but neither of my pieces won anything!

It's all good--- it's a tribute to the bench strength of this very talented guild. I'll be sharing some of the quilts later this week and you'll see why I do not feel left out at all!

I have had my mom staying with me this summer-- here we are, enjoying the "Fisherman's Feast for Two" at a local restaurant. 

When I was finishing my quilt, I said to her, 

"You taught me to sew..."

and she said, "Not like THAT, I didn't!"

Wasn't that the sweetest comment? 

But yes, she certainly lit a spark.

xox

Carol