Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Divas, Portland and Mad Scramble

 Above and below - two recent Divas quilts.  I probably have them in my "to be quilted" pile.
 
Joe and I did a little road trip to Portland the last week in March.  I was desperate for a bit of downtime after several very busy months at work.  Spring was arriving in Portland - trees in bloom, a variety of spring flowers about.  Whereas here, a month later, we still had snow falling yesterday.  Should have stayed longer!
 
One of the best quilt stores - Fabric Depot - is in Portland.  As you can see - rows and rows of fabric and the day we hit it, it was all 30% off!  US fabric prices are always significantly lower than Canadian and with 30% off - it was a pretty sweet day!  And the added bonus of shopping in Oregon is there is no sales tax!  I won't tell you how much I got - there and at other stores on our trip - partly because I don't actually know and partly because it would be admitting that I have a problem....
 
 

 
 
The Heritage Park Festival of Quilts is coming up so I decided to register some quilts for show - it's just a show, not judged.  As my "surplus" quilts are still at the Galleria, I had only Gotham and Follow Your Dreams left at home.  I had plans to make a few more so registered six altogether.  That was back on April 8.  The quilts are to be delivered May 21.  So - all I had to do was make four more quilts - in between working full time, etc. -  between April 8 and May 21 - no sweat, right? 
 
As of this moment I have all tops made and first one is on Max being quilted.  So here are the tops:
 
 
 
"Promenade"  This is the City Lot design in City Quilts by Cherri House.
 




 "Talking Heads" (Talking Head I and Talking Head II) - a design called Two Heads are Better than One by Boo Davis in Whip Up Mini Quilts by Kathreen Ricketson.


"Surf Town" - a design by Mimi Wellington called Checkerboard Twist that I found in a magazine.



And finally, "Camo-Quilt" - my own design. 
My mad scramble continues - gotta get these babies quilted by May 21! 

Jim's Regatta

 
This one seemed to take forever.  Aside from the somewhat fussy piecing, I also quilted quite a few other quilts instead of actually working on this, but I finally got the top done, then quilted and bound.  So here it is being modelled by Marlow and Marla.  Marla gave it to the family of her friend, Jim.  Jim was ill with cancer when she asked me to make the quilt, but unfortunately died of his illness not long after that.  Very sad.  Marla tells me they like the quilt so I hope it gives them a bit of comfort.
 
Below is the label - Jim with his family and the pix I based the quilt design from.