Showbox Cover - #12 April

We were preparing for a birthday party for both boys.  The party was the first weekend in April.  Preparations included hanging stuff on the walls.  One of the other things that I wanted to get completed was the showbox cover.  I did get the binding finished Friday night before the party.

Before this showbox cover was completed, I had been using two tablerunners to cover the same area.  I am not sure why I think I need to cover the showbox . . . the original purpose of the showbox was to hold show supplies for the market steers at the Blaine County Fair.  Steers kicked and jumped over the showbox; show supplies including black hoof polish have been spilled on it; and, mostly, people just sat on the show box passing away the fair days.  Silly for it to have a cover now, it seems, but I guess since the showbox now lives in the house, it can have a cover to make it look more "warm".

Each of the little blocks is comprised of scraps that are smaller than 1 1/2 inches.  The blocks are 4 1/2 inches unfinished.  It looks like I used a lot of scraps to create this showbox cover but there are still a lot of scraps left living at my house.  I have 2 paper boxes full of scraps.  That is a lot when it doesn't appear that I even make a dent using the scraps with a project like this.

Here is a closer look at the little scrappy crazy blocks:

I think the little scrappy crazy blocks are cute.  But they do take a lot of time to create.  Sue at Trackside Quilting says I have those two paper boxes labeled "Fabric too small to use".  The label on the box is really scraps smaller than 1 1/2 inches.  And I can use those scraps.  But it will take forever!

Big Sky Quilt Retreat

I entered other quilts in the Big Sky Quilt Retreat that I have not talked about before.  And since this is a quilt blog for me, I am going to post their pictures.

Billings Sew N Vac Christmas Block of the Month

Cottage Year through Four Winds Quilting

Puzzle

I also entered quilts in the show that I did not make but I thought they were cool and I thought other people could enjoy them too.
Frogs for Keegan

Fun for Dillon created by the Longarm group

I already have a list of quilts that I would like to have completed to display in the 2015 Big Sky Quilt Retreat show.  Hopefully I stay focused and actually get the quilts completed.

Tulip

Each Big Sky Quilt Retreat has a theme based challenge.  The first year I came up with the challenge, I didn't know what I was doing so I said any quilt with a yellow star in it was a challenge quilt.  The next year, there were solid rules.  This year, the challenge was still based on the theme of Open Season for Quilters.  None of the rules have been updated since I came up with them.
Part of the challenge is a size requirement.  The largest you can go is approximately 18" x 24".  The item I ended up was way bigger than that so I taped it to the correct size.

I do not think is showed very well at the smaller size but it did fit the requirements for the category for which I wanted to enter the quilt.

This is the full size of the quilt.  Right now it is not finished because I do believe I have to cut it down some but I haven't decided where to trim it.  It is hanging in our room right now so I can think about where to cut it every day.

All of the fabric came out of my stash so that was an added bonus.
For the technique I was using, I believe I should have had more items that I was drawing and then I should have just taken a section of the drawing.  Focusing on one thing and then not making it perfect didn't seem to work out.
There were only 5 quilts entered in the Challenge category at the Big Sky Quilt Retreat.  This Tulip quilt did end up with 3rd place and prize money of $20.00 so that was fun.

Kaleidoscope of Color - #11 March

I have had this quilt quilted for 3 years.  The binding has even been machine sewed on.  I just have not gotten around to hand sewing the binding on.  Kaleidoscope of Color was one of the quilts that I really wanted to enter in the Big Sky Quilt Retreat.  With a deadline, I finally finished this quilt.

And the label from Big Sky Quilt Retreat:

At this very moment, this quilt is hanging in our living room.  It is light enough that it looks pretty good in the white living room.
Sadly, I did the piecing and quilting on this quilt so long ago that I do not remember what I learned along the way.  I guess, I could say that I learned that it is not necessary to wait so long to hand sew the binding on a quilt.

Hawaiian Challenge - #10 February

We picked up our challenge fabric at Four Winds Quilting the beginning of February.  We were to return to the store with the fabric in some format other than the format in which it started.  This is what I came up with:

After much peer pressure, I also entered this quilt in the Big Sky Quilt Retreat show.  The Big Sky Quilt Retreat show is not judged.  There is a People's Choice award in each category but it is just a ribbon award (except for the Challenge category which does include money).  There were 180 quilts on display in the show this year.

I made up this quilt.  The strips are sewn together at a diagonal.  I had an intended width of the quilt.  But when I cut the first section of strips, it was about 4 inches shorter than I had intended.  What I had not considered is the fabric lost when the strips are sewn together on the diagonal.  About 2 1/2" of each strip is lost.
I also learned that quilting densly does not change the color of the fabric.  I did not think the purple frames around the Birds of Paradise was dark enough.  I quilted it really thickly with dark purple thread.  The color of the fabric did not change.  Imagine that.  The frame still does not pop.
Most of the orange and green fabric was from my stash.  Bonus!

Gifts from Brown Bag Exchange

I received two very beautiful quilts from the 2012 brown bag exchange.
This is the quilt I received from the day guild exchange:

I thought more people than just me should see this beautiful quilt so I entered it in the Big Sky Quilt Retreat show in Billings, MT at the Shrine in March 2013.

Following is the wonderful quilt I received from the night guild exchange.  We just hung this quilt up in our bedroom so I could enjoy it all of the time!

I also entered this quilt in the Big Sky Quilt Retreat show.

Now I have to decide if I am going to participate for 2013.  The president of the night guild asked if we needed to start thinking about the brown bag exchange already.  No one seemed too interested yet.

Wonky Stars

Nancy Sasse of Four Winds Quilting is working on getting a Modern Quilting guild going.  Predecessor to the guild, Nancy did a modern block exchange at the store.  I signed up to participate.  These are the blocks I made for the month of March.  The blocks are not sewn together when returned to the owner because the blocks nest into each other.

Originally, since I signed up late, I was not to present until November.  The group decided to be done before the holidays so now I have been reassigned to present in May.  I am still trying to decide what to present.
Also, Nancy said she is going to work on getting a nearby church to be the location for a quilt show for our modern quilts in November.  Now, not only do I have to decide what to present in terms of a block, I also have to have the quilt completely done by November to be in the show!  But really, the only way I ever get anything done is last minute so I think the show is a great idea.
Nancy is also planning a quarterly sew in for modern quilting.  The first one is this Friday.  Nancy is going to get modern quilting to take off in Billings!

Blocks For Exchange

In the day quilt guild, Yellowstone Valley Quilt Guild, the block exchange is not a committment that is written in blood.  Instead, if you want to do the block that a member presents that month, you take home the information, you do the block, and return the block at the next meeting.  In this way, as the presenter, you do not know how many blocks you will get back in return.  If the pattern you present is difficult, you may not get any blocks back.  If the block is easy, you may get a bunch of blocks back.  After you have completed 12 blocks for other people, you become the presenter.  For some reason, I decided to start doing blocks.  And, when I get to 12 blocks completed, I have no idea what I will present.  But I keep doing blocks.
This month, I did a star block:

I also did the black and white strip set someone requested.  The directions on this were just to do a strip set and the person would make up the pattern as they went along.

At the April night guild meeting, Quilt By Association, the activity was to create a snowball block.  Then, a name was drawn out of the people that brought a block.  The winner received a $25 gift card and all of the snowball blocks.  A person at my table won the blocks but it was not me.  I created this block for the activity:

Just keeping active in the guilds . . .