Minnesota State Fair: August 23rd, 2012

 Bob and I only got to one State Fair this year, but what a wonderful one it is.  We spent a day at the Minnesota State Fair and while Bob was checking out the midway, I was checking out the quilts.

The display of the quilts was interesting.  Many were behind glass as the first one shown here is.  Others were on this story board type of thing which is shown below.  You turned the quilts like you would pages.

 Now that would have been fine if you were the only one looking, but lots of people were trying to look at once.

 Consequently, most views of the quilts were like the one shown below.

 The quilt below was the grand prize winner for hand quilting.  Everything about it was truly magnificent.  I didn't get a good photo of the one which won for machine stitching as it was all white and beige so didn't show up.  It, too, was amazing.

 Let me show you some more of the quilts:

 Another thing a bit strange about the displays was that in many cases the quilts, even if they were winners, were used as backdrops for other fair entries.  How would you like to make a prize-winning quilt, and then have a dress pinned to it?

 Or a dress and a teddy bear pinned to it and a needlework picture hung over it?

 The next three are miniatures.  Someone made a green cat!

 I loved this piece and the quilting of it ... so well done.

 I hate snakes, but this next one was one of my favorites at the fair.  These snakes look both quizzical and cute.

 This quilt didn't win and prize.  It was absolutely massive; I'm sure it would fit a California king-size bed.  It's from a Thomas Kincaid picture and lots of the squares in it are 1/2"!!!

 Here's a detail of the bottom left area:

 I love nativities and this one was lovely.

 The quilting was so suitable; you can see that in this detail of the lamb.

 However, Jesus looks a little too old to be newborn, doesn't her?

 I assume this quilter made her own pattern to do this ferris wheel.

 This next one was very imaginative and heavily embellished as you can see by the next two photos.  Is the theme taken from a fairy tale?

 The animals are playing instruments.

 The challenge competition for the fair was very creative.  You know how fair foods are on a stick?  ...corndogs, candy cotton, etc.  Well, the challenge was "Quilt on a Stick" with the theme being "Minnesota Legends."

 There were lots of good entries.

 My favorite was Paul and Babe.

 Here's the winner!  Maybe the guild should come up with a prize and steal this idea for the Weyburn fair.  Entries could be open to us and anyone else.  It would help out the fair's home craft area and be lots of fun.

 Now moving away from quilts ... I have to show you this art entry.  It's, of course, a chef's jacket, but it's art, not a wearable piece.  Do you love the buttons?

 Look closely.  They're actually the letter wheels from those early electronic typewriters!

 This next photo has a beautiful quilt in it, but that's not what I'm showing you.  Someone handcrafted the wooden kayak in front of it.  What a work of art!  Definitely my favorite entry at the fair.

 Those who followed my blog of state fairs last year, might remember the weird foods we spotted.  Here are two from this fair.

 And you might remember that a few of the fairs had life-size butter sculptures of cows.  Well, this one has an artist creating busts of the queen and princesses of the fair.  The day we were there, the artist was doing one of the queen.  They are in a heavily air-conditioned, revolving area and people can gather around and watch the process.  In some cases the process takes eight hours.

 We weren't the only ones at the fair that day ... over 107,000 were there that day!  Yup, at times it was almost human gridlock.

Regina Quilt Show: May 11, 2012

Yesterday I had a medical appointment in Regina so, after it was over, I headed over to the Prairie Piecemakers show.  I'll show you some photos and, if you want to see others, head over to Christa's blog (one of the Torquay quilters) at www.secondstoryquilting.blogspot.ca  She attended the trunk show and has some details about that.

Here's one of my favorites from the show:

And here's another.  You can see a better photo of this one on Christa's blog.

I love the amazing pieces I saw including PPed ones such as this:

And this art one (which wasn't a winner) was one of my favorites:

Look at the trunk:

And the stitching:

This was my favorite large quilt:

And how is this for an I-Spy?  Each square was about 1-1/2 to 2"

And now for my complaint about the show.  The frames the quilts were on (like the black-clothed ones we used) were set up as a maze and no matter where you went you felt you weren't seeing all the quilts.  You would go a little way in a zig-zag fashion and suddenly would be among vendors rather than looking at quilts.  You would try another part of the maze and you were almost immediately at the vendors.  Now I'm very sure the vendors loved this and it isn't as if I didn't plan to spend money at the booths, but I wanted to see all the quilts.  As I said, I kept wondering if I was missing portions of the maze and, indeed, I must have because I see some quilts on Christa's blog which I didn't see there.  I did see three very pretty quilts that were in the back about three feet from a back wall and I felt very bad for the creators of these.  As well, to create the maze, lots of corners had to be created so lots of quilts, even winning quilts, were displayed around corners like this one:

I much preferred our method.  What did the rest of you who were there think?

Tomorrow is Mother's Day and this cute piece from the show may remind you of your mother.  Which one of the three is your mom???

May 1st, 2012: Guild Windup for the Year

What a great evening of fun, friendship, food, and quilt talk!  43 members attended which has to be a record.  Lots of positive comments were floating around about the quilt show and I believe lots of ideas went to Colleen S. for next year's programming. 

Most of us knew that "some woman from North Dakota" won the raffle quilt.  We all had a good laugh when we found out that lots of us knew that, but hardly any knew that the "woman" is Kathy Williams' daughter.  That quilt found a home where it will be appreciated and loved.  Josie Church, a coffee pal of Marion's, won the table topper and we hear she is really happy with it.

With all this blasted rain coming down, I wish we were a 12 month quilt guild as, so far, I haven't needed the extra time for yardwork and gardening.  Good grief!  My tulips aren't even blooming yet.

President Gloria presented birthday girl Vi with some flowers on our behalf.  There was some question of Vi's age, so I'm going to say she is 75 ... that's my story and I'm sticking to it!  Not only that, I'm saying her hands just turned 60 as they continue to do such exquisite hand quilting.  Vi, we're so happy you are one of us and we wish you many more blessed birthdays.

Gloria gave her farewell speech as president and got a little teary-eyed.  Could it be that we questionable quilters actually gave her some good memories of her two years as our president?  She certainly gave us good memories and good leadership and I agree whole-heartedly with her comment that we aren't "just a bunch of women" but, rather, a cohesive,

fun-loving, good-spirited group of creative women.

Donna and Gloria got in their president-to-be and president-past hug.

Gloria was shocked to learn that some members had show-and-tell.  What?  People worked on pieces in the short time since the show??  It seems so.  If you are surprised by that, just go to my previous comment about rain.  We certainly aren't gardening.

I showed this great purse that I bought at the show's sale table.  Lydia made it and then I added stackable buttons which I bought from vendor Liz of Tiger Lily Quilts.

Lydia showed a purse she made from The Quilt Patch's new line of fabrics.  Lydia, do you want to sell me this one too?  I love it!

Jaynie won a doorprize supplied by a vendor and she's already made up the kit.

The fabrics glimmer.

Eva rejoined us after her southern winter and had this quilt top to show:

Vi showed a stunning quilt top:

Here  is a detail of the embroidery:

Marion also had a quilt top, a t-shirt quilt, which had an interesting story to go with the central block.

Helen made this bag from fabrics she bought from one of the vendors.

Yvonne made this bag out of that ever-popular New York Beauty pattern.

We won't meet again until September, but I will post here from time to time if I find good quilt shops and/or quilt shows on my summer travels.  That may start with the Regina Show which is next Friday and Saturday.

Reflections on Our Quilt Show

Ladies, the post right below this one has photos from our show ... no comments, just photos.  I tried to get photos of every single piece there, but do forgive me if I failed in that endeavor.  Elma, I do regret that I didn't get a photo of you with your featured quilter display.  I also took photos of all the labels so if you see one & need to talk to the person who made it (to borrow the pattern!) but aren't sure who to call, just ask me and I can tell you who to call.

So what did our show have?  As far as I'm concerned, it had it all!  ... featured quilters, a guest quilter, a block patterned named after Weyburn, vendors, raffle quilt, food, sale table, raffle baskets, a quilt that is almost 200 years old ... oh, and did I mention about 135 show entries!

One of the advantages of having the show is that it gives us all an opportunity to work together.  Each did her share, but I have to give a special acknowledgement to Bonnie who really made sure everything fell into place. 

Neal Keefe of the Ag Society was around to make sure we had everything we needed.  Thank you, Neal!

Did the show inspire you to go home and quilt?  The show and the rainy weather have kept me in my sewing room, diligently trying to finish my strip twist and also playing with the fabrics I bought from the vendors.  Hopefully they were happy with their sales; I know I did my part, even borrowing from Bob when my money ran out!

And did you eat any of Rebecca's food?  Her pumpkin/maple cake was amazing.

I hear someone from North Dakota won the raffle quilt but I didn't hear who won the table topper.  We'll have to get that in the paper as people have been asking.

I sent Wayne Kollinger a Smilebox of his show as a thank you for all he taught us. Here is a copy of it:  http://smilebox.com/playBlog/4d7a45794e7a497a4e7a673d0d0a&blogview=true

Tonight is our last meeting of the season.  I'm sure we'll hear some stats on attendance, profits, etc. and take any suggestions for our 2014 show.  See you at the meeting!