Blogger’s Quilt Festival

This is my first time entering the Blogger's Quilt Festival.  Thank you Amy for coming up with this wonderful idea and for taking the time to host it.

I have so many favorite quilts.  It was hard to pick just one!  Many years ago, I joined a charity group from my work place. When I joined the group, I realized I needed to learn to quilt faster. Up to that time, all my quilts were handmade and would take a long time to finish.

With this quilt, I learned paper-piecing. I struggled with the machine quilting on this one, but I think I am getting better with practice. By the end of my second year, I was donating at least one quilt a month if not two quilts!

Since I could not give up all of my hand work, I would add a little hand-worked appliqué to all my quilts. I love whimsy and I often looked for fun juvenile fabric with a design that I could make into an appliqué add-on to enhance the overall quilt. Retro Dog’s design came from the material in this quilt.  I hope my quilts have given comfort as well as a smile to the receiver.

A little over a year ago, my husband and I retired. We are traveling around the country in our motorhome. I really miss all of my quilting friends and I think about them often. I am still making small quilts for children, but my heart belongs to my hand-piecing and quilting. I find this easier to do now that we are full-timing in our motorhome.

Yaquina Bay Lighthouse, Newport, OR

We are in Newport, OR at the Whalers Rest Campground. We are only a short walk through the woods and across Hwy. 101 to the beach. We are still getting a lot of rain, but every once in a while the clouds let the sun shine through for a couple of hours.

We have been visiting all the sights: Otter Crest Loop and Look-out Gift shop, both of the lighthouses, and the historic downtown areas. And yes, I did find the local quilt shop: Quilter’s Cove. This is the first quilt shop that I have visited with large floor to ceiling windows. It was so nice to browse the fabrics with natural daylight. It felt so warm and open – almost like home. I believe I met the owner. She is very nice and very helpful. She had a long-arm in the back corner. Customers can see the work she is doing at that time. I found it interesting to see the long-arm. I have never seen one before – well, except in magazines.

We toured the Yaquina Bay Lighthouse and I took picture of the rooms. I have more in our Oregon album in Webshots. I found this quilt the most interesting and I wanted to share these quilt pictures with you. I looked up the history about the house’s living quarters and it sounds like the house was furnished with donations. The lighthouse was only commissioned to work for 3 years after the Yaquina Head Lighthouse was built. It was closed down for over 10 years before the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Coast Guards started using the living quarters again. The local Historic Societies saved the lighthouse from being torn down and renovated the lighthouse. So, I don’t think this quilt was originally with the house.

Needlepoint covered foot peddles.

Here is the appliquéd folkart quilt.  I love hand-stitched appliqué! I wish I could have taken better pictures, but the room is roped off.  If you can blow up the picture, you will see ostriches, rooster, a seal or sea lion, a black red-winged bird, and much more.  Beautiful!

A Little Hand Quilting, A Little Appliqué

I love the way the mosaic worked out on my water lilies.

I should have made smaller pieces for the fish.  I'm having a hard time keeping the bigger pieces from getting puffy.  Of course, it doesn't help when Max lies under the quilt while I am appliquéing.  I try to use him as a table, but he tends to rollover just as I have it in the perfect spot.

I plan to add some ginkgo leaves floating in the water.  I am also thinking of adding some bamboo stems with a shadow effect if I can find a way to add organza by hand.  I want to do all of this by hand if I can.

I love working with my hands, but it is very slow compared to using a machine. So far, I have finished one block and a few borders done.  The blue is chalk.  I hope this washes out!  I went back to using stencils and a washable ink marker after I finished this block.

I decided to try some free-form fill on this block.  It has been fun, but it is taking a while to finish it.