Quilt Show

Last night our Hawaii Quilt Guild Quilt show opened.  I went to the reception and I even drug my husband along.  There was opening statements and a program.  This year instead of featuring one quilter as per usual, the show decided to focus attention on our service programs.  There are examples displayed.  Some programs include Na Lima Aloha (quilts for local charitable orgs), Japanese Tsunami quilts (these are 12" quiltlets made for survivors of last year's tsunami), Wounded Warrior quilts.  Quilts of Valor, and ASYMC Kid Comfort quilts (small quilts or pillows are made using transferred photos of the soldier and kids for the children with deployed parents)

Here is a photo of the service quilt examples.



 After the program, the gallery was open for viewing and the buffet of pupus (appetizers, etc.) was available.  We snacked a bit first, to allow some of the crowd to disperse a bit from the gallery. 

Finally, we went in.  I just have a few photos here.  It is difficult to photograph the quilts and really get to look at all of them at the opening.  I will be "sitting the show" later and will take better photos and document some of the amazing works of art.

The wall of the challenge quilts.  I blogged about them here 

Here is my Omigosh quilt hanging.  It is always so neat to see my quilts hanging--they look much more artful than spread out on my living room floor, or hanging off the back fence!

Now I don't know about you, but when I go to a quilt show in Hawaii, I love all the quilts, but I sure am hoping to see some magnificent Hawaiian quilts!  This year is no disappointment!  There were some real stunners.

This is a pikake quilt.  Do you remember the lei from Lei Day that was made with ric rac to look like pikake?  It is Hawaiian for jasmine.  I LOVE this quilt and I usually only like the traditional two-color quilts, but this is spectacular!

Monsterra is the plant featured in both this quilt and the one below.  I will try to get a better photo of the top one later.



 Can a make a comment here about my husband?  As we were looking at the Hawaiian quilts, he hold his finger up to the first one.  (He is smart enough to not touch it!)  He says, "this is a good one, they quilted it the proper way--a finger width between all the quilting."  Ok, what?!  Where did he learn about that?  He actually knows that the traditional way to quilt a Hawaiian quilt is one finger width between the echos?!!

This is called Taffeta Ti Leaf.  It is not only appliqued and quilted traditionally, but it is made out of taffeta!!  I can't image trying to needl-turn it.  Taffeta is notorious for raveling!

That is it for now.  As I said, I'll take more pictures and share them later.  Maybe along with more surprising comments my husband made!

Aloha,
JoAnne

Oh My Gosh, I am thrilled!

Today at The Quilted Pineapple Linda is blogging about my Omigosh quilt.  She has lots of photos and a great story about quilting the pineapple in the corners.  I loved it!  And then I read the comments and I was so totally amazed by the good things people were saying.  I was impressed when I saw Carrie Nelson's  blog last night and Linda had done a quilt for her, too--now that is truly Oh My Gosh!

I am a bit disappointed, but not surprised, that I only half finished one quilt yesterday.  The luncheon and prep occupied a big chunk of my time and last night I was glued to the tv.  Last night through Saturday night the Merry Monarch Festival is running over on the Big Island.  It is THE premeire hula competition.  Last night was the Miss Aloha Hula contest.  Twelve girls competed first doing a Kahiko hula (that is an ancient style) with an Oli (a chant) and then they did the Auana hula (a more modern hula danced to mele--songs--often sung by well-known Hawaiian musicians.)  I was glued to my television from 6-11:30 last night.  It is going to be some late nights!

Here is a photo of the winner, Rebecca Lilinoekekapahauomaunakea Sterling.  On the left is her Kumu Hula (the teacher and head of the Halau--the Hula dance company.)

Tonight the halaus perform Kahiko--the ancient dances.  Some groups are Kane (men) and some are Wahine (women). They all have wonderful performances.  At any rate, you all are probably getting tired of hearing about Hula.  If you are interested, you can easily find performances on Youtube by searching for Merrie Monarch.

Aloha,
JoAnne

Oh My Gosh, it's finished!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter.  I have spent my weekend keeping busy finishing this quilt.  On Friday, the box arrived from Linda over at The Quilted Pineapple.  I started following her blog a year and half ago or so and have been wanting her to quilt one of my quilts ever since.  She does a wonderful job.  Anyway, I actually got to meet her in Shipshewana, IN to give her the top.  It was so much fun to meet a blogger friend in real life!

Once I opened the box and admired the awesome job, I knew I had to get to work.  Since this quilt will be entered into our show next month, I wanted to block the quilt.  Linda also advised blocking as sometimes dense quilting can skew things a bit.  So I plunged the whole thing (raw edges, backing, and batting hanging loose) into the washer on the gentle cycle.  Meanwhile, I mopped the garage floor, laid out a large, old quilt, and my husband found 3 fans.  By the way, if you want to get some weird looks from your neighbors, let them see you mopping the garage floor!   Once it had spun dry, I carefully took the quilt out of the washer, placed it in a clothes basket, and took it out to the garage and began the tedious process of laying it out, squaring it up as needed.  I had measured the diagonals prior to wetting it, and they were not off by too much, so it wasn't necessary to really "work" it.  One tool that really helps the process is a laser "square" level.  It shoots out two laser beams of light at 90 degrees, so you can place it at a corner and work down both sides. (And really, the best tool for this process is a good pair of kneepads, because I spent a long time crawling around on my knees and the garage floor is hard!)   There are some really good tutorials out there about the whole process.  Anyways, I just got it all "finished" and turned on the fans to start the drying process when it started to pour outside.  There was no danger of water coming in, but the humidity sure didn't help with the drying.  We left it overnight and I was quite relieved to find in the morning that no centipedes or other local "friends" meddled with the quilt.

But I'm rattling on and you haven't had a chance to see a picture yet!

I used the fence idea from the other day again.  I had to re-wipe it down.  We feed the birds and they sure could show their appreciation by not leaving their traces on the fence!

Linda decided to use this pineapple motif in the corners and I am thrilled!  It really makes that perfect Hawaiian touch!

An angle to show more of the quilting.  I love the large spirals over the tiny geometric piecing.

To get a sense of scale, I put a quarter on the quilt in the above photo.  The tiny squares finish at a half inch!

I really like the back, too!  If I had thought about it, I would have gotten a plain backing that would show off the quilting really well, but I found this bright, fun fabric on clearance and I thought it would be the perfect foil for the tiny front piecing.  I ordered the fabric and needed to piece it.  It worked out that the proper length I needed matched up with the repeat of the fabric.  In what was one of those serendipitous moments that you could never plan, I was able to perfectly match the backing.  Can you see the seam in the photo below?  If you look closely, you can see it running vertically down the middle.  I was thrilled with how it came out, and even Linda commented on the match.

I got the binding sewn on, as you may have noticed, and this evening I finished tacking down the hanging sleeve and attaching the label.  It is all ready for the show! 

Aloha,
JoAnne

Omigosh!

It's finished!  Finally!  Presenting my version of the Omigosh quilt.

I used very light water color like batiks and marbles for the lights, but all the colors are my own hand dyed fabrics, including the border.  Shall we take a closer look?

Now you can see that the quilt is made up of a churndash block and a double nine-patch block.  What is that laying on the quilt?

It's a...   dime!  Yes, now you can see the true scale of it.  Because one inch finished squares are so, er, "last year," I embraced the half inch finished square for this quilt!
I've been working off an on for the past 6 weeks, so I'm glad it is finally all together.  Now I just have to decide how it should be quilted.  Any ideas?  I KNOW it won't be by hand.

Aloha,
JoAnne