Back In Maine

It has been a fast two weeks.  First to New Hampshire. then to the Vermont Quilt Festival, then back to New Hampshire for one day and now I’m back in Maine.  I didn’t sew or quilt while in New Hampshire.  The only time that I entered the sewing room was to gather supplies for Vermont and then to gather them for Maine.  I will be settled for a while and get back to quilting. The advantage of going back and forth is that I can see the different flowers in my gardens.  New Hampshire is a few weeks ahead of Maine.  I did do a little gardening while in New Hampshire, but I could have stayed there longer to finish.  My neighbors tell me that my flowers are beautiful all summer.  They have my permission to pick a bouquet when they want one.

My climbing rose outdid itself this year.  It’s a good thing because both my bush roses didn’t make it through the winter.  Brambles have taken over.  They are all big thorns and have no flowers.  Very hard to pull out.  The primroses are blossoming in New Hampshire.

The poppies were in blossom in Maine while I was gone  There is only one left for me to see.  

The quilts in Vermont were awesome.   This year the show was set up different from the other years.  The vendors were in one room and all the quilts in another.  Several of my favorite vendors were missing.   It was nice to look at the quilts without being distracted by all the good things for sale.

For the past ten years, a group of six ladies meet at VQF.  We have started to make a challenge quilt each year.  This last year we all used the same pattern and made a five yard quilt. It used one yard of five different fabrics.  All the quilts were different. There was a large gathering when we revealed the quilts. Next year we are going to make a one color quilt.  There will be no white or black, even in the background.  The quilt can be any size or pattern.  We can choose any color we want.  I know what I want to make, but making it is down at the bottom of the list right now.

I took two classes while in Vermont.  The first was Ombre dyeing with Cindy Lohbeck.  Cindy has developed a technique for dying a single piece of fabric from light to dark.  My fabric is still in process.  When I finish the process, I’ll show some more pictures.

The second class was with Birgit Schueller from Germany.  She has developed a technique for inserting a flying geese into another flying geese.  We were her first class for this technique.  Birgit was very well prepared.  It was an excellent class.  My geese are not finished.  This quilt is on the sewing table and will be the first to finish, The geese uses jelly rolls.  I had a roll of Kaffee Facet fabric.  It was very pretty on the roll, but when I unrolled it, the colors were dull. I’ll have to use a bright thread when it is quilted.  Quilting always makes the quilt.  I will make this pattern again in brighter colors.   Maybe I can figure out how to make it smaller.  I had forty strips in the jelly roll, so I have twenty geese, two colors in each geese.  If I need more geese, I’ll switch the inner and outer fabrics and the geese will look different.  I know that I’ll sew much faster at home than in the class.  It won;t take long to finish the top.

In the meantime, I brough several more UFOs to Maine with me.  On good days, I can sew on the porch.  I sat out there this afternoon and there were no black flies. They drove me into the house in June.

There is more gardening to do.  I’ll have to squeeze that in.

Have a great day and happy quilting.