Attended the Long Beach Quilt Show
Attended the Conference for Creative Entrepreneurs in San Francisco during my Birthday weekend
Threw a shower for a good friend at work
Created work for an art exhibition that I'm in
I was surprised that I didn't post about it before, but the Long Beach Quilt Show was ok. I always enjoy the vendors because I love the new toys (along with seeing my regulars), and there were only a few quilts that I liked a lot. I did enjoy the antique Baltimore Album quilts a lot. No photos of those, though. Not allowed. Here are a couple of shots of my favorite quilts:
 |
| Detail of above quilt |
 |
| Detail of above quilt |
CCE
My best friend Lava and I attended the Conference of Creative Entrepreneurs in San Francisco and it was really good. We saw some pretty interesting speakers with a lot of good information (including Jenny Hart). The majority of attendees were pretty young. Young and very savvy.
BUT, the important thing about this weekend is that it was my birthday and my amazing friend bought me the coolest gift. An iPad and I am hooked. It is the coolest thing since sliced bread. I feel like I'm in a special club, especially since my old dinosaur of a cell phone died and I got an iPhone. So, I'm completely Appled-up.
Kellie's Having a Baby
My good friend Kellie (and fellow I&M quilter) was pregnant and I threw her a shower at work. I'm such a crazy detail oriented person, I had to make sure everything was perfect -- gifts for everyone, cake and cupcakes and photo ops. She received quilts, afghans and lots of nice hand made items from our quilt group. I made a quilt for her baby (Nate) that I finally finished for this shower (as I missed the date of her prior shower). It is one of Yoshiko Jizenji's baby quilts in blue instead of white. It was difficult because the drawing and measurements weren't very clear and the photo is at an angle, but I did my best. I procrastinated too long and wasn't able to hand quilt it, so I had to machine quilt it, and a section of the quilt went a bit wonky on me. It pains me to post this photo because it isn't perfect, but here it is. The next one will be more perfect. (And I love diagonal straight line quilting.) BTW, baby Nate was born on September 16, 2011.
 |
| Detail of Nate's quilt |
 |
| Me and Kellie (and baby Nate) |
I go to quilt shows with two good friends (Irene and Janice). We have named ourselves "Three Crazy Quilters." We go to the shows, talk about everything, live five minutes from each other and finally started working together. We meet every three weeks or so and have come up with some great quilts challenges. We decided to do our quilts 24"x24", so we can get a lot of detail and experience with each challenge. The first challenge was a Denyse Schmidt-style challenge of using any fabric you pull out of a bags (small, medium and large) and creating a quilt from the choices and adding one more fabric to complete the quilt. We exchanged fabrics and I used Kona Ash to finish the quilt.
 |
| Challenge 1 - Denyse Schmidt style |
 |
| Challenge 1 - quilt back |
Our second challenge was to create a quilt from an inspiration piece -- any subject. I found a piece by a painter whose work I love and reinterpreted it. The inspiration piece:
 |
| Painting by Marion Lane |
 |
| Challenge 2 - Marion Lane reinterpretation (quilt front) |
 |
| Challenge 2 - Marion Lane reinterpretation (quilt back) |
Our third challenge was monochromatic. I randomly pulled the color orange out of a bowl and our mission was to make an orange quilt. I new the quilt pattern I wanted to use (Line Art) because I made a hot pink one earlier this year for our City of Hope Charity. I love my little orange quilt. It's not a color I would normally choose, but here it is. The circular quilting was marked with a template anda black Pilot Frixion Pen (pictured below orange quilt). This pen is fabulous, it is an erasable gel pen and when heat is applied, the ink disappears. I'll have to try this quilting pattern again.
 |
| Challenge 3 - Orange (monochromatic) Quilt (front) |
 |
| Challenge 3 - Orange (monochromatic) Quilt (back) |
 |
| The Pilot FriXion pen - fab ... |
Colonialism: The Collective Unconscious Art Exhibition
I was asked to be in a show because the curator of the show (Lili Bernard) saw the Obama Bucks quilt that I made in 2008. I had already made the decision to remake the quilt -- it's very small, so I thought that was that. When she saw my Flickr account she selected 4 more pieces. Our opening was yesterday October 8 - Columbus Day which was appropriate for the subject matter. It's a powerful show and we had a huge turnout. If you're in the area, the information is as follows:
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The original Obama Bucks quilt:
 |
| Obama Bucks Quilt - 2008 |
New quilt. I redesigned it and bought a new printer. Definitely a better result I"ll probably do a lot more handwork (if it doesn't sell):
 |
| Obama Bucks quilt (2011) |
The other pieces aren't quilts, so you'll have to go to the show and see the rest...
LA Modern Quilt Guild
We celebrated our second anniversary at our October meeting. We have the coolest group of women on the planet. Funny and bright and so creative. We had tons of refreshments and four really good giveaways. I didn't win this time.
Modern Quilt Guild Showcase
We're all excited about the Modern Quilt Guild Showcase that is happening next year. Click showcase name to get the information. I'm going to enter and see if I can get in. It should be exciting for everyone, but a hard job for the judges.
The next post will happen a lot sooner. Off to embroider and design -- and have a red velvet cupcake.