Blue Ridge Community Quilt Show

This month, Blue Ridge, Georgia hosts their annual Community Quilt Show. I  have been attending this little show  for several years, and for the last two years, have had quilts in the show.  (all you have to do to enter quilts is be a member of the Blue Ridge Arts Association).  I am always amazed by the talented quilt makers in this little town.  I entered two quilts this year one was, Who's Your Huckleberry, and the other is the infamous anniversary t-shirt quilt.  (I actually think that he is starting to  like it!!!!! He is almost smiling here) If you are in the area the show runs for another week, check it out.

Who's Your Huckleberry, one of Pat's patterns.

I think this was a scrappy Nine Patch.  Should have taken notes.

There were a few old quilts on display, this was one of them, DH wanted to know if I was ever going to make one of these, he really liked it.

Nice scrappy batik quilt.

I think this one is sideways, but still pretty, scrap sting piecing.

Oh my, a neutral scrappy nine patch, (see this one Pat)

Great looking stars.

Scrappy Batik



Oops!

Have you ever done anything and regretted it?  I have, oh boy have I.  Last Friday was our 15th anniversary and I made my DH a t-shirt quilt out of all of his vacation t-shirts.  I had worked on it for over a month, wanted everything to be just perfect.  I knew the  minute he opened the box that I had  made a big mistake.  He hated it and wanted his t-shirts back.  Oh, well that really wasn't going to be possible.  I think part of the problem was, it wasn't quilted yet.  I gave it to the quilter today, I am hoping that will make a difference.  (You notice there isn't a smile on his face). 

Can't believe it has been 15 years!

Fifteen years ago Joe and I headed to Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon.  Everyone thought we were just heading out for our yearly after school vacation.  However, Joe had proposed to  me about three weeks earlier and he already  made plans for us to go to Las Vegas.  I  know you probably think that was weird, but we had been together 7 years and had always said that we would just go to Vegas and get married.  I did get to pick the chapel, I picked the Little Chapel of the West.  (it is the chapel at the end of the movie Viva Las Vegas were Ann Margaret and Elvis get married).  It is very small and old fashioned looking.  We got to Vegas on Saturday with an appointment to get married at 10:00 on Sunday morning.  Sunday morning we were picked up at 9:00 by Fred the limo driver and taken to the Clarke County Courthouse where we filled out our marriage license with golf pencils.  From there we went to the chapel, I have no idea the ministers name, but I did remember the limo drivers name!  The limo driver and the organist were our witnesses, and the ceremony was over in about 10 minutes.  We went back to the Luxor and called my parents, they were so happy we were no longer living in sin, Joe's mom cried that she had missed our wedding.  For us it was the perfect wedding!!  We stayed in Vegas a couple of days, then headed to the Grand Canyon and Jerome.  This was the beginning of our "out west" vacations.

 I decided to make Joe a T-shirt quilt using all of the t-shirts from our vacations.  This is the first t-shirt quilt I have made, they are not as easy as you  might think to make.  The hardest part is deciding on the fabric for the background, borders, and sashing. I decided to use batiks, the background is a brown southwestern design with the borders brown and a greyish green leaf print.   The backing and bindings are also batiks, I found them last week at Country Stitches in Blue Ridge.   First you have to cut out the design, then use a fusible backing to stabilize the knit.  After stabilizing you sew the sashing on, then comes the fun part---deciding on the layout.  Becky has made several t-shirt quilts so I decided to take it to the cabin and have her help me lay it out.  One thing I did not take was my new best friend, 505.  I don't think you could make a t-shirt quilt with out this.

My  new best friend.

 Without 505 all I could do was pin the t-shirts down.  We used lots of pins I didn't want to have to figure out this layout again.

After coming home I replaced the pins with the adhesive spray and zigzagged around each piece.  The quilt top is all finished, I even had enough fabric left to make a pillowcase to store it in.  Unfortunately, I will have to give it to him unquilted.  Lisa, the best quilter in the world, has a broken hand and can't quilt it yet.  I thought at first Joe was going to be really surprised, but now I think that he might have an idea of what he is getting. Hope he likes it!

"Where are my t-shirts?"

This was a question from my DH last week, when he was looking for a t-shirt t put on to work in the garden.  My response, "I had to put some in the rag bag because they were so old, and had holes in them".  "All of them, some of those were my favorites".  Crossing my fingers, "I can dig them out if you really want them back".  "No, I will just go buy some cheap ones at CVS."  Yes, I lied to my DH about his t-shirts, I had to.  Well, it was only a partial lie, part of the shirts are in the rag bag, the part that was left after I cut them up!  I am making my very first t-shirt quilt.  DH and I are celebrating our 15th anniversary this summer and I decided to make him a quilt with t-shirts from each vacation we have had in the last 15 years.  I have most of the t-shirts cut with the stabilizer on the back.  I have also got the background with the borders attached.  The hard part is going to be deciding how to place the t-shirts on the background.  Got to get busy, our anniversary is in June.