Bombers and Blankets

Things With Wings was an unqualified success!  We had a wide variety of new quilts, a gorgeous collection of WWII quilts courtesy of noted quilt historian Sue Reich, lectures by both Sue and quilt designer and novelist Marie Bostwick,

raffles, origami for the kids, hands-on demonstrations, and vendors.  And all of this was set in the New England Air Museum among the planes!  This was the brainchild of our good friend Jackie Kunkel of Canton Village Quiltworks; she certainly outdid herself!  The planes were incredibly cool, the venue provided a cross-population appeal that showed in ticket sales for the Museum, the lighting was terrific and we had a wide variety of quilts offered up.  Here's a fraction of the fun for your enjoyment:

 

The super-duper-fantabulous B-29 (was I impressed?  you bet!) with some of Sue's WWII beauties:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Even the back yard at the Museum is cool!  If you're anywhere near Bradley International Airport it's well worth a drive past the runways to see this facility.

 

 

Some of my favorites from the World War II quilts provided by Sue:

This quilt was made up entirely of sailors' arm patches.  Apparently the quilter sewed the patches onto uniforms for a living; she traded cigarettes for patches to make this unique quilt!  She made a companion quilt in wool blues.

A unique signature quilt:  love the center block!

A silk Victory quilt - stunning!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another fabulous signature quilt:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was plenty of non-WWII eye candy too!

 

Christmas tree skirt by Maria using a Judy Niemeyer pattern.  Judy even had her own work in the show!  Drool-mops will be on our must-provide list if we do this again!  

There were lots of airplane quilts, naturally.  This was my personal favorite for pieced plane blocks. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Speaking of drool ....  I've done a lot of hexagon-watching over the past few years but I've never seen them done quite this way before.  Note the edging too.  I spent two full days walking the floors during the show and this one got more of my ogling time than any other!

 

 

Donald Gough's Snippets quilt, which won Viewer's Choice.  Over 3,000 pieces!  Donald and his wife Eunice are prolific quilters and had an impressive array of groupies by the end of Sunday!

 

 

 

 

 Jackie made this one for her husband; ain't he lucky??

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Look Ma v.3.0:  My Orange You Glad bee quilt, hanging at a real show!

 

 

 

A terrific quilt based on a Laurie Shifrin pattern, Mango Tango. Note the edges of those curves - they're flanges!  If you get a chance to take a class with Laurie, leap at it!  She's a terrific teacher with loads of color management advice and cool technique tricks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More mop-worthy fun: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Look Ma v.4.0:  My One Block Wonder!  It took me a shameful long time to finish but I love it.  A pretty "before" fabric helps!  Fabric is Siena by P&B textiles.

 

Before:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After:

 

 

 

 

Some of my favorites from the Things With Wings mini challenge:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for coming along for the ride!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quilt Show!

Went to the quilt show in East Haddam yesterday.  As always it was a genuine treat.  The church was just chock-full of eye candy:

The first quilt to catch my eye.  The tails on these lightning bugs actually light up!  C. Susan Ferraro possesses awesome thread skills, 'nuff said.

Justine Cancryn's "1040," made from 1040 2-inch squares and quilted by Jackie.  Justine (who's just delightful in person) collected bits of fabric from her Mom and her friends for this quilt.  Would love to have spent an hour inspecting all those terrific squares!

Madeleine Lowry made a fabulous Rose of Sharon quilt.  Here is just one block to show you how wonderful it is:

This Hawaiian applique knocked my socks off.  The maker, Sheila Gleason, said it took her 10 years to make but she probably won't try this ambitious a project again.  I believe her on all counts, look at that stitching! 

The church is kind of a funky spot to try to take pics - if it's dreary the quilts don't show up well but if it's bright the church does let full sunshine in.  A lovely "Year in the Meadow" by Lynn Veith and a very cool Drunkard's Path variation exhibited by Laura Thomas:

You have to love a crazy quilt, though there's a pragmatic side of me that would be scared to use it for fear of damaging all that wonderful needlework.  Judy Koch exhibited this piece.

Look at the work, wow-wow-wow!

This adorable rag quilt was made by Jo Hansling; it makes me - almost - wish my kids were little again!

A spectacular Baby Jane in spring colors by Jane(!) Howe:

I love the quilt descriptions for this show.  Lynn Veith reveals that she made this as part of a class with Judy Niemeyer.  She hadn't done any paper piecing before so she used her wildest and brightest colors, purposely not using her favorite fabrics in case she didn't like the result!

This vintage Grandmother's Flower Garden is a Corbett family heirloom.  ahhh.

Look at that quilting!  Sue Morrison tells us it was created by the ladies at the Southern Hills Church in Topeka, Kansas.  Those ladies deserve a big round of applause!

This was probably my favorite piece this year.  Partly because of the happy design and the fabrics Lynn Veith selected (hey, I see a trend here, do you?),

But also because she obviously had so much fun with the actual quilting of the piece!

Betty Haines made this beautiful wall hanging:

Look at that detail, how marvellous!

Am I the only one who remembers the (rather silly) movie "Hello Down There?"  I kept thinking about the "Little Goldfish" song while enjoying at this rich quilt by Donna Reynolds.

If you're in the area, the show is open until 5:00 today; if not, hope you enjoyed this little bit of it!

Anticipation

Jackie gave a great heads-up about a local show this weekend in East Haddam, CT.

This little show is fabulous; it's held in a gorgeous old church and the folks who run it are wonderful, open and friendly.  When I first started thinking about quilting (I thought about it less-than-seriously for years, no foolin' - will tell you about it sometime), when I had my first fabrics selected but was still scared to cut into them, I attended this show for the first time.  The men and women there gave me such sweet advice and encouragement that I did get up the nerve to make those first cuts; maybe next year I'll be ready to apply to have one of my own pieces included.  I've been looking forward to this one, and just realized that I never shared photos from last year!  Shamefully, I do not have credits to provide. 
Maybe it's the setting, but my favor sides with the antique and handworked pieces at this show, though there's lots of variety and of course loads of beautiful pieces to view.  Here are a few pics of my favorites:

Look at all those gorgeous stars!

Drool-city, as my Mom would say!

I just love the dragonflies on this piece!

Cool technique:

But the ones that really made my jaw drop were the miniatures!

Yow!  But wait, look closer! I put the quarter there for scale.

Ahh, so pretty!

I'll be back on Sunday or Monday with pics from this year's show!  See you then!