Five Shadows

While at the International Quilt Festival, back in April, I was able to take one of the Make It University! Workshops. These classes are offered by Cloth Paper Scissors and are held on the main floor in the vendors area, you win a seat in the classes by lottery. I put my name in the pot for two, but only made it in to one – Leilani Pierson‘s Small Stitch Flower Book. This was a flower pounding project. And did we ever pound! Noisy! So much noise that one of the ladies in the demo area came over to complain! One class participant had her thinking cap on and suggested we move down to the carpet to pound! We all did and the sound was muffled. Happy us, happy demo people! Leilani was so impressed that all her students just got down on our hands and knees and continued to work on our books. Leilani is a very sweet lady and great teacher!  Thanks for the fun class Leilani! I love my little booklet!

Here are pictures of my finished Flower Book:

Once I got home from the  quilt show, I looked up blogs of some of the people I met. Leilani had hosted a ‘follow me blind‘ challenge back in January. I decided to not look at those posts, but to save them for later when I could do the challenge. In May, I followed her instructions doing one step a day for three days – here are the results. (If you want to do the challenge yourself – don’t look at mine – go to this link instead!)

Day 1: Make a little rectangle quiltlet.

Day 2: Fold the rectangle in half and stitch ends together. (Day 3, I decided this was the front.)

And this is the back.

Day 3: Involved bending wire. Which I decided to embellish. I didn’t have any thin wire, so Hubby helped to bend the shape for me.

Put it all together and you get this:

Thanks for the fun challenge Leilani!

I did lots of looking at vendor booths while at the quilt show and bought a few things. I also hung out at the demo area and got to meet several artists published in Cloth Paper Scissors and Quilting Arts Magazines. Talking with these gals and seeing their work up close was great!  Kelli Nina Perkins gifted me with one of her cloth-paper book marks (thanks again Kelli!)

The first booth I went to was the Misty Fuse booth, I pulled along several friends to that booth and told them how much I love that stuff! I bought a Goddess Sheet and was given a few samples for bringing along my friends! They did make purchases and the Misty Fuse Gal (sorry, I don’t remember her name ) said what a great start to her day because of us! Doors opened at 10:00 and we had made our Misty Fuse purchases by 10:20!  I also bought some dyed cheese cloth from Embellishment Village. What a fun booth! And used a pink piece in the above Follow Me Blind challenge.

This was my first Quilt Festival to attend in Chicago, altho I have wanted to go for years! Our local quilt shop, Pieced Together, hosted a bus trip. What a fun way to travel with a bus full of quilting ladies! It’s funny because once there, I found out the festival is planning to move to Cincinnati next year! I hope to go to next year too, as I live right in between Chicago and Cincinnati in Indiana!

My Christmas Cactus is blooming!

Happy June everyone!

This is my one finish for the month of May with OPAM sponsored Peg and Kris. This is a year long challenge to finish at least one project a month and then post it  on your blog. Of course if you are making more than one project a month, you share those as well. I’ve had a very slow month.

I bought this pattern from vendor Kaye Moore, while at the International Quilt Festival, Chicago, in April.

I changed it up just a bit by hand stitching yo-yo hearts to the background fabric and free motion stitching the saying.

I really love how this turned out! I am not a hand embroiderer, so I’m very tickled by my attempt at those french knots! This was playing and I hope to do more, learning hand embroidery!  The idea to free motion machine stitch the saying came from Rebecca Sower’s red thread sessions. Altho I have done free motion quilting, I’d never done free motion writing, but once I saw Rebecca’s session # 3, I knew that was how I would apply the saying for this project. (Thanks for the inspiration Rebecca!) And the last bit about this piece is the fabric is all from a swap/challenge hosted by Melissa of Ardea’s Nest. 8 of us swapped fabric and then use a piece of each of the fabrics in one project. I used the fabrics to make the heart yo-yos. Thanks for hosting the sawp/challenge Melissa! It was fun being a part of it and I’m just plain-o tickled with my piece!

And, I just kept playing with the hearts – this piece is not finished yet. I know, I need to learn some other embroidery stitches.

(Photography by Noel Schutt. Thanks son!)

I joined Melissa of Ardea’s Nest in a swap challenge. There are eight of us playing. We have all swapped fat quarters, FQ, (we have one fat quarter from each lady, equaling 8 total.) And now the challenge is to use at least a recognizable piece of each FQ altogether in one project. Here are the fabrics I have received:

Can you recognize the fabrics in these hearts?

I have a plan for these yo-yo hearts using a pattern I purchased from vendor Kaye Moore while at the International Quilt Festival in Chicago last month.

But sorry, no photos to show. I hate excues, but here I go: PROM!!!!  I’m the coordinator this year and all this week has been nothing but getting everything finalized and squared away for the Prom tomorrow night!

I’ll leave you with this one teaser. This is step one of a three step ‘follow me blind’ challenge.

Actually, as a little quiltie, I could count this as a finish as is!

Hoping tomorrow I’ll have my finished work to show you!

This is what our garden looked like a week ago. We had an early morning sleet that did not damage the Spring flowers. And today it is in the 80s. What happened to Spring!?

White Trillium (Trillium grandiflorum)

Toadshade Trillium (Trillium sessile)

budding White Trillium

Celandine Poppy

Dutchman’s-Breeches

Photos taken by my son, Noel.

ends with daughter turning 21!  We Schutts have 7 birthdays between Febuary 23 and April 13th. We celebrated our daughter Janelle’s birthday Monday night, a day early, as she had plans with friends the evening of her 21st birthday. Here are just a few pictures of the celebration.

Sorry to friends and family that a cropped out of this picture! I just wanted to zoom in on the birthday girl with her goofy smile!

Yummy Ginger ShortCake with fresh fruit and candles.

The blowing out of candles. (The picture singing was just too goofy to show!) We have here boy friend Luke B. Hall, sister Anna, friend Joel, Mom, Dad, and sister Charis round the birthday girl. Brothers Luke and Noel are present but not in picture.

There are also many of our extented family members celebrating in Feb – April. I think I have counted at least nine more of us celebrating birthdays during this time! So Happy Birthday to all of you!

Here is my block for the 3 Creative Studios BOM. The 7th block is called Five Spot.

I’m running late at meeting a friend for lunch – so I’ll post more later!

I have a big ZERO completed for March for the One Project a Month. Oh well. But I have been working on other projects. That means sometime this year I’ll have several completed quilts. Maybe I should just plan a few small projects a month so as to have something completed to show when the end of the month rolls around!

The is a sneak peak of an idea I’m playing with for a quilt challenge. Three Creative Studios: Passage.

The are a few of the many blocks my daughter has sewn for a bed size quilt she is working on. She is being very diligent!

First off, here is my Block of the Month (BOM) for Three Creative Studios. It’s called Amish  Star.

Next are some blocks I’m working on for a quilt for my middle daughter. She chose the pattern – Goose Tracks and asked that the quilt be very blended. Blended, meaning that you can’t tell where one block ends and another starts. She also chose the fabrics – Ginger Blossom collection which are mostly large scale prints, and she added some smaller scale coordinating fabrics. This will be a very hot pink quilt once completed!  The Goose Tracks block have 29 pieces in each 10″ block. We decided to alter some of the corners, making some of the construction easier. Here are two blocks leaving out the pieced corners and two Goose Tracks Blocks with the pieced corners. The alter blocks will have one – three pieced corners.  We think it will blend very well this way!

And this last set of blocks is for a charity quilt. Chevron pattern in brights.

My two youngest girls both just started quilts. But I forgot to take pictures! Next time!