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!

While in Knoxville last week, I solicited the help of my 8 year old friend Ruthie to help with the wrecking. She was more than happy to help out! Actually, rather gleeful! Wish I had a picture to show her in action! She is a very special and sweet child with Down Syndrome. Her name is Ruth Rachel, but by the end of our playing, I was calling her Ruth Rascal, which her mother said was very fitting! I showed Ruth my journal while her Mom had to run some errands and asked if she would like to do some ‘art’ with me. “YES!” she replied! So I turned to a blank page and asked her to write her name, which she did with no problems. Then I ripped out the page and crumpled it up so we could play Journal Golf. She was very good at kicking the paper ball through the ‘tent’ but the book is getting so full that I had to mostly hold it up.

Next I traced her hand and then she drew in her fingernails. She is so cute giggling as she colored away!

Then I turned to the color out side the lines pages and Ruthie did her thing!

By this time the markers are falling on the floor so I bent down to pick them up and Ruthie is just giggling and coloring away! BUT as I sit back up, Ruthie has turned to the pencil poke page and is adding her signature art work to that page! At first I thought “OH no! this page is just like I like it!” But the very next thought was “this is a wreck this journal venture” so I picked up a marker and joined in coloring in the circles on the page. And thus I started calling her Ruth Rascal.

The last page for last week was glueing in a newspaper page. I found the job fair page and glued it in as a hint to my hubby! He had applied to a job west of Knoxville, but had not heard anything back from them. I wanted him to call while in the area. He wasn’t feeling well by this time – picked up some virus or bacteria on our trip – coughing, sore throat, headache. Anyway the page is in and the good news is he does now have a one year position starting this week at a local state university in our home town! So thank you to all who have shared kind thoughts and encouragement in response to my post about the need for a job back in Week 2 of the Wrecking! This gives us some breathing space as his search for a full time position will continue. …. Thanks again for the well wishes during this time!

Here are two little quilties and I did indeed use one of the photos my son took while in Sweden. But first, I want to explain that during supper tonight our conversation was about all the wonderful native plants we saw today on our walk at Arrowhead Marsh. A prairie/marsh area being restored in upper state Indiana by Little River Wetlands. This conversation with its twists and turns lead to the fact that the picture of the sunflower I used in the quilties was taken at the Carl LInnaeus garden in Uppsala, Sweden. Carl (1707-1778) is the father of modern taxonomy for both animals and plants and my son toured his gardens while in Sweden. How cool is that!? I just liked the picture! But now I know a little of the history behind it! – or how plants got their scientific names.

I’m looking through pictures my son took while in Sweden this summer. And they have me thinking of the next swap, Shades of Sunshine, I must get busy on as it is due later this month.