Middleburg Show and the newest quilt project

As the year comes to an end I am very excited to be showing my quilts at the Middleburg Arts Project my friends Tom and Peter opened back in September. This weekend I will be visiting the gallery on Friday and Saturday Dec. 12th and 13th to show and talk about my smaller sized wall quilts. I hope some of you can drop by to see them and visit Middleburg is a great little village full of charm with many fine shops and restaurants.  

After a year of log cabin quilts I am moving on to some new shapes that are challenging in a different way than log cabin blocks, curves of tea leaf or tobacco leaf quilts has captured my interest. The pattern is from a prolific blogger I follow named Tim who writes and photographs about his hand quilting in Michigan. Tim Latimer Quilts He designed this free quilt pattern based on the old tea leaf blocks from antique quilts he has restored and tops he has finished.  I cut out a few of the leaf block pieces to give it a try... and the quilt block building begins but in a different colorway than these below.

Anyone care to guess what color leaves I am making?

Museum demonstrations Sunday Feb. 23rd,2014

Next weekend Sunday Feb. 23rd I have the honor to be invited to demonstrate some of my old fashioned quilting know how at the beautiful exhibition of antique quilts called Workt by Hand currently on display in the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

Several quilters from the DC Modern quilt guild will be there from Noon until 5 PM answering questions about our work and the quilts in the show. It really is a magnificent exhibition from the vaults of the ancient Brooklyn NY Art Museum's holdings.
I am planning to bring along my Victorian style hand embroidered Crazy Quilt to show and tell by the real things! After all the modern work shown at the Anacostia Arts Center's Stitched exhibition and the doris-mae Man on Man show this is a real throw back for me and my projects. I began the Crazy Quilt inspired by a museum show or something that escapes me now back in 1999. I know my sister was going to work it up with me but found she is too busy with her pets and work to do embroidery. after a couple years work on the piecing and embroidery I discovered it makes my neck ache to the point of disability and it's laid in a box for a long time waiting for me to get the courage to put it all together.

There most of it is laid out on my bed. The work I have been doing first is to piece the big 30 inch or more blocks together. The hand work is all embroidery on all the seams. I have a rich red velvet to back this quilt once it is in one top section. Then I guess it will be tied to keep the front and back together. Usually there is no batting in a crazy quilt. Hope you can drop by and talk with us about hand quilting techniques and the beautiful work on display in the museum this Sunday.

Quilt show plus garden

Billed as a show with over 200 quilts on display in the Prince William County Fair grounds buildings. It was again an exciting show but I am sure there are bigger shows which I hope to see later this year. Considering there were only two guilds organizing and running the show it is impressive. This  is inspiring to see so many projects of quilting. I have a big collection of photos I posted on my flickr.com pages in a set called Manassas Quilt Show 2013   .

The warm air is bringing out the flowers of spring. I can't believe it is here, nights are still cold but the flowers must be getting warm as the days have been sunny.