Monday, September 22, 2025

September 22, 2025

Happy Harvest as we go into Autumn!!!

Well, it has been a fun and successful year for my craft!

I started entering in local fairs in Asotin, Washington, just across the river from us, in April! It's actually the first fair of our area each year!

I had never entered in their fair before, so I chose just 4 items, to kind of test the waters!!!

This first one is my St. Patrick's Day piece.

And here are the other 3: Left is "April Showers", Right is "We Will Never Forget", and bottom is the stocking I made Sandy!

Then in August Sandy surprised me by setting up some road trips to specifically time them with fairs in Coeur d'Alene, which is the Northwest Idaho State Fair. When we lived down in Pocatello, Blackfoot had the Northeastern State Fair.

So here are the five that I had entered:

Mom and Dad's 50th Anniversary, yes, I made it in 1999!

Top and Bottom, are one year's challenge: "Pretty as a Peacock", turned out too big for one quilt, and somehow the blocks changed sizes on me during the year, so I made two quilts.

Never gave this one a name up top, but the back fabric I bought at a Hancock's fabrics years ago, and the colors just inspired me.

"Dusty Rose" designed for a class I was teaching.

After dropping off the items, we took a drive up into Canada, had lunch and then drove home. We got a kick out of the guy at the gate to get into Canada. He asked all the usual questions, but when he asked if we had any weapons, we said no. He was startled, and said, "you don't open carry?" Guess we might be one of the few in Idaho that don't!!!!

My items were all home in late August, and then September 2nd we had to go to Spokane, Washington Fair, which is called a Interstate County Fair, because of being so close to Idaho.

So here are the 6 items I entered into Spokane's fair:

"Victorian Elegance"

"Under the Sea-quadrupled!"

Also use this as a class demonstration of several techniques.

"Lots of Knots"

"Arizona Memories"

After dropping off the items, we took a drive over to Glacier National Park, had always been on our want to do list. Sadly, the many fires in Canada had the northern states covered in smoke skies, so we couldn't see as well as normal, so we will have to go back again!

But we were able to time our way back to Spokane for the opening day of the fair, and see how my projects did!

Then on to home from there, that being a Monday, with Friday being the drop-off day for the Lewiston County Fair!

"Treasure the Bees"

"Tribute to Jennifer Clouston!"

"Beach Thereapy" The center is a painting done by my mom.

"Jesus spoke to Paul, why don't we listen?"

Santa's head was an ornament I bought at Mervyn's many years ago. Then I decided to make him a coat of many colors. The boots and gloves, and eye glasses were found in a thrift store. Sandy found a doll club in town, and Susan Lawson, the president, made his body for me so he would stand up on his own!!! Here's back view:

"Japanese Memories" with my mother's charcoal drawings. Here's a better view. Can also be seen on my Flickr site, as with all the pictures here.

"Trees are the Lungs of the Earth"

This is the tree art I saw that inspired me to make this quilt.

Most of these got great ratings and comments, and even though my "Trees are the Lungs of the Earth" got some great remarks, still only placed 3rd. My tree was purposely made a little "wonky" with a technique I learned from Judith Baker Montano, the commenter felt it should have been a solid piece of green fabric! And she didn't like the "wonky" feather stitch I did, though she called it a blanket stitch!!! Oh, well, it is one of my favorite pieces. I have learned this year, that the judges are looking at "traditional quilting" methods, and not the artistic creativity of what I am portraying. So that's ok!!!!

So four fairs, 22 items, 15 first place, 5 second place, and 2 third place. So not bad, and I am happy!!!

I also wish to say thanks to so many of you on Crazy Quilt Divas Facebook page. You have been over-whelming supportive of my work, and it is highly appreciated! I do not take it lightly!

So Happy Stitching, and be sure to check out my Flickr site:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/60882932@N06/

Thanks for visiting....if you are not able to leave comments here, you can in my email: Greenfields2@msn.com

Tuesday, August 19, 2025

August 19th, 2025

Hard to believe, I am posting again in the same month. Boy what a busy month it has been!!! I have 3 more Fairs, one this month and 2 more in September, all with different pieces obviously. Stay tuned to see how it all works out!

My big accomplishment this month was finishing my Japanese Memories quilt. Since several wanted to know the back story of why I did this quilt, I thought I would just post it here.

We spent 4 years, 1957 to 1961, in Japan, due to my father being Air Force. I have so many fond memories of growing up there, from 6 years old to 10.

My mother had been an artist since a child herself, and learned oils, acrylics, water color, and charcoal when we were stationed in Japan.

Here's her artwork in my house:

Here in my classroom, two of my Under the Sea framed, along with one of her charcoal drawings.

Her beach pictures were always my favorites, as they were with the tourists that visited every year. So I photographed the above picture to make the embellished piece below.

She also loved to paint pictures of my cats over the years!

She could literally paint on anything!

So one year when visiting, I had some Aida cloth with me, and asked her to paint some beach scenes on it!

One of my favorite treasures, a FB private message popped up, can't remember her name to find it right now, but she said she was sure they had one of mom's paintings, and would like to give it back to the family!!!! Was I ever surprised. So I paid for the shipping, she didn't want any money for it.

I had never seen any of boats by my mother, but her signature was on it!!!

The small hanging crazy quilt is done in seer sucker fabrics, front and back by Sandy's mom, which we didn't know she knew crazy quilts till after she had passed. Oh, the hours we could have had fun together stitching!

Some memories of Japan:

My inspiration for the color of this piece:

Here's mom's drawings from PowerPoint:

Below is a picture of one of her brochures that she passed out when doing street shows in Florida,

So, because her original drawings are large, many 14" by 17 ", I don't have wall space to frame them all. The next best thing I could think of is to put them all in a wall hanging quilt. I was originally going to do it in hexies, but then the pictures had to be too small. So I decided it had to be squares. Hexie will be another day!

So I will post each individual block first, and then the finished piece, with the backing. Starting with the right side, middle and then the left side.