QuiltNebraska 2014

Shirley, Janet, Fay, Me (Lynn)

Another QuiltNebraska in the books the end of July and as usual it was fun to take classes, meet and visit old friends and participate in a Nebraska State Quilt Guild activity.  This year’s convention was held in North Platte, Nebraska which is about a 3 1/2 to 4 hour drive from here.  I love that our annual convention moves around the state so we can have a different experience each year.  There are always new people to get to know as well as those of us perpetual attendees. QuiltNebraska, of course, always means rooming with three of my long time quilt friends.  We look forward to catching up with each others lives as well as spending time together doing what we love.  We had to chuckle this year as we used to stay up late into the night time hours and visit but now “lights out” comes a lot earlier.

This year I took two all day classes instead of half day classes.  Half day classes are fine but sometimes I feel so rushed if they are sewing classes.  Seems like you just get the machine going and the project started and it is time to clean up and be done with the class.   This first class, “Spectrum”, was taught by Jill Vanderboegh.  The project she taught is pictured below in two color ways.  She had a great way of speed piecing the foundation pieced diamonds.  She did give us a choice of making this small 12” version or a larger version which I forgot to take a photo of at convention but did get a photo of it at the Nebraska State Fair where it won a blue ribbon.  As you can see it was slightly different in that it was squared out with piecing in the corners and was approximately 24”to 28” across.

 

I chose to do the small 12” one and will show you my progress in another blog post as I am still working on it.

The second class I took was taught by Kay Grimminger on making a free form beaded pendant.  I had such a good time in this class and Kay’s pieces are exquisite!  We all started with a cabochon and from there on it was our decision of what beads we wanted to stitch on and where we wanted to place them.  Here are 2 of Kay's pieces below.

 

This is the piece below that I had nearly finished by the end of the day long class.  Love the colors and it really was fun to make.  I didn’t get too elaborate with the shape or the number of kinds of beads as  I don’t really like to wear really large jewelry and wanted to get it finished.
Each year the NSQG members await the unveiling of the new raffle quilt with much anticipation.  This year the quilt did not disappoint.  It is a gorgeous black and gold double feathered star with appliqued vines and leaves in the corners.  The quilt is further enhanced with beautiful machine quilting done by Nebraska’s own award winning quilter Kris Vierra.  Crystals were applied to the quilt to add sparkle.  To read more about this quilt check out this webpage on the Nebraska Quilt Guild’s website.
Of course I have my tickets purchased and intend to win this quilt next July!  I say that every year but this is one I really would like to own.

Lynn