25 Years

Kate and I are back in the office after our annual trip to Paducah. This was the twenty fifth anniversary of the show and it gets better and better. I know I promised to take pictures of the winners, but right in the Show Guide it says not to put pictures from the show in your blog. So you will have to wait to see the winners in the next issue of the American Quilter. They will be better pictures anyway.

I will say that I can't help but be impressed and amazed by the quilts from Japan. Almost always, the handwork and the amount of work is just incredible. I have always loved the combination of piecing and applique and often the Japanese quilts have those in abundance. The miniatures were also a lot of fun to see, full of imagination and skill.

Last week I took an early morning picture of the Ohio River from our hotel in Paducah and this morning a picture of the view up the canyon from our home in Red Lodge. Beauty is everywhere.

John will be driving in soon and I think he stopped at an antique store on the way home. What treasure did he find?

Brooke

Finished!

A little of the history of the 2009 IQA Raffle Quilt - it's a bit of an epic. John and Sue Nickels, who are members of the IQA Board, stepped up to make an emergency replacement quilt for the 2009 raffle. There are some design guidelines to be met and John's design was accepted back in November 2008.

On November 23, he started piecing madly (cut the pieces out on the laser, of course!) and, if you look back in the blog, there are updates as the top grows. By January 5, 2009, it was ready to send to Sue Nickels for machine quilting. She fit the magnificent quilting in to her busy schedule and sent the quilted project back to us as she was leaving for New Zealand.

It is now bound, has a sleeve and is on its way to Chicago to be displayed for the first time at Spring Quilt Festival. We all think it really turned out great - the machine quilting is really, really beautiful and adds so much texture - I hope you get to see it either at Chicago, at Long Beach or in Houston where some lucky quilter will win it! Oh, it's name is "Red Hawk Rising".

Brooke

Quilter's Heritage Celebration

All three of us are back from vending and teaching at the show in Lancaster. John enjoyed his students and Kate and I had some good visits with quilters who stopped by the booth.

We had breakfast with our friend Nancy Johnson-Srebro who has always been a good, generous friend to us and whose cutting and piecing accuracy are legend.

We managed to take a few pictures - here are pictures of the awesome "Best of Show" titled "Remembrance" by Dawn Gerber of Hanover, PA. It is handquilted and a real beauty. More pictures soon.

If you have visited the website http://flynnquilt.com/lately, please tell me about your experience. It's new, you know, and there are good things and maybe not so good things. It is a work in progress.

Brooke

Vending at Quilter's Heritage Celibration

This is our company booth at the Host Expo Center in Lancaster PA. It's finally quit raining, hopefully. We will have new quilt pictures tomorrow.

Kate

Chasing Spring

Kate and I fly out early tomorrow to Lancaster, Pennsylvania for the Quilter's Heritage Show. John is in Ohio right now with the van, having raced the big snowy weather across the plains.

Since we had a chance to catch our breath here in the office today, Kate decided to cut a new miniature kit; this time it is Pinwheels. It is a 3" block. We have the little kits stuffed in my suitcase and she is going to piece it on the airplane. Ha, I will be sleeping!

We have just changed the location or hosting or whatever the technical term is, of our website. There are still some bugs and hiccups but I love how much easier it for me to use - I will be able to put a lot more photos on and I think we all like to look at quilts!

Only one more little chore to do tonight; morning is going to come pretty quickly. Oh, I just thought of something else, make that two little chores.

Brooke

The Next Show

Well, the Wii is fun; it makes me laugh! John hasn't had time to use it yet but I am having fun, fun and am sore so it must be working.

Our next show in in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Amish country. It is a very nice, well-run show and in a really beautiful part of the country, although we have been there several times when it was cold, rainy and even snowy. But it's spring and one of my favorite sights is the big, bright forsythia bush on the golf course of the convention center where we vend. There are no flowers yet in Montana, believe me.

One morning while we were at breakfast, we looked over to the field across the road and saw a young Amish boy in his black trousers, white shirt and suspenders chasing three horses who had escaped somehow. Horses have so many more feet than humans - it really is hard to catch them but he was really giving it a try. The very first time we vended in Lancaster, I pulled in to the parking lot of the farm and ranch store at the same time as an Amish farmer in his horse drawn buggy. There was a hitching post for his horse and buggy, and he just jumped out and headed in to the store like any other farmer. No Starbucks cup in hand, though. I have to admire the nerves of steel of the Amish drivers and the big horses they use to pull their buggies in all that motorized traffic.

I am changing the website and it should be ready soon. We will start trouble shooting it next week and I think it will be a lot more fun for quilters to use. Kate is finishing up some of her custom cut quilt kits and John has produced a forest of quilts on frames for his Machine Quilting class in Lancaster. Patch, the cat is amazed and a little offended since the frames are kind of in his way.

Brooke

Power

John and I are back from vending at the Dallas Quilt Celebration; what a great group of volunteers and quilters. John was one of the Judges and gave a lecture; other than that, he was Demonstrator in Chief. We had a good show and liked our neighbors which, believe me, is an important part of having a good show. I did most of the set up while John was judging and every once in a while, I could hear him laugh, so I don't think there was much disagreement among the judges.

Again, I took no quilt pictures. I will get better at blogging one of these days. It just doesn't seem to be what is dominating my mind while setting up the booth and getting to and from work. I will do better at our next shows, the Quilter's Heritage Celebration in Lancaster and the AQS Show in Paducah.

John's Judge's Choice was an interesting wall hanging by Julie McKenzie Rushing called "Old Alton Bridge". It is an abstract portrait of a historic bridge near Denton, Texas and, while not in in a style that John could duplicate, it is A Bridge, which John dearly loves. There is more to the story of the bridge; it is supposedly haunted. If I run into this quilt again at a show, I'll be sure to get a picture of it.

I did take pictures on the way home through Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado and Wyoming. We saw cattle, horses, camels, buffalo and windmills!

John leaves tomorrow to teach in Great Falls, Montana. It is only 250 miles, a piece of cake.

Brooke