Louisiana Traveling Quilt

The LA Traveling Quilts are coming home!  Mr. Pat received his and I received mine!  Kelly is waiting on hers to arrive and she has one block to finish before sending off the one she is working on.  Soon all the quilts will be home.

Would I do this again?  You bet!  This project gave us all the opportunity to stretch ourselves.  It stimulated the ability to design a quilt section to fit in with the piece in front of us, which could be outside your comfort zone.

For those who are uninitiated in the Louisiana Traveling Quilt Saga here is the story.  Ramona of the (Northeast Louisiana) NELa Modern Quilt Guild put out a call to the modern guilds in Louisiana asking if anyone was interested in working on a quilt  for themselves that would travel the state.  At each stop, a section would be added. The quilt owner would set a theme which was to guide the participants in making their section. 

Ten of us joined in the fun.  I started my quilt off with a stack of paperpieced houses and trees.  The pieces and parts came together through the hands of my new friends from all over the state and the Virginias.

Ms. Pat in Fredericksburg, WV
Mr. Pat in Baton Rouge, LA
Ramona in West Monroe, LA
Kelly in Baton Rouge, LA
Carlie in Haughton, LA
Becky in  Collins, VA
Marie in Monroe, LA
Mary in Evergreen, LA
Marty in Monroe, LA

I, in turn, worked on all those other quilts as well!

It was fun and exciting, challenging and thought provoking and above all.........totally amazing!

Here is my quilt  ---  Isn't it just amazing?  Thanks ladies and gentlemen!

Nutria Day in South Louisiana

(Don't forget to look at my retreat photos from yesterday's post.)

Well, no self respecting Cajun would listen to a groundhog, but Pierre the Nutria says we will not have 6 more weeks of Yankee winter!

Pierre C. Shadeaux predicts a long and wonderful Louisiana Spring.  It was quite foggy when he woke up this morning!

My cousin and her hubby are visiting from Illinois and flying back to Chicago today.  Maybe.  Her neighbor told them there was 10 feet of snow in their driveway after the snow plow came through.  Give me hurricanes any day!  LOL. 

Her daughters are the smart ones, one lives in Florida, the other in Hawaii.  Go figure.

I enjoyed seeing them.   People kept stopping by our table and marveling at the fact we all look so much alike!  One face, yep, our family has just one face! Karen hopefully will send me the picture Jim took.

While I was at the retreat, I received my Louisiana Traveling Quilt!  I was so excited I tore into the box before I even got halfway in the door!  I have to show it at the Modern guild tonight so I will show some photos tomorrow.

I hope the other two participants (Pat and Kelly) got theirs and we can exude love for our fabulous quilts!  And make eeryone else jealous!  You know they will be!

Finally, The Star and Some Feathers

 I finally have the Star Quilt out of the washing and drying machines.  It wrinkled up nicely!

Check out the back, it looks like a star!

And these are some feathers I made for Mr. Pat's Louisiana Traveling Quilt.  His does not have the theme of Louisiana like the other two I was working on.  It had the feel of modern masculine and angles.  One night I was dreaming that I had feathers from the Anna Marie Horton Feather Bed Quilt.

And it was so!

They will fit nicely on one side or the other.  I plan on leaving them off for the moment and sendin a note to the next person in line asking them to include them in their piece down one side or the other as it all fits together.

I really love this quilt.

glen

Louisiana Traveling Quilt #2 - Ramona's Louisiana Themed Quilt

Before

I am so much in love with the derrick idea that I had to use it on Ramona's quilt as well.  It is a Louisiana theme as well, you know.

So I did work on it some yesterday.  An finished it up in my guild's Sew Along Saturday meeting today.

I knew that white would not work with Ramona's neutrals dominant quilt top.  I chose a taupe-y grey-ish beige-ish dot piece to act as background for my oilfield.  And it is amazing how it blends with the quilt.  !

After we hit oil!

So this is how it came to me.  I thought to put  the derrick on the lower left corner to balance the long narrow drips on the uppper right corner.

So what do you think? I am thinking the person next can do some oil drops spouting out the top of my well, or maybe a flame since they do flare the natural gasses off the wells before they pump out
some black gold!

That is an amazing map block,my favorite  of the quilt......not counting my oil derrick, of course! 

The Finished Derrick

Here is the first of the derricks.  It was my practice piece.  I had the iidea in my head and I was pretty sure they would work.  But they were untested.

Here is the oil derrick completed and added to Kelly's Louisiana Traveling Quilt. It will head to Virginia this afternoon.

Birds are singing, the sun is shining, life is good and the quilt is gorgeous!  I am soooo loving it!

And I finally have something to show at Nina Marie's Off the Wall Fridays.  Go back two posts to see the procedure I used to design this block.

go see what others are doing this week!  CLICK HERE

Too Many Modern Quilts!

I am a member of an exclusive 10 person group made of Modern Quilters in Louisiana (or who have ties to Louisiana since two are from Virginia!)  called The Louisiana Traveling Quilt.  We submit a central block and it passes through each person's hands to have a block added to it.  Sometimes we have a theme, like mine is houses.  I sent several houses to be included along the way. 

We have one person from Haughton LA and two from Monroe, LA; one from West Monroe, LA and one from Evergreen LA; three of us are from Baton Rouge, LA.  Then there is one from Triangle VA and one from Fredricksburg VA.  Sort of an eclectic group I would say.  And we even have one guy! LOL. 

We are in month 6 and some of the quilts are already so large I can't imagine how they will end up.  I have made some of my blocks smaller just because of the "large" factor.

And I have 40% of all our quilts!  Here are the quilts I have in my possession as of today:  Can you separate them from my messy room????

This is a Louisiana themed quilt for Kelly. Her starter block was that state outline, I love it!

 This is a quilt for Mr. Pat.  His starter bock was the lines just to the right of those flying geese in the center.

This is an I Spy Quilt for Ms. Pat.  Not sure what the starter block was for this one.   But all the pieces are geared toward I Spy for Kids in her classes.









This is another Louisiana inspired quilt for Ramona.  Don't you just love that map of New Orleans! Kelly did that!






I am gong to work on each one and send them on to where they should be!

Noah, Send Us an Ark

It has rained so much in the last few days, we are floating even by Louisiana standards.  Two days ago, I noted slightly under 3 inches of rain.  Yesterday, by about 1 pm it was at 1 1/2 inches.  This morning the gauge held 2 inches. (can you see my stevia behind the gauge?)

that is about 6 1/2 inches in two days.  We had been in a drought
situation but I think that is pretty much cleared up.  While we were in Alaska my gauge held over 5 inches and was overflowing.  No telling how many inches above that spilled over the sides.

Yesterday I was out in much of it.  I had surgery pre-op appointments.  I should have been some sort of medical something.  Most people in my family are doctors or vets.  I found the chest x rays fascinating.  You could see the
outline of my heart as well.  And ribs.  And stomach.  Interesting.  Also something that looked like one of the aliens from some movie.  I wanted to ask what  that was but didn't get a  chance.

They did a full leg x ray which showed both legs.  Is it very interesting to see the entire bone structure of your own body.  I could have stayed in there looking at stuff for hours.

I was exhausted from walking so much.  Not on my bad knee, but the other knee which now hurts more than the bad knee ever did.  Dr. Gorgeous' pronouncement is that the patella tendon (which is really a ligament) is inflamed.  The only thing  they can do is anti-inflammatory meds and pain killers -- neither of which I can have right now at less than 2 weeks out.  So rest is the only thing that will help.

Try telling McGee that.

Frank was supposed to be off fishing from Thursday through the weekend but that got cancelled because of this pressure system swirling over us.  I am glad.  It is too dangerous to be out there in the lowlands and into the gulf in bad weather.   I told him not to kill himself until I can drive again in 6 weeks.  I did however want one of those fish.  I will have to get a fish from the Vietnamese Fish Market.  Not to eat, silly.  To paint!


Today I need to get the Cotton Robin quilted.  It needs to be mailed  off with the La. Traveling Quilt to their next recipients.

Did I show you the block I made for that one?  Oh yes, I did.  It seems like a week ago.

And Carrie's birthday is Sunday.  Whatever plans we can make for that will be small.  She has no house and I have no leg.  It is not like we can accomplish much with that.