Cotton Boll Quilt Challenge 2009

And the winner is . . . . . Nancy Ratliff . . . First Place and Viewer's Choice also!!! Go, Nancy!!! Your quilt was done with excellence and beautifully made!

Our guild had a quilt challenge this year and at our May dinner, the quilts were displayed and outside judges were brought in and winners were announced. I could not believe that out of about 75 members, only 7 people participated in the challenge, I, being one of them.

We were given a paint chip with 3 shades of a color, mine being a light yellow to a bright gold. You had to use this color, or any shades of it, in 50% of your quilt top. You were given a block which had to be identifiable on the front of the quilt and two quilting techniques which had to be used in at least 25% of the quilt. Other than that, it was a piece of cake to make!! BG

This is my quilt, which I named, Sunshine, Almost Always Makes Me High, from a John Denver song of long ago. Sunshine just brightens any day! As I mentioned my color was yellow and my techniques were paper piecing and hand quilting.. .......and here I am a longarm quilter using my machine almost every day of the week. I paper-pieced the sun, the three large blocks, and hand quilted the sun area. My block was cake stand, which is one of the three small blocks at an angle under the sun area. My quilt was inspired by a pattern in the book, Beyond the Block by Linda Johnson and Jane Wells.

Oh, and did I mention, I won second place, which was pretty exciting! The ribbons were beautifully done by Pam Stapley, ....very nice!
Her is a close-up of the sun with the hand-quilting and you can see one of my little cake stand blocks! I must say, this really was a challenge just sewing all these odd pieces together, but I often like to be stretched beyond my norm in quilting!

Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure

I participated in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure this past Saturday, May 9. I ran with my sister, Sylvia Brush, and other members of her family were participating. Her husband, Edgar, son Trey and his wife, Nikki and daughter, Bonnie. It was the first race I had participated in and got up at 4:30 a.m. to get downtown Atlanta and be assured of a parking place in the garage at Atlantic Station. I got there around 6:40 a.m. so that was no problem, thankfully. I did not want to be driving around looking for a place to park in unfamiliar territory.

In fact, we arrived so early that we did the one mile walk at 7:45 which was not planned and then at 8:30 took on the 5K run. Sylvia and I jogged most of the time, coming in at 42.5 minutes. I was happy with my time since I normally just walk and had not been able to train as much as I'd like due to some health issues this year........it was quite exhilarating seeing the thousands (15,000) running up and down the hills of Atlanta.

When you start realizing how many people you know that have or have had breast cancer, or even died from it, it is amazing. People posted names on pink sheets of paper to remember those. I have 15 ladies on my list and I'm sure I did not remember all of them.

Thanks again to all those that supported my efforts and run!