Coming Soon...

Part of taking quilting more seriously is jumping through the necessary hoops to get my work shown publicly. Having quilts in shows will, I figure, get me out there meeting people and ogling other people's work, which is a good thing in itself. It will also pressure me to do good work, and to produce enough work so that I'll have pieces that are worth putting in shows. And, with any luck it will get me some of those kudos I so need. (Really, I'm a craven praise junky. Flattery is always welcome.)

This fall, I'll have four pieces in shows:

Log Cabin, as I've already mentioned at least six times to everyone who knows me, will be at the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum in Golden, Colorado from August 15 to October 21.

Marsha and Charlie's Wedding Quilt will be at the Columbia River Gorge Quilt Show in Stevenson, Washington from Sept. 14 to Sept. 16.

Partway Around the World II will be in the Sea of Quilts 12 in Coos Bay, Oregon on the weekend of Sept. 16 - 17.

And if I can work out the logistics, Winter Quilt will be in Quilts by the Sea during the Bandon, Oregon Cranberry Festival, Sept. 8-10.

(Hmm, these four quilts make an interesting illustration of my last post. But I won't belabor the obvious.)


So, with all of this happening, and with the start of the new quilting season right around the corner, I've been thinking of goals for the coming year. Here goes:

Goal One: Have two strong pieces ready to enter in the Guild Show in April. Probably those will be Labyrinth and Batik Stained Glass Window. BSGW is in good shape, with the piecing finished, but I want to take my machine quilting up several notches, so it will take a lot of time to get over the finish line. Labyrinth, on the other hand, is only partially pieced, and isn't even entirely laid out, and is in any event on such a massive scale that it will be a real challenge to finish.

Goal Two: Really improve my machine quilting a lot. I've already enrolled in one class for September, and might take a second as well.

Goal Three: Apply those machine quilting skills. I would like to go back and totally requilt or overquilt some of my older stuff, particularly Two Complex Shapes (shown), which I think could be showable if it was well-quilted.

Goal Four: Work on the Restoration Quilt I talked about a few weeks ago.

Goal Five: Make a few baby blankets as needed. This will of course depend on who gets pregnant, and how well they time the blessed event around my schedule.

Goal Six: At least one charity quilt. Got to start small -- some people do dozens of charity quilts in a year. I'll explain more about that when the time comes.

Goal Seven: Finish The Four Seasons. A minor project I started in 2001. Enough already.

Well, there. Now I've done it. I'd be happy to entertain friendly wagers ($20 maximum) as to how many of these goals, if any, I am able to complete. Happy August.