Northwest Quilting Expo - September 2018

The Northwest Quilting Expo was held in Portland at the end of September, 2018.  The show this year was fabulous, with many special displays.  I really like going to these larger regional shows because I get to see my friends from Block Party Quilters in Sammamish, Puyallup Valley Quilters in Puyallup,  Clark County Quilters in Vancouver, and Northwest Quilters in Portland, OR.  Hello again to all of you that I ran into at the show. 

I took a lot of pictures this year and am sharing them with you here, so that you can see all the excellent workmanship that went into these quilts.  One caveat - many of the quilts did not have a show label on them, so the makers and the stories are unknown.  Too bad - I like to give credit where credit is due.

Best of Show

Shadow Selfie #5 - The Lily Fields

This is my 5th quilt in the shadow selfie series.   I wrote blogs about 1-4 previously.

I got the idea for this little quilt on a hike through the Camas Lily Fields in April.  This is a hike that I love to take every year.  As you step up onto the plateau, you gasp as you discover the meadows covered as far as you can see with blooming Camasia lilies interspersed with the little pink sea blush.  And lime green mossy rocks.  So amazing!  The shadow is of a friend, a granddaughter, and me on the 2nd hike I took in a 5 day period.

I wanted to try my hand at a mosaic shadow selfie, and this seemed like just the right one.  I tried to use mostly batik fabrics for this quilt and cut them into 3/8" squares.  It is a technique taught by Cheryl Lynch, whom I saw on The Quilt Show.

Here is my sketch which turned into the pattern.

And here is the little quilt.

Shadow Selfie #5 - The Lily Fields by Joanne Adams Roth

I hope you like it.

Shadow Selfie #4 - Giddy Up

This is the 4th quilt in the Shadow Selfie series.  I wrote blogs previously about quilts 1-3.

Many time when I take a shadow selfie, I enlist my husband in the picture too.  He's not quite as enthusiastic about getting into the groove as I am, but he will pose when we're on a trip.  This picture was taken on one of those trips.  We live in the Pacific Northwest, where rodeos abound around the 4th of July.  There are so many of them they call it "Cowboy Christmas".  We don our cowboy hats and western clothes and head out for a good old fashioned rodeo.   Hence the name "Giddy Up".

I found a perfect background fabric that looked like barbed wire to me.  Do you think it looks like that too?

I drew up the pattern and made freezer paper templates, which I then ironed onto the background.   I numbered each piece and made match marks between the pieces so that I could sew them back together, leaving generous allowances around the edges.  That way, I knew I would be able to trim the piece to size after sewing.  If you are working with odd angles, be sure to leave this extra allowance too.

I placed the pieces along the grain-line of the fabric and after pressing the freezer paper down, I cut out all the pieces, leaving the freezer paper in place so that I would know which piece was what.


After sewing the background togehter, I fused the shadows in place, appliqued them with invisible smoky thread and quilted the piece.

Shadow Selfie #4 - Giddy Up by Joanne Adams Roth

I hope you like it.