April | 2017 | SusanStewartDesigns

Blue Plate Special is at her final show! Most major shows require that quilts entered into competition be no more than two years old, and BPS will be aged out in a couple of weeks. But it’s been a good ride! Let me tell you about this quilt…

BPS was really made almost entirely from leftovers! It all started with the narrow blue border stripe. This was left over from a quilt I cut out for my Mom to make a few years ago. I liked the colors, so I saved the strips. You can see the print here.

I had some Cherrywood hand-dyed fabric left over from years ago that just happened to be in the same range of blues and turquoise. The white sateen background fabric was left over from a big custom job I was considering, but fortunately declined. Some of the threads were left over (but of course I ended up having to order more! I always have to order more thread.) Even the free-standing lace border design was left over – it’s a Zundt design that I’ve used many times over the years.

The first competition in which I entered BPS was Houston in 2015. Master Award for Thread Artistry! Not a bad way to start!

(You can read about my Red Dress here and here!)

Then I entered it into the full line-up of AQS shows for 2016. Here it is at Paducah, with and Honorable Mention

and at Daytona Beach, with a category 1st place.

Here is some of the bling she has won!

At AQS shows, she got a total of three firsts, one third, and two honorable mentions.

And now, at her final show at Machine Quilters’ Expo in Manchester, NH, there are another three ribbons to add to my bulletin board: 2nd in the Solo Artist Category, the winner of Embroidery At Its Best, and Best Machine Quilting – Sit Down (instead of a cash award, the prize for this is a Janome sewing machine!) That show is still going on, so I don’t yet have the ribbons to show you.

Update: Cricket Lomicka just sent me a photo! Thanks!

Except for that blue print fabric strip, all of the color is machine embroidery. The designs in the interior of the quilt are from the Contour Applique collection by OESD. The large swirls in the outer border are from the Yukata Art Set by Zundt, and the lace border is Lace Set 10, also by Zundt.

I used Hobbs 80/20 bleached, because I needed a white-white batting so as not to get a yellowish cast from my favorite wool batting. The back is white sateen, just like the front. All of the quilting is hand-guided free-motion, without a stitch regulator. Here are a few close-ups: