Thursday: good news, bad news

Local Quilter Semifinalist in International Quilt Show 

Paducah, Kentucky, USA – Amanda Hilldore from Holland is a semifinalist for the 2022 AQS QuiltWeek® – Grand Rapids, Michigan held August 17 – 20, 2022, at the DeVos Place Convention Center. Amanda has been chosen to display the quilt, MESHING TOGETHER, along with 389 others in this AQS contest. First, Second, and Third Place prizes in seven categories will be awarded, along with seven overall awards including Best of Show. Winners will be announced at the show and posted on the AQS website, Americanquilter.com. More than $50,000 will be granted, including $10,000 for the Best of Show and $3,500 each for Best Wall Quilt, Best Traditional Design, Best Original Design, Best Hand, Best Stationary, and Best Movable Workmanship. Regardless of how MESHING TOGETHER places in the final judging, all semifinalist quilts will be displayed at the show. 

AQS President Bill Schroeder says, “AQS has a longstanding history of having the best of the best quilts in our contests. Just when we think the quality of the quilts can’t get any better, quilters step up their creativity even more and set a new standard of quiltmaking. This year’s contests are no exception and these quilts are truly exceptional.” 

Quilts were entered in this international contest from 38 US states and 12 countries. Come see a wide range of special exhibit quilts including: New Quilts from an Old Favorite: Wheel of Fortune; The Diana Cherrywood Challenge Exhibit; SAQA: Wide Horizons VII; The Ties That Bind Us curated by Wendy Brackman; along with a variety of quilts from the West Michigan Quilt Guild. 

The American Quilter’s Society hosts several shows annually, each with its own quilt contest. Besides the Grand Rapids, Michigan show, AQS hosts other prestigious shows in Daytona Beach, Florida; Branson, Missouri; Paducah, Kentucky; and Des Moines, Iowa.

The bad news is that I'll be on vacation and not able to actually attend.

Wednesday: roof

Shingles were delivered today for our new roof.  I don't notice the roof line often, but it was quite noticeable with the shingles!  Next we need to see a duck on the shingles.

Tuesday: gas

Today I paid more than $5/gallon for gas.  ($5.199, to be exact.)

Monday: quilting

Most quilting things don't get posted to this blog, but the random picture of the day was late at night, when I'm quilting.

I'm currently making a bunch of half-square triangles (HSTs).  I think it's a dumb name, because it makes it sound like your base block is a triangle instead of a square.  Perhaps triangle in a half square would be better?  I'm not really sure and I really have no power to change it.

I have about half of them made that I'll need.  I've been trading out cutting the squares, sewing them together, cutting and pressing the HSTs, and trimming.  It's been nice because I don't get too sick of doing one thing over and over.

Oh!  As I was looking at my pictures I also found some of Joshua's work that I found funny.  I feel like he really got stuck in a loop while sounding out museum.

Sunday: table

Today I'd like to show you a clean table.  It's a rare sight in this house, as the children seem to think they can just put things on the table and leave them there.  We had a discussion about how they should start taking something as they walk by and putting it away.  I don't know if it'll stick.  

I suppose it's better than having toys all over the floor as we used to have with small children.  

(Oh, I oddly stopped cleaning it in the middle, did some other stuff, then took the picture.  Don't worry, the whole table's been cleaned now.)

Saturday: normal day

It was a rather normal Saturday for us.  We worked on some Lego sets and played some games.  All the laundry is finally washed and dried and some of it is even put away.

The raspberries are getting close to showing up...I'm just starting to see the first green berries.  Hopefully I'll only need to wait a week or two now!

The random picture of the day showed up as Isaac and I were finishing our Dominion game.  It was a 'trash' game, in which there was a lot of trashing cards.  Isaac choose a few cards that worked really well together, but they almost worked too well together.  I managed to win for the first time in a while, but we weren't really sure why.

Friday: vaccines

The boys got their booster vaccines today.  They were quite unexcited about them, but at the same time there weren't any problems getting them.  I did get some new cards because 1) the first person to write on the card did it pretty much illegibly and 2) the first person wrote that they received Moderna.  I mentioned this to the provider who at first was just like, "yeah, I changed mine too" and I followed up with "well, Moderna wasn't authorized for them".  Now, I wasn't all that worried because the lot number seemed similar to their second Pfizer shot and I'm pretty sure I confirmed with the provider that they were getting Pfizer.  Anyway, today she was able to quickly look it up and it actually was Pfizer.  So now I have correct and legible cards.

The peonies are also in bloom!  I feel like I usually miss the blooms because it thunderstorms right after they open and are done in a day.  There is also a ton of cotton from the cottonwood all over the place.  It seems to have snowed.  It makes it a bit hard to hang up the laundry, but if I don't hang it up I'm not going to have enough time to get it all through the dryer!  I usually put it in the dryer for 10-30 minutes anyway to get rid of the crunchiness and anything else that might have ended up on the clothes, and the seeds have all come off the clothes during that time.

Today's random picture is of masks.  We barely use these anymore since Omicron since we switched to KN95 masks and I really should move most of them to a different (but still accessible) location.  They don't need to be so prominent anymore.