World Quilt Show at West Palm Beach, FL

I will wish everyone a Happy January since I guess it's too late to say Happy New Year! 

I have recently taken a few weeks hiatus from most forms of media as much as possible to force myself to focus on being more productive with my spare time.  It's difficult enough to make time to create when we work at regular jobs, not to mention the time that ordinary tasks of day to day life consume.  I think that it is too tempting to get distracted by so many outside influences nowadays. I find myself "innocently" wasting a few minutes here and there checking out social media, a favorite tv show, surfing the web, etc. and suddenly realize these few minutes amount to several hours a week.  I wind up spending the little spare time I do have checking out what "others" are doing or creating, instead of spending my time creating for myself.  So my resolution this year was to really try to focus on doing less "time wasting" and more time being productive, being creative and pursuing my interests and personal goals.  It's not easy.  It's like trying to give up sugar or a favorite food!  You want to taste it all!

 A couple of weekends ago I attended the World Quilt Show in West Palm Beach, FL, about three hours south of us.  My quilt above, Color My World, was entered into the competition, which was open to Florida quilters only.  I thought I would show a few of the quilts from the show.  These are in no particular order, just a few quilts I thought were interesting.  And I apologize for poor photo quality, these were taken with my iPhone and the lighting in the convention center was pretty horrible.  But there should be enough here to give you a bit of inspiration.

 "Out of the Loop" by Eyvonne Smith of Jensen Beach, FL.  Won Judge's Choice.

 "Bluebirds" by Laura Ruiz of Malabar, FL.  Won Best Pictorial Quilt.

 "A Taste of Sunshine" by Deb Crine of Marco Island, FL.  Won Best Machine Workmanship.

 "Medallion" by Loretta C. Sylvester of Palm Coast, FL.

The quilts below were part of an exhibit of antique quilt tops that had been quilted recently by various longarm quilters.  Most are from the 1930s, which is one of my favorite periods for antique quilts.  These were some of my favorites for various reasons.  I neglected to get the names of the quilters for these quilts, sorry!

And this quilt below was part of the World Quilt exhibit.  I found it to be very unusual and intriguing.

 "Shattered Face Quilt" by Kathryn Harmer Fox of East London, South Africa was made using a pile of leftover scraps and miscellaneous fibers.  They are embedded on a canvas background with scribble stitch, free-motion embroidery and quilting.  It was really interesting to look at up close.

Hopefully you all are staying warm in whatever part of the country, or world, you live in.  We are having our own share of near freezing temperatures here in central Florida with the low tonight at 33 degrees.  And we are hearing that it's supposed to stay this cold for the next couple of days.  If you ever want to hear people complain about cold weather, this is the place!  Yes, we are spoiled!  I don't mind it for a day here and there but after a couple of days in a row, I am ready for the mild 70s again.  But I'm sure many of you are probably wishing for temperatures in the low 30s, considering so much of the country is below freezing right now.  I guess this is a perfect time to curl up under those warm quilts!  Stay warm everyone!