Daily Blog

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Today is the first of five days of a new La Veta Quilt Retreat. One of the returning students, Marian Pierce, aka gypsyrivergang, brought a completed quilt top of her original Rhapsody quilt based on a gypsy theme. This quilt was started at one of her previous retreats. Note the overall feel that it is a wheel, but the "roof" over the four corner applique baskets are reminiscent of the top of a gypsy wagon. All of the applique is edged with double blanket stitch!

Way to go Marian!

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Left to right - Laura Wasilowsky, Marilyn Badger, Ricky Tims, Denise Havlan, and Wendy Butler Burns.

Me and Pat Holly - who won her third Best Miniature Quilt award at AQS this year.

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An enthusiastic audience of the Whoo-hoo Nation gathered at the Carson Center for my 2010 concert at the AQS show in Paducah, KY. Instead of riding in on a motorcycle (2008) or rising up from the orchestra pit with a tiny red toy piano (2009), I couldn't think of a clever way to start the show. So instead, I decide to surprise the audience with a visual treat mid-way through the concert. 

After playing The Way Home accompanied by a music video featuring dozens of my quilts, the real quilts came floating down to create a massive backdrop while I shared some of my early quilting experiences. I have to admit, when I went saw the array during rehearsal I was stunned. I've never seen my quilts displayed in such a way and when I look at the photo I still go - wow!

I'm thankful to AQS for making this amazing event happen and I'm thrilled that each year the hall is filled to overflowing with such an appreciative audience.

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Sue McCarty's quilt, Tribute to Tolkien has won Best of Show at the 2010 Ameican Quilter's Society Show and Contest. Sue's quilt is a whole cloth quilt, with some painting, but mostly, it is all stitching with metallic threads. The entire quilt was created on her Gammill long-arm quilting machine

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The Musicians (above) and detail (below) by Suzanne Marshall.

Suzanne Marshall played a major role in my development as a quilter. In 1991 when I met her, she was already well-established and her quilts had won many awards and been widely published. Her works are beautifully hand stitched and she has two quilts in the National Quilt Museum that won Best Hand Workmanship at the AQS shows. Two weeks ago she won Best Hand Workmanship at the AQS show in Lancaster, PA.

She does needle turn applique and almost always outlines her applique with embroidery stitching. She also uses embroidery to add details to the work. It is very rare that she does any machine quilting so 99% of it is all done by hand - and she quilts without a hoop or a frame. 

During my recent homecoming trip to St. Louis I had the opportunity to visit with Suzanne and her husband Garland. I'll be working on an article about Suzanne for The Quilt Life so look for that in an upcoming issue.

Suzanne loves recreating images from very old engravings, tapestries, and other design sources - especially if they have critters. She gets even more excited if the critters are unusual or odd. She said, "I love it when my quilt makes me laugh while I'm working on it!" The designs for her new quilt "The Musicians" were in a volume of illustrations from 1565. Watch her on Episode 203 of The Quilt Show.  

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I'm enjoying my time in St. Louis. Friday night I presented my "Homecoming Concert" to a near sellout crowd of about 550 enthusiastic quilters and friends. The concert was promoted and presented by my first quilt guild - the Thimble and Thread Quilt Guild of Greater St. Louis with a membership of around 200. They meet the 2nd Friday of each month at the Webster Groves Presbyterian Church. This performance, however, was offered to quilters region wide so the meeting was moved to the Lindbergh High School auditorium.

A group of volunteers set up a table with loads of hand-dyed fabric and other goodies while another group helped set the guild's new raffle quilt. The crowd arrived early, all wanting the best seat, so when the doors opened at 7pm, the lobby was already swarming with concertgoers. 

I was honored that so many people came out and I enjoyed recanting my stories, playing my music, and I assembled a visual montage of just about every quilt I ever made.

A huge thank you goes out to Thimble and Thread for being their from the start. Thanks to my other St. Louis guilds (Circle in the Square and St. Louis Art Quilt Alliance) for also guiding me along. Thanks to all the guilds in the region for having hosted me when I was getting my feet wet doing presentations. Thanks to everyone who came out in support for this homecoming concert.

The encouragement and support of those members during the formative years of my quilting experience is a significant reason why I'm where I am today. They could have ignored me, shunned me, misunderstood me, but they did anything but that. They embraced me, taught me, and kept me under their wing while I was learning to fly. They didn't shake their heads at my unorthodox methods. Instead they knew and celebrated the fact that quilting generates a wide range of styles and methods. 

I was once a newbie. I was embraced and encouraged. The quilt police stayed away and a group of quilting cheerleaders cheered me on. Are you an encourager? Do you seek out the newbies and cheer for them? Who will be the next generation of quilters - teachers - award-winners? Will you play a part in their success? The quilters in St. Louis certainly played a huge part in my life.

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Turn your radio on - we'll, not really. If you missed the interview live online you'll be glad to know KWMU has posted it online to hear anytime you wish. Click here and listen to the entire discussion that I had with Don Marsh on St. Louis Public Radio, KWMU's Cityscape program. It's always great when opportunities arise to remind/educate the general public about quilting. 

No doubt you will enjoy listening while you are putting together a quilting project or just working around the house. Thanks KWMU for the opportunity to share the love. If you know someone who is on the fringe of really understanding YOUR quilt world, send them the link. - Ricky

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Friday morning, between 11am and noon U.S. Central time, I'm going to be the lucky guest on St. Louis Public Radio on an arts and culture program called Cityscape. Whoo hoo, somebody thinks I got culture!

You can listen live on the internet - so join me if you can. The show repeats in the evening from 10pm - 11pm. So, if you miss it the first time around - you have a second chance.

I'm very excited about this homecoming event/concert. Today was magical just flying in to St. Louis, seeing the arch from the air, driving by my old house, and remembering all the great friends I have here. Looking forward to the big concert Friday evening, 7:30pm, Lindburgh High School.

To listen live - click here. Look in the upper right corner of the page for Listen Live.

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I moved to St. Louis in 1988. It was there that I built my recording studio and began doing more extensive music production. In 1991, I took up quilting (see my bio) and eventually found the Thimble and Thread Quilt Guild. I eventually belonged to three groups in St. Louis. 

This weekend I'll be heading back to St. Louis for a Homecoming Concert to pay tribute to all the wonderful folks that fostered me during my formative years as a quilter. I moved to Colorado in 2000, but I will forever be thankful to the caring and generous quilters in St. Louis for their friendship and encouragement. I'm so looking forward to being with the old gang one more time.

The concert is tomorrow evening (Friday), 7:30 pm at Lindburg High School. If you want to go and don't have a ticket and would like to go, contact me and I'll get you connected with the right person. Hope to see you there! - Ricky

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That's right everyone I finally got to spend some time on a long-arm quilting machine. My new neighbor, Nurse Wanda (who was part of the team that saved my life 10 years ago when I had heart problems) screen name Traumaquen1, has a Gammill. Wanda and her husband Ed have taken jobs at our local hospital near La Veta and last night I got to drive her Gammill for a couple of hours. Wow! Previously, I've only been able to test drive these at shows. 

All of my quilting up until now has been free-motion on a domestic machine. How long will it take to get my long-arm quilting up to the same level as my free-motion quilting?