West Michigan Quilter's Show/Visit with Nephews

It was a clear, cool, sunny fall day today and Lisa, Sophie and I drove to Grand Rapids to see the West Michigan Quilter's Guild quilt show, Quilts on the Grand. The West Michigan Quilt Guild has a membership of nearly 500 quilters. They always have a wonderful show and this year we were not disappointed. We saw really colorful and amazing quilts and I took lots of photos so I will be posting several today and in the future.
My goal was to not buy any fabric. I really don't need any since I haven't used much in the past year and my quilt room closet runneth over.......But there were lots of vendors with scrumptious fabric calling to me so....I bought some anyway. I bought two pieces of hand dyed fabric that will go with the hand dyed and stamped fabric that I purchased at the Ann Arbor Quilt Show. One vendor, Lake Shore Quilts, was giving away one yard of fabric to each attendant of the show, so in addition to my free yard I bought the rest of the bolt that was 60% off. How could I resist. I ended up with a little over 2 yards of some really nice blue Kaffe Fassett fabric for $4.20.
The Kaffe Fassett fabric is on the far left, the two hand dyed pieces are in the middle with two batik fat quarters above. The hand dyed and stamped fabric from the Ann Arbor show is on the far right. I will be looking for the right design to use my new hand dyed fabrics.
The West Michigan Quilter's always make several raffle quilts, about 10-12 each year and they donate a portion of the proceeds to a financial aid fund and the neonatal unit at Spectrum Hospital and another charity. This is one of the raffle quilts. Fun baskets a la Gwen Marston style.
This year's additional charity is Habitat for Humanity of Kent County. How wonderful!!
This was a beautifully machine quilted whole cloth quilt. I only took close up pictures since a big white blank picture would not show the details.
Breath taking!
Another great use of brights and black and white.

Baby blocks. I wonder how the binding went on this quilt.
More brights. This time a disappearing nine patch.
Close up of the disappearing nine patch block.
This is one of many art quilts on display.
Great quilted jacket. I love the colors, can't go wrong with lime green.

A beautiful blue jacket.
A fun Flamingo jacket.
This is the Commemorative Quilt for the Public Museum of Grand Rapids. It was made to honor the guild's 30 years as a community organization and will be in the collection of the museum.
Winter landscape. Stunning.
Nice applique.

This applique was really unique. It has no straight sides and was a very creative design.
Up close.
Another up close. More quilts later.

After the show, we stopped for lunch and then headed to my brother Jim's to visit with he and Wendy and my nephews. Ben greeted us at the door wearing a fresh scar on his forehead. He fell on the floor molding the night before and it required a trip to the ER. He didn't get stitches, the cut was glued. It looks sore and was quite swollen but Ben didn't seem the least bit bothered by it.
I had a hard time getting him to look at me so I could snap a picture. This is the best I could do.

Sam grabbed Ben for me to hold him down for a picture. What a thoughtful brother.
We visited with Jim and Wendy for a while and enjoyed the musical antics of my nephews. Sophie got to cuddle with a Halloween teddy bear.
Lisa, a relatively new grandmother, knew exactly how to entertain Ben. He really enjoyed riding up and down on Lisa's foot.
He wouldn't get down, kept wanting more and like the Energizer Bunny, he just keeps going and going.
My coworker, Carol's, husband, Les tuned the piano a few weeks ago so I had to check out the new sound and John was a willing pianist. He is really a nice piano player. He played One Little, Two Little, Three Little Indians. I think he has it memorized. I was quite impressed. Yea John!!!

Carl was at a birthday party so we missed seeing him.