It's almost game day! Quilt Show opening tomorrow! Posted by Virginia "Ginnie" Leiner on November 11, 2015 at 9:03pm View Blog http://westmorelandtimes.com/news/17343/09/svc-mccarl-gallery-prese... Here is an article about the quilt show. Wish me luck! SVC McCarl Gallery present ‘Changing Seasons’ quilt exhibit November 9, 2015 WT A&E, Exhibits, Family, Lifestyle, Local, News Ginnie Leiner with a stack of her Christmas quilts LATROBE, PA — The Foster and Muriel McCarl Coverlet Gallery at the Fred M. Rogers Center at Saint Vincent College will present the first part of a two part exhibition, “Changing Seasons: The Quilts of Ginnie Allmendinger Leiner,” from Thursday, Nov. 12, to Friday, Jan. 22, 2016. The first part of the exhibition will feature 22 holiday-themed quilts. An opening reception with the artist is planned from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 12, in the Gallery. Admission is free and open to the public. - See more at: http://westmorelandtimes.com/news/17343/09/svc-mccarl-gallery-prese... Ginnie SVC McCarl Gallery present ‘Changing Seasons’ quilt exhibit November 9, 2015 WT A&E, Exhibits, Family, Lifestyle, Local, News Ginnie Leiner with a stack of her Christmas quilts LATROBE, PA — The Foster and Muriel McCarl Coverlet Gallery at the Fred M. Rogers Center at Saint Vincent College will present the first part of a two part exhibition, “Changing Seasons: The Quilts of Ginnie Allmendinger Leiner,” from Thursday, Nov. 12, to Friday, Jan. 22, 2016. The first part of the exhibition will feature 22 holiday-themed quilts. An opening reception with the artist is planned from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 12, in the Gallery. Admission is free and open to the public. - See more at: http://westmorelandtimes.com/news/17343/09/svc-mccarl-gallery-prese...

I walk, I talk, I push creativity! Posted by Virginia "Ginnie" Leiner on December 8, 2015 at 5:43pm View Blog The gallery show has been up for about a month now and last week, Saint Vincent College (where the McCarl Coverlet Gallery is located) did an alumni spotlight video of me. Here it is! I hope you enjoy it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8fHCGEV37s&feature=youtu.be Now back to sewing on sleeves on the quilts for the second half of the show beginning February 2, 2016! Happy Holidays! Ginnie

Creativity is striking and I cannot sleep Posted by Virginia "Ginnie" Leiner on December 12, 2015 at 1:30am View Blog Christmas is fast approaching and all of my family are telling me they are missing their Christmas quilts which I borrowed back for the quilt show. If you are interested, here is another article on the quilt show. https://archive.triblive.com/news/quilter-to-display-work-in-holiday-themed-exhibit/ In the midst of the quilt show work, I have been struck by the creativity bug and I cannot sleep tonight. I bought my first pieces of digitally printed fabric and I am so excited. Here are swatches of the fabric for the next quilt which I think will be the wedding quilt for daughter #2 Becky and Todd, even though they have picked out different fabric. I will make that quilt for them later. I have fabric up in the attic that I know will go with these two but I do not want to wake up the sleeping husband to go tromping around above his head. It will have to wait til morning, I guess. Deep sigh. I am going to try doing something very outside the box again with both the front and the back on this quilt. I'll post more details as they development. In the meantime, I am still stitching sleeves on the 19 quilts for the second half of the show. I have yet to come up with a means to describe this next bunch of quilts. For the Holiday Quilts, I used "Steps to Make a Holiday Quilt" and talked about the different parts of quiltmaking while describing each quilt. Not sure what my schtick will be this next time. I don't have to have that part done til January 22 so I have a bit of time yet. Well I guess I will try to catch some shut eye. I had a snack and thought some more about my project so it should have calmed my brain down a bit! Goodnight to you all and Merry Holiday Quilting! Ginnie

He went home for Christmas Posted by Virginia "Ginnie" Leiner on December 31, 2015 at 4:53pm View Blog

It is with profound sadness that I write to tell you of the death of my father, Gene Edward Long, 82, who died peacefully in his sleep in the early morning hours of December 23, 2015. He will be sorely missed by his family and friends. Rest in peace, Daddy-o.

New Technology and winning the quilt lottery Posted by Virginia "Ginnie" Leiner on February 18, 2016 at 10:30pm View Blog Hello Campers! Back at it again after a short hiatus. Life set me back abit between my father's passing and all the family visits this winter. I visited daughter Becky and granddaughter Sylvia in early February and daughter Jamie and grandson Wyatt were out here in Pennsylvania this week. Good times all around but I am glad to be back to spending time in my quilt studio. Quite unscheduled, I am making a quilt for someone I do not know. Here is the story. Never wanting to become a dinosaur in the real world, I am often convinced to try new technology. This fall, October specifically, I joined i-phone nation and broke down and bought a new cell phone. I did it because face timing with the kids and the grandkids was so much fun. I was learning how to use my phone on the busiest day of my museum career, the Grand Re-opening of The Westmoreland where I am employed, October 24, 2015. The museum had been temporarily relocated for two years while a new wing was added and the original portion of the building was renovated. We were throwing a gigantic party that night and I was running all over getting things done. My high school girlfriend, Margie Trousil, texted me on this very busy day and asked if I would make a baby quilt for one of her college students (she teaches nursing in Fort Madison, Iowa). Not sure how to respond as I really wasn't making quilts outside of my lists, I put the phone away for awhile and got on with the day. When I looked at it again, I had somehow given her the "thumbs up" symbol and she was thrilled, absolutely thrilled that I had agreed to do the quilt. What? I agreed? So anyway, she had to wait five plus months until the quilt show was going before I even started it. Given the other quilts I am supposed to be working on (Becky and Todd's wedding quilt, Sylvia's baby quilt, Christmas quilts for both of my granddaughters, and 2 wedding quilts for two nieces and nephews), I decided this needed to be the quickest quilt ever and that meant nine patch. I wanted to use batiks so I found 72 different batik fabrics in my stash (I am so embarrassed to have that many!) and threw this little cutie together. I will finish it with a border and off it will go to Iowa, the land of corn and incidentally, where I was born.

I guess you could say these students of Margie won the quilt lottery. So what are you working on? Technologically challenged, I remain, Yours in quilting, Ginnie

Yak, yak, yakking about quilts and looking like my mother Posted by Virginia "Ginnie" Leiner on March 14, 2016 at 8:08pm View Blog https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmaSTtsYcmU We are a few weeks into the second half of my quilt show and here is the youtube video from the second half. I talk about two quilts in particular, Mosaic Wedding Quilt which belongs to my nephew and neice-in-law in Oak Park Illinois and Topography of a Marriage, the lastest wedding quilt for Tom and Artemis Vasilou, my unofficial third daughter. Here they are:

If you missed the first video, here it is too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8fHCGEV37s ; In both of them, I look incredibly like my mother! Here she is!

You just cannot escape genetics! Happy quilting! Ginnie

What do you do when you are stymied about one quilt you are making? Make another one instead! Posted by Virginia "Ginnie" Leiner on April 30, 2016 at 8:23pm View Blog Hello Campers! Welcome to spring and are you all busy on your quilt projects? I am supposed to be working on my 2nd Daughter, Becky's wedding quilt (they will be married five years next weekend - I am a bit behind) and it has been a challenge from the get-go. We picked out the fabric last spring during a visit to her house in Plano, Texas. Here are the fabrics:Not feeling inspired about this collection AT ALL, I started making her another quilt with another fabric color palette that looked like the hike I took in Yosemite this past Easter weekend with Daughter #1 Jamie and her family - very outdoorsy prints, trees, rocks, water (see previous blog post about digital printed fabric). Everything was hunky dory until in conversation with Jamie I heard myself saying to her, "I can't imagine Becky taking this hike (in a National Park -that's not her thing) like we are." when it suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks that the natural theme quilt was more suited to Jamie than Becky and I was making the wrong quilt for that daughter.

Back to the drawing board. So I puzzled over the fabric and came up with a few blocks but I couldn't figure out how to make them work together. The black cool palette did not work with the warm browns. Frustrated, I put it all away and decided to make a quickie quilt for a wedding we attended today for two of my husband's former students, of which the bride was our tenant in one of our rental houses, Courtney and Matthew. Here it is below.

I am calling this quilt "Home Furnishings" because the center is from a sample pack of upholstery material that I found at a local thrift store. The border is wide wale corduroy and the back is faux suede. None of it the cottons I am used to working with. I embellished the quilt with warm autumn colored glass beads about the size of a pea and embroidered the couple's name and wedding date on the reverse. All done in a week. The beads took the longest time, all hand sewn. My message to the happy couple told them that the blocks in the center represent the stability and foundation of marriage. The randomly placed glass beads represent chaos, change and challenge (also all a part of marriage) and the stars in the heavens above. So now that is done and I must go back to the challenging wedding quilt. The pattern in the book that this is based on calls it "She Runs Hot and Cold" but that may be the name of the quilt. Certainly not an appropriate name for a wedding quilt! We will call it the working title... Anyway, I am sure I will figure this conundrum out, eventually! What are you working on? Best, Ginnie