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Recovered!
Truckbugs, Backhoe Blossoms, and Wheelbarrow Butterflies

Barbara Lies was devastated that her quilt, "Truckbugs, Backhoe Blossoms, and Wheelbarrow Butterflies" had been lost! She was sending her quilt to the 2006 International Quilt Festival in Houston, Texas. The quilt was last seen in Madison, Wisconsin on August 26, 2006. Barbara delivered it to the WestTowne Mall CopyMax store, which is a DHL collection site. It was dropped off on a Saturday afternoon, but DHL had no record of picking it up on Saturday or the following Monday.

When the quilt didn't show up on the DHL tracking, Barbara filed a police report and talked to dozens of people. But she didn't stop there. Her unrelenting persistence motivated CopyMax to search their store again and again, even in places they had already looked. That's when they found the box jammed in the back of a closet on their loading dock. They sent it to Houston by overnight delivery and it arrived on September 6.

This 82" by 82" quilt is an original design. She printed manipulated photographs of construction equipment and cranes on fabric. The individual motifs were arranged in a medallion pattern and attached with invisible machine applique. Appliqued vines surrounded the medallion and an inner border of golden yellow construction cranes on a blue background. The back of the quilt features a 75-inch crane covered with vines and a wheelbarrow stuffed with construction equipment at its base.

This quilt won Best of Show in Sun Prairie WI 2006. It was juried into the AQS show in Paducah in 2006. It won an Honorable Mention at the NQA show in Columbus in 2006. It was accepted at Quilt Fest in Madison in 2006. It disappeared while being shipped to the IQA show in Houston that it was also juried into for 2006.

Posted September 6, 2006. Updated September 8, 2006.