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NoI’m on my way to Chicago today to teach at the International Quilt Festival. After the show I’ll head out with my oldest son to visit my Aunt and a few cousins as well as 2 high school friends-I’m excited about all of that! I’m randomly inserting photos of spring at the remodel. It’s going well and I just won’t show you the huge swaths of robust weeds at the house! I do want to clarify what I wrote last week about my QuiltCon quilt-QBI-The Quiet Beauty of the Imperfect. One of the challenges I gave myself with that piece was to quilt all those…
I completed this quilt months ago and it juried into QuiltCon 2016 in Pasadena in February. This is one of my all-time favorite quilts. Its beauty may not come off well in my photos but it is a quiet quilt. Quiet quilts do not tend to do well at shows or in competition. This is probably my favorite quilt to hold in my hands. It is feather light and very drapey. The quilting gives it a texture that is delightful against the skin or to rub your fingers over. As I hold it in my hands it just simply delights me.…
I actually went to two quilt shows on Sunday: Voices in Cloth (VIC), the East Bay Heritage Quilt Guild‘s show in Richmond, and the Sisters Quilting Collective show in Sacramento. Both guilds put on shows biennially and dang, they were both on the same day! I was dead tired after a fabulous trip to teach at the Afro-American Quilters of Los Angles, but I really wanted to see at least one show. VIC was a great show, very artsy with an amazing group of vendors. They do not allow any photography of their quilts to be posted at all without specific permission of…
I’m thrilled that my article made the cover of April/May issue of Quilter’s Newsletter! Oooo-lookie that-my article title is on the cover! QNM contacted me last fall about the article and I was thrilled to write about cutwork. Cutwork is a great place to start for newer quilters that want to start making projects but are not ready to commit to a big project. To create a cutwork piece, transfer a design onto your “canvas” and then quilt each line twice. Then cut out the negative space. Well there’s a little more to it than that, but there you’ve got…
We moved out of our home about 2 months ago so that a whole-house remodel could commence. This move has had a more dramatic effect than I anticipated. On paper, it all seemed so perfect: we moved to a lovely home 3 minutes away from our current home. We didn’t have to change our address and I could drive over each day to check on the progress and pick up the mail. The rental is smaller than our home but even that is no big deal since we dramatically pared down what we brought over. But there was an undercurrent that bothered me…
Most of the quilts in today’s QuiltCon 2016 post were in the smaller room. It contained Special Exhibits by Molly Upton and Gwen Marston and various categories including Improv, Handwork, Applique, Negative Space, Group Quilt and probably some I missed. I found the work in this room more interesting. I also discovered 2 quilts that would have competed for The Jenny K. Lyon Judge’s Choice Award, a highly coveted ribbon. And I did accidentally delete a whole group of quilts-sheeesh. The room was fabulous: The smaller room-great venue! It just felt good to be in that room with an abundance of natural…
Lucky me-I got to go to QuiltCon, the Modern Quilt show in Pasadena this year! This was my first visit to a major Modern quilt show. There were lots of strollers and babies and it was delightful to see such a young crowd get so excited about quilting. I loved the venue too-open and very well-lighted with lots of room in the aisles to easily see and photograph the quilts. It was a fun road trip with Martha Wolfe and Judy Coates Perez. The 6-hour drive flew by in a flash with all the chatting. Judy used to live in…
And on to the Big Quilt Room: Best of Show went to Donna Dale with this beautiful piece quilted by Lin Squires. Donna started with a Primitive Gatherings pattern and incorporated wool and inking into the top. It was just so exquisitely done, a heartfelt quilt. Karla worked on this quilt on three continents and three cruises over three years! It is so cheerful and light hearted-it evoked a smile from me. This is the first group quilt by the guild’s small art quilt group and was made for their boutique basket. Thirteen members worked on this quilt which I thought…
I didn’t have enough time this week to go through my photos of the Big Quilt Room of the Folsom Quilt and Fiber Guild show. It’s been a super busy week for me so I’ll post those photos next week. Lucky me, I got to take an Improv Piecing class with Ellen Schmidt at Meissner’s Folsom location. It’s hard to find the time to take classes so I’m very picky about what I take. I was excited when I saw that Ellen was going to offer an improvisational piecing class. I had purchased and enjoyed Sherri Lynn Wood’s book, The…
My local guild is the Folsom Quilt and Fiber Guild and we put on a fabulous show every year-not that I’m unbiased! The Small Quilt Room was the best ever, in my opinion. I was dazzled by the variety and quality of the work in both the small quilts and the wearables/home dec/other fiber item categories. I confess upfront a couple of lapses in my photos. The Wearables area was dark and poorly lit. Every photo I took was awful except one which was of a white sweater. I am very proud of our guild’s work in this area so I…