Gift bag tutorial

 I had the honor of creating a tutorial to post on my friend, Marie Bostwick's blog. Do you know Marie? In addition to being a great friend and kind human being she is a wonderful author. I found her years ago when she was writing her Cobbled Court Quilt series, all about, you guessed it, quilters! Since then she has written many wonderful books. I love that they focus on women and friendships.

Anyways, Marie asked if I would write a holiday tutorial for her blog. I created a pattern for these fun giftbags....

You can find the tutorial here.... and while you are there check out some of Marie's other blog posts. She often includes fabulous recipes!

Let me know if you make any gift bags for the holidays. I'd love to see them!

Quilt Plano 2024

 Earlier this month I enjoyed seeing the beautiful show put on by the Plano Quilt Guild. I entered four quilts in the show (all quilts hung, this is not a juried show). Both of my quilts in the group quilts category received honorable mention ribbons!

What's for Breakfast, a Quilts Unscripted Bee quilt featuring improv cereal boxes by my incredible bee mates. How many do you recognize? Here's a key so you can check your answers! This quilt was quilted by my friend Diane Poor.

Spot on is a collaboration I completed earlier this year with my good friend Debbie Jeske. It was quilted by my pal Martha Wolf.

Chris's quilt, Shenanigans Between Friends, also received an honorable mention. This quilt was a collaboration between Chris and me.

Deco at Dusk is a beautiful collaborative quilt designed by my friend Ashley Stovall and pieced by a group of my local quilty friends. It will be the raffle quilt for the Plano guild next year. And guess what? It got a second place ribbon!

My friends were nice enough to let me contribute an improv panel for the back! So I had a tiny hand in four of this years group quilts, all of which ribboned!  What fun.

There were so many beautiful quilts in the show. I wish I could share them all.

Improv Challenge

 The other day over lunch my friend Chris and I were celebrating the near completion of a recent collaboration (more on that soon!) and wondering what we should do next. We tossed around lots of ideas and finally landed on a fun improv challenge. It will allow the two of us to make quilts simultaneously following the same biweekly prompts. It will be fun to see how different our quilts end up! Here's the really exciting part.... we'd love for you to play along. 

Every other Monday Chris and I will each be spinning a wheel we've created on the app tiny decisions. My wheel will determine a technique/shape that is to be created. Chris will spin her color wheel twice, giving us two colors to work with. Use one, use both, add another color of your choosing... there really are no rules. During the next two weeks, work with the selected technique and colors. Make a quilt block, ten quilt blocks, add to a previous block, you get to choose.

Are you ready? Here is the first prompt for our challenge:

We can't wait to create stripes in pink/purple! If you join in, post your improv on Instagram using the hashtag #improvchallenge2024 and follow Chris and I at @scarf.mama and@ellynz.

I'll be posting our next prompt here and on my instagram feed in two weeks!

Collab with Chris

Everyone knows I love a good collaboration. Recently I had an opportunity to make a quilt with my friend Chris....

I spent several days helping Chris sort out the clutter in her sewing space. It was fun finding things Chris had started and making a plan for future quilting projects. In the bottom of one bin of assorted fabrics and blocks, I found the improv blocks Chris had made during our workshop with Debbie Jeske in 2018. I couldn't bear to see them all unassembled, and, as Chris had no plan for them, I tucked them in my bag, took them home and set to work puzzling them together.

The final quilt is fun, Chris's signature rainbow color palette and my assembly. I especially love the black and white stripe she added to some of her blocks. It adds a bit of zing!

This was a fun, unexpected project!
 

A trip to Arkansas

Well, that was an unplanned and unexpected blog break! I wish I had a fabulous, exciting excuse but I don't. I do have a lot of things to share with you. I'll begin with the most recent fun I had and work backwards!

This week I had the honor of speaking for the Modern Quilt Guild of North West Arkansas. I shared the story of my Through Ellyn's Eyes project with them and the members were very engaged and asked lots of questions. I hope they were also inspired to perhaps begin projects of their own!

My friend Chris went with me on this fun road trip and served as my driver/quilt holder. She's great fun to travel with.

We got to spend some extra time with our friend, Elizabeth Ray. She gave us lots of ideas for fun things to do in the area and restaurants to try. We had delicious crepes for lunch on Tuesday and talked and talked.... oh, and we might have had ice cream for dinner before the guild meeting. shhhh....

Our good friend Christina invited us to stay with her while we were in town. Christina was a guild mate of ours in the McKinney Modern Quilt Guild years ago and now lives in NW Arkansas. Yes, we did drag her to the guild meeting and introduced her to them..... they are lucky to have her as a new member!

Christina's fun loving puppy, Bear, welcomed us warmly and enjoyed lots of pets while we were visiting.

 All in all it was a very fun trip. I'd love to share my story with more guilds...... feel free to send me a message if you'd like me to come to you!

Quiltcon Review

Quiltcon 2022 is in the books! Phoenix was a blast (ok truth time here, I'm still in Phoenix! Hubby and I stayed a few extra days to enjoy family here, Dallas iced over and many flights were canceled. We'll make it home eventually!)

It was super fun to see my quilt Urban Emergence hanging in the Quiltcon Together winners exhibit! The ladies from Curated Quilts snuck me into the hall a few minutes before the show opened the first day and I stopped dead in my tracks seeing it hanging there. Oh, and they did an interview with me that you can listen to here. 

I love when people post who their "quilt neighbors" are at Quiltcon. It was an honor for me to have my quilt hanging next to Amy Friend's winning quilt, Crimped.

One big thrill at Quiltcon this year was when my beemate Sarah Ruiz won first place in the group category for the very first Quilts Unscripted quilt which she aptly titled "Unscripted". Just a fun side note, five of us who contributed to Sarah's quilt were also contributors to my quilt last year!

It was such a thrill to see the quilt hanging and we gathered the five Quilts Unscripted beemates who were present for a fun photo shoot.

pictured: Sarah Ruiz, Isabelle Selak, E.A. Cox, Loide Wasmund and me

Right across from Sarah's quilt was E.A.s quilt, Sinusoidal Sunset, another group quilt that I was so thrilled to contribute to.

And, of course, I dragged Sarah and E.A. over to my quilt for a photo shoot too since they had contributed blocks to it.

 What fun it has been to be a part of so many Quiltcon Group Quilts! I'm anxious to see what our bee can come up with for next year's event in Atlanta.

More Quiltcon highlights to come...

so nice to sew with friends!

 Anyone else tired of the whole "shelter at home" business? Me too. While I am thankful for the safety of my family and friends, and incredibly aware of the privilege to be able to stay at home, I am also so thankful for vaccines and dropping Covid numbers that allows us to cautiously be with other humans again. While zoom is a wonderful tool, nothing quite matches being with others in person. 

This past weekend I was invited to retreat with 10 others who are all fully vaccinated for four days. What a treat!

Along with the whir of sewing machines, there was so much laughter and joy! Old friends were hugged, new friends were made and bonds were strengthened. In preparation for the retreat, I made some pin cushions for all of the attendees, using some of my woven scraps.

I finished up several projects (and admittedly started several more. oops). I've been working on my second Plaidish 2 quilt for a while now, and was able to put the final hand stitches into the binding.

One project begun and finished last weekend is this double gauze tunic (Simplicity 9113) which I love! I will say, the fabric was a bear to sew on. I did use a solid cotton for the facings which helped some. 

I feel so refreshed and ready to return to my "normal" life now.

In Tandem Art

 Several months ago,  I was listening to an episode of Danielle Krysa's podcast, Art for your Ear (do you listen? I find it very inspiring.) and she talked about an idea she and a friend had called In Tandem Art. I encourage you to read her blog post here to better understand what it is all about. Basically, to participate, you find yourself a pARTner to come along side you, encouraging you and you doing the same for them. The idea intrigued me so much that I couldn't get it out of my head!

That night I was texting with Sarah Goer, a newish quilty friend, and told her all about it. I asked if she wanted to give it a try and she was all in! We decided to meet via zoom every other week (Sarah lives in Northern California and I am in Texas. While it would be great fun to meet twice a month in person, it simply wasn't practical) and held our first meeting the end of February. Since then we have met faithfully every two weeks (allowing flexibility when we had a conflict) and we've enjoyed it very much.

my pARTner, Sarah

A little more about Sarah, she is a modern quilter, quilt teacher and lecturer, a wife and mom to two great kids who occasionally pop their heads into our zoom meetings. She and I have participated in a bee together for a while and recently organized a new modern improv bee.... more on that another day.

We decided to set a general topic for each meeting, and have found that doing that helps us focus and to each gain something from our time together. Some of the things we've talked about include Creative Goals, Creative Block, our Childhood Creativity and what inspires our work. This last week we talked about how we track our works in progress. It occurred to me that some of the things we talk about might benefit others, so, with Sarah's permission, I am going to begin sharing some of that here. I promised her I wouldn't share anything personal or juicy, sorry folks! Some things are just not intended for internet publication!

In my next blog post I will share some of the thoughts and ideas we had for tracking our projects. Meanwhile, I encourage you to go read Danielle's post and think about who your pARTner might be!

Sparkle

 My friend Jayne (Twiggy and Opal) has released a new quilt pattern today and it's a winner! I was so thankful that she asked me to test it out for her. I had so much fun with it and just love the finished quilt top....

You can (and really should!) purchase a copy of the pattern here. 

I had so much fun with the design I decided to see how small I could go with the blocks. The other day I made this two color block...

which led me to pulling out the pantone colors of the year.... Ultimate Gray and Illuminating...

Stay tuned for this finished mini.

Improv Round Robin

 My fantastic Improv small group (we call ourselves the Comedy Club Quilters) has done speedy improv round robins at the retreat center twice before. You can read about those here, and here. It's a fun event we always look forward to. But, like it has done to so many things, the global pandemic caused us to rethink our process this year. In the end, we pulled off our round robin with car swaps, porch drops, and maybe more than one quilt shop meet up (fully masked of course!).

I started out with this fun block, made up of a bunch of improv orphan blocks I had been ignoring for a long time...

I had a blast working on everyone's quilts (we swapped them out once a week) and never saw mine again once it hit the road. A couple of sneak peeks that I posted along the way....

The ladybugs were my signature fabric that I added to each quilt.

On Friday, the five of us who participated met up at the park (our first in person meeting in months! thank you vaccines) to reveal our finished quilt tops. 

They did not disappoint! I think having a week to work on each one really paid off. We all said that we would spend a couple of days looking over the week's project as it hung on our design wall. We have all gotten to know each other's styles and really played to each other's strengths.

Here is my finished top. I couldn't be happier!

I am thinking about how I want to quilt it now. And here's a photo of all 5 of our tops together.... I love them all!

Before we left the park today we had an idea brewing for our next collaborative adventure! Stay tuned!

Mod Flower Quilt

 Earth day seems like the perfect day to finish up this quilt and share it with you. Even though it is a small quilt (36"x38") it has been in the works for many months. It all began last September, on National Jelly Roll day. My guild,  McKinney Modern Quilt Guild, was holding a zoom mystery jelly roll sew along day and because I love to "do all the things" I was eager to be a part of it. Mind you, I am not a jelly roll person (not a precut person at all, truth be told) and being on a tight fabric budget I wasn't eager to spend money on a jelly roll. So, I decided to make my own. Due to the generosity of another quilter, I had a large stack of low volume yardage on my shelf. I pulled the needed number of fabrics (20) and cut a 2 1/2" strip from each. 

The day was great fun, with a large number of guild members participating. At the end of the day, I had this finished, and quite boring in my eyes, quilt top. 

Rather than let it go to waste, I decided I wanted to appliqué a large, modern flower to the front. Never mind that hand appliqué was not a skill I had in my current toolbox! I had a vision and was willing to do whatever I needed to do to accomplish it. I set about designing templates for the appliqué I desired, then recruited a friend who is very skilled at needle turn appliqué to teach me. In fact, I also recruited a group of friends to learn alongside me because everything is more fun with friends, right? Martha graciously gave us a free zoom class and I was off and running (with more than a few anxious texts and additional tips and tricks.)

Because I was having fun doing handwork (I usually do), I decided to teach myself big stitch quilting. You Tube to the rescue! I hand stitched the whole quilt using size 8 perle cotton, a neutral variegated in straight rows across and accent stitches on the flower and stem using matching colors.

I even added a few Xs here and there just for fun.

And just for fun, I machine stitched the binding to the back then big stitched it down on the front of the quilt in pink, to match the flower. These stitches don't show on the back of the binding but are firmly stitched through the batting to secure it. Oh, and a few Xs snuck into the binding as well, because, why not?

I'm so happy with this little finish! Very few of my quilts are inspired by nature (weird, I know) and I guess this proves, even when they are, they are modern and not terribly realistic! But it was fun to learn new things.

an outdoor photo shoot

 Is anyone else desperately missing their quilting buddies? Our improv small group has been meeting on Zoom since March but it's just not the same. Since the Texas weather is finally cooling down (hooray for fall!) we decided to do an outdoor quilt photo shoot at a nearby park. We met at the park in the morning on a perfect, cool and cloudy day and got some beautiful photos of our quilts.

Five of us met, we all wore masks and social distanced to keep each other safe. There was a pretty gazebo that served as a nice backdrop for most of the quilts.

This is a charity improv quilt we made as a group last year.

There was also a beautiful bridge over a pond where we got some gorgeous pictures! I love the way the quilt reflects in the water in this shot. This gorgeous quilt was made by my friend Chris.

There is an old train car at the park and it was a great backdrop for groups of quilts.

Many people wandered by to see what we were up to. It was fun to chat with them and share our work. A mini outdoor quilt show!

I think this is my favorite photo of the day, another one of Chris's quilts

We got a great shot of our guilds charity quilts that are ready to be donated to the kids at CASA in December.

It was a wonderful day and a safe way to spend time with friends! Do you have a favorite spot for quilty photo shoots?

Urban Emergence

I am just now beginning to be able to tell a story with my quilts. Until recently, often my story was "I wanted to play with triangles" or "these are the colors in my bedroom". Sometimes my story would come to me after a quilt was finished (or someone else would tell a story from my quilt!) This latest finish definitely has a story to tell!

It started months ago when I decided to ask my Solid Seven beemates to make me small, improv minimalist blocks with the prompts urban and architecture. I requested that they use any medium to dark blue for the background and kona white for the details, with a tiny bit of yellow if they wished.  If you know me, you know that I love cities! Love to visit them, explore them, even make quilts about them apparently.

Just as my bee blocks began to roll in, I started seeing pictures on the news and online of major cities around the world emerging from the smog. Because of the pandemic, fewer cars were on the road and the air quality was improving. Cities like New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Rome, and many others had clear blue skies above them. An idea began to take shape in my head.

I started making gray on gray blocks that fit my theme, to represent the cities before the quarantine. A couple of friends (Debbie and Chris) chimed in and made me some gray blocks too. As I played with the blocks on my design wall, I began to see the cities emerging from the smog! Thus Urban Emergence was born.

The finished quilt top measured 40"x42". It cried out for matchstick quilting and who was I to argue! I used several shades of gray and blue thread for the quilting (and 10 or 11 bobbins.... I lost count).

Today during a zoom sew day with my McKinney Modern Quilt Guild friends I hand sewed down the faced binding. I'm so pleased with the finished quilt!

Do your quilts often tell a story?

Check out #thesolidseven on Instagram to see more of our shenanigans.