Monday, February 22, 2021

Quiltcon Together 2021

 I had so much fun going through the Quiltcon Together virtual quilt show this weekend. As always, there was a huge array of stunning quilts in all of the categories. I found the community service quilts to be especially beautiful this year, and I was so proud of my guild, the McKinney Modern Quilt Guild for our contribution. Together in Turbulence was spearheaded by my friend Chris and many many quilters had a hand in the assembly. I was thrilled to contribute some blocks to the quilt.



I had no idea that receiving a first place ribbon for my Urban Emergence quilt was only the beginning of the weekend's fun. I received invites to visit with different guilds throughout the weekend and even did an interview with Steph and Isabelle, the hosts of Scant Quarter Hour in Instagram TV. It was fun to chat with lots of other quilters about my quilt and about their experiences with the online format. All in all, Quiltcon Together was really well done and lots of fun, despite the challenges. I missed the hugs and can't wait to gather with friends in Phoenix next year. Urban Emergence will get to hang at Quiltcon 2022 in Phoenix with the other winners from this year!



Thursday, February 18, 2021

Quiltcon Together awards ceremony

 Well Quiltcon sure does look different this year. In my continued effort to create community during the virtual event. I organized a zoom party for several friends last night during the awards. Of course, Texas being the mess that it is, our power was in and out all day yesterday. A friend who had steady power and internet invited us to bring our technology to her house and watch from there, so we did (we being hubby and I).

Don't you love my fancy setup? One laptop for zoom party. A second laptop for the awards ceremony. Phone for texting friends, oh and fancy mask for safe social distancing. All set.

It was so much fun to chat with friends before the presentation and then watch together. Several friends could not attend due to power outages and the like (seriously Texas, get your act together!) and we missed them. Partway into the awards this happened.....

My quilt, Urban Emergence, won first place in the group/bee category! Most of the girls on the call had contributed blocks to the quilt. You can see their delighted faces on the screen when they heard the news. So much fun! Since they called the winners ahead to video our reactions for the show, I already knew. That was a hard secret to keep!!! 

Another fun thing that happened is that Urban Emergence was featured in the gallery section of the new Quiltcon magazine! So, also, my first published quilt....


You can order a copy of the magazine here.

So that's the exciting news from here! Life has been a whirlwind, celebrating a big birthday, a big quilt show win, a huge winter storm and failed utilities, and, oh yeah, there's still a pandemic, isn't there? 

Here's a bit of sunshine that will be coming my way soon....



Wednesday, February 17, 2021

MQG Mini Swap

Tonight, Quiltcon Together begins with the awards ceremony and I'll be zooming with quilty friends during the webcast. It's the best we can do during these strange times. 

One of my favorite parts of Quiltcon each year is the mini quilt swap. Participants are assigned a partner and make and swap minis during quilt con. This is my fifth year participating and I have beautiful minis from all of my partners hanging in my house and have formed strong friendships with my former partners. Of course that looked different this year too!

My partner, Kathleen, and I have actually "known" each other for a while now on social media, which was a first for me! We decided to do our swap over zoom, saving our unopened packages to open together. What fun! Of course an in person meeting complete with hugs (will we ever be allowed to hug again?) would have been best but in a pinch, this was a good solution. Hoping we can meet up at Quiltcon in Phoenix next year.

 I just adore the beautiful mini Kathleen sent to me! It's all solids (my favorite!) and the colors she chose really sing....

It's already hanging in my studio and makes me smile every day!

And here is what I sent to Kathleen....

 Also solids,  a different version of my funky dresden which she seemed to like. 

So Quiltcon Together is off to a fabulous start for me! Will you be there? 

Wednesday, February 3, 2021

some weaving

Well it's a blogging miracle! By some freak of nature my blog has decided to start loading photos again! Nothing I tried to do to fix it seemed to work, but suddenly it works. hmmmm...

Anyways, I wanted to share a lovely weaving set I recently finished and delivered to a happy customer. She requested two towels, four placemats and four cloth napkins in these lovely blues and teals...
I am delighted with the result! I had not done placemats before. A wide fabric binding gave them a nice sturdy frame and nicely coordinated them to the napkins I hemmed on my machine.

 I will be doing more sets like this down the road for sure!

Happy to be back blogging... I've missed you!