More Quiltcon Highlights

 As promised, here are some more quilts that had me inspired at Quiltcon this year. Many of them made by friends of mine which I found so exciting.

Debbie Jeske's "Rings" hung in the group category and I just love it! So much fun to see quilts in real life that you have long admired online. 

Leo Ransom, a guild mate of mine, won first place in the appliqué category for his stunning quilt "Double the Hipster". Leo's work is just incredible! 

Annie Hadnut had several quilts in the show and honestly, I took pictures of nearly all of them! I joke that I might be the president of Annie's fan club, which is probably true. It was fun to catch up with her at the show in person. Here's "Big Red Ball", just one of her amazing contributions this year.

My pal Sarah had her first quilt in the show, with her entry into the Hexagon challenge, "Hexie Halves". It was fun to see it in person. I only wish she had been there too!

Charles Cameron's "Sudoku" won first place in small quilts. I've had the opportunity to get to know Charles online and loved seeing this cool quilt! Such great precision piecing on a tiny quilt. Each number block is 4 1/4" square!

I thought Kathy Cook's "Planet Triangle" quilt was great fun! It was made as part of Nicholas Ball's improv triangle quilt along.

My beemate and friend Elizabeth Ray had several quilts in the show too. I especially love her entry into the Artisan Cotton Fabric Challenge, called "Positive Turning Point".

Another friend I missed seeing this year was Jayne Willis. Her quilt "Behind the Scenes" was a showstopper this year, as her quilts always are!

This is just a small sampling of the magnificent quilts that were hanging at the show this year. Some observations:

• Color! There were so many quilts in stunning saturated color, more than ever before I think. 
• Many quilters had a quilt in the show for the first time! More than 1/3 of the quilts juried into this year's show were by first time featured quilters which I love.
• The show was thoughtfully laid out with clear attention paid to hanging quilts in an order that made sense.

I can't wait to see the show next year in Atlanta! It just seems to get better and better.

Exploring Collaboration - BYOC

 

These bimonthly posts with Karen Bolan exploring collaboration have been challenging and fun! Today we are both sharing something exciting that we've been working on for a long time - BYOC! 

You might be wondering exactly what those initials stand for. Blue yams on cake? Buy yarn on clearance? haha nope. It's Build Your Own Collaboration!

Maybe you are familiar with restaurant menus presented this way. Some places have a build your own pizza.... choose a crust (gluten free for me please), choose a sauce (I'll have the marinara) choose a topping (mushrooms and black olives anyone?) and a cheese (always mozzarella for me!). Or build your own sandwich (bread, meats, veggies, dressing, sides), or build your own bowl (I'm going with brown rice, grilled shrimp, all the veggies and gluten free teriyaki sauce). Is everybody hungry now? Yeah, me too.

Anyways, Karen and I got to thinking, what if there was a menu to help you plan your collaborations? And BYOC was born. We even created a BYOC bookmark for all of you! If you are attending Quiltcon this week, find one of us and we will happily give you one. 

Not going to Quiltcon? No worries! We've made a pdf printable you can access from home. Find that here. 

The menu is tried and true! We used it to plan our Welcoming Lamp quilt back in the fall, and we are using it again for our Mushroom project. Does its include everything? No, that would be impossible. In fact that could fill a book. Some things it does not address include Building your Collaboration Team, and Setting deadlines. Topics it does include? Great question.

What is the Purpose of your project? Is it a charity quilt or a quilt for a cause? Is it to educate people? Build Community? A gift or for exhibition? Maybe more than one of these things? You can always check more than one box, it's your project after all!

What is your Source of inspiration? Will it be a topical quilt? Maybe inspired by a photo or another art source. Could be a traditional block or pattern.

What is the Contribution type? Will each member contribute blocks? Maybe your quilt will be done in a series or round robin style. Will you split the labor (one person pieces ,someone else quilts, another person binds) or will it be non pieced art or individual projects that link together somehow? 

Where will you Source your fabric? Will group members work from their stash? Swap frabric? Purchase specifically for the project? Or maybe a combination of these things.

Lastly, how will you Finish your quilt? Will group members piece individually or as a group? will you pay a longarm quilter? Or maybe one of the group members will volunteer to do the quilting. A group quilting bee would be a fun option!

We hope you'll print out our BYOC menu or grab a bookmark from us at Quiltcon and use it to get to Collaborating!

Take Note

My latest quilt, Take Note, was started in Melanie Tuazon's class at Quiltcon. At the end of class, we all shared our work and the stories behind it. It was a bit embarrassing to tell the truth! My story? ummm, well, I chose the solids because they match my newly renovated guest bathroom. Yeah. that's all I had. Ladies were sharing beautiful stories about what inspired their improv work and I was playing with solids that match my bathroom. Really? Pretty lame. One lady shared about her young grandson with a brain tumor. Amazing, powerful stories. Oh well.

Afterwards, my mom and my daughter both said it looked like post-it notes. Brilliant! As I sewed the blocks together, I decided that each "post-it note" represents a daily task that must be done. If you look closely, you can see that some are more interesting than others.... some are large, some are small, the shades of yellow vary. So there you go. I backed into my story after the fact and I'm sticking to it.

The finished quilt is about 25" square and made entirely of Kona solids. I quilted it on my Janome 6600 and had lots of fun with that. I even added a block of yellow quilting just for fun. And yes, I do plan to hang it in the bathroom!

QuiltCon classes

I always have the best luck with the classes I get for Quiltcon! This year I took two half day (ok, evening!) classes. The first one was with Melanie Tuazon. I didn't know much about Melanie when I signed up for her class, but just the title sucked me right in.... Planned & Unplanned, find your improv groove. Boy did she deliver!

Melanie was encouraging, approachable and a terrific teacher. In the end I came away with finished blocks for a quilt top...

my mom says it reminds her of post it notes & I agree! I plan to add dark gray (I know, it looks black but it's not) borders so it "floats" and I think I'll call it "Take Note".

My second class was with Debbie Grifka and was titled Every.Day.Creativity. I've followed Debbie for a long time on social media and really admire her work. She's in her third year doing a hundred day project and has inspired me to think about one I could do. I loved every minute of her class and connected with Debbie on so many levels!

I came away from her class with two finished projects, this 10 inch quilt which is partially done here and a 4x6 "postcard" quilt.

This one is titled "Nashville" because it poured rain the entire time we attended Quiltcon! Not a bad souvenir!

MQG Mini quilt swap

This was my third year entering the MQG Mini quilt swap. Since I attended Quiltcon this past weekend (more posts yet to come on that!) it was a highlight for me to meet my swap partner Julie. This is the quilt I made and took to her. It was designed by Jayne of Twiggy and Opal, who graciously shared the paper piecing template with me! Bonus.... I got to meet Jayne this weekend too!

We chatted for a long time and I loved finding all five (yes! FIVE!) of her quilts in the show. Here's my favorite....

Anyways... back to the swap! I met up with my partner Julie and we were both a bit giddy...

I'm happy to say, she loved her quilt from me. And I absolutely adore the one she gave to me!

I can't wait to head home and hang it in my studio!

MQG Riley Blake challenge

I had fun with the latest Modern Quilt Guild fabric challenge from Riley Blake. We received four prints for the challenge and I added Riley Blake solids in Navy and Lime.

I also ordered extra of the navy stripe, one of the prints received, because I love a good bias stripe binding! Here you can see all four prints, the stripe, the navy crosshatch at the star points, the white with rose gold plusses in the center of the block and a white on white print in the outer corners. 

The block is one I designed in one of my Quilt Con classes. Each block is 16 inches square, including the offset border. The whole quilt measures 32 inches square.

I did a simple "straight" line quilting in lime on my domestic machine to finish it off. 

I would love to make my pattern into a much bigger quilt one day! For now, this little version will do.

Japanese knock off tote bag

My friend Stephanie made an amazing Japanese knock off tote bag to use at Quiltcon.  I really loved it! She shared that it is a free tutorial from Sew Can She & I knew I would put it toward the top of my list of things to make after I got home. Because I clearly need more tote bags.

I decided to make my bag entirely of Cotton & Steel fabrics. Some I had in my stash, some I had just picked up at Quiltcon.

 I love that the bag is reversible! The patchwork "lining is really fun.

I also love the squirrel print. I got it in New York City last fall & had been saving it for just the right project.

I added one of my leather tags to the pocket binding.

This is a great tutorial! The only thing I changed was the handles. I made them longer and narrower than the ones suggested. Can't wait to put this to use!

all the tote bags

If you've been to Quiltcon before, you already know that you can come home with a huge stack of free tote bags! I had no idea.... live and learn! A few of the ones I ended up with are really great quality. Like the free bag we got with registration, designed by Violet Craft!

As much as I love it, I wish it had interior pockets. I had a brainstorm! Why not make some to insert. So I set to work.....

I made this pocket insert, with three slip pockets (perfect for my phone, etc) and a zipper pocket for cash. I stitched it directly to the top of my bag. Awesome!

I also got one of Cotton & Steel's amazing bags, so I decided to set to work making it even more amazing....

First I added C&S fabric to the straps making them a little fancier!

My buddy (and Quiltcon roomie) Diann had the great idea to add hand stitching.... I added three rows of running stitch around the top of the bag in colors that matched the printing on the front. Oh, and I used 1/4" tiger tape to make it all nice and even. If you don't know about tiger tape, you need to! It's magical. You can get it here.

Again with the pockets..... this time I used all C&S fabrics and I made the slip pockets a bit deeper...

I love the result! Thank you Cotton & Steel for the awesome bag!

quilt con fun - part three. QUILTS!

I spent hours and hours looking at all of the quilts at Quilt Con. So much beautiful inspiration. And the stories! I loved reading the stories about the backgrounds of the quilts. I will post a few here, but I have posted many more on my instagram account. If you want to see more, go there!

I loved seeing the McKinney Modern Quilt Guild's charity quilt hanging with all of the others. There were so many gorgeous ones, but I confess I am rather fond of ours!

I'm a huge fan of words on quilts. I saw so many quilts with powerful statements on them, and gorgeous patchwork too. This was my favorite one....

I am enough by Jessica Levitt

Feminist Quilt by Darcy Read

White America by Jessica Wohl

Loved seeing quilts made by internet (and now real life!) friends. Sandra Kaye's quilt, Happy Dance, won a ribbon for Best Machine Quilting Frameless...

Debbie Jeske's entry, Follow the Dots is great improv!

There was a lot of improv inspiration

Plant Lady by Sarah Sharp

Sacred Heart by Christina Cameli

A couple of quilts I loved in the Modern Traditionalism category...

Double Wedding knots by Sheri Cifaldi-Morrill

Is this a modern quilt? by Sarah Lowry

there were hundreds more I could share with you! Do head over to Instagram and check them out....

quilt con fun part 2

One of the best things about Quilt Con was meeting people. It didn't take long to start making new friends. I was barely inside the convention center the first morning, before the doors to the exhibit hall even opened, when I heard an excited voice calling out "Ellyn! Ellyn!" I turned and there was my instagram buddy Sandie, from sandieloves2quilt. Luckily, we saw each other many times over the four days of the conference & got to visit quite a bit.

I also got to meet Jane from janequiltsslowly. Jane made the mini I received in last years swap, which I absolutely love! It was fun to get to know her this weekend too.

pardon the sun streaks in my oh-so-professional photo

Debbie, from A Quilter's Table, and I had been planning a meet up for a while. We ended up running into each other a couple of times before our scheduled breakfast out...

At our breakfast on the last morning (more about good food in another post, stay tuned!) we exchanged birthday treats we had made for each other. I was delighted when Debbie gave me this beautiful patchwork gift bag with a gorgeous scissors keeper inside...

I feel like I've known her forever! It was great to just sit and share while we ate good food.

Of course there were some old friends to run into as well. Like Lee Monroe, from May Chappell.

There were a few fan girl moments, like meeting Heather Givans from Crimson Tate. She's a riot! and her booth was so much fun.

I took two workshops. Both teachers were talented ladies I had wanted to meet. First I took at design workshop from Amy Ellis of Amy's Creative Side.

We did lots of quilt math in Amy's workshop (I'm such a nerd. I love that stuff!) and I came away with a fun original quilt design, much different from what I started with.

My other workshop was with Nichole Vogelsinger from Wild Boho.

This workshop was called "Layered Abstractions" And involved fabric and embroidery embellishments. Can't beat that! Again, I went in with one idea and came away with something totally different.

I'm working away on this project and will share more soon.

I love meeting new people! I wish I could meet ALL of you!