Word of the year quilt

 Well, it's almost May and yes, I am just now getting around to sharing my word of the year quilt. That's because I JUST finished it this past week. Yikes! I chose a word before 2023 even started.... my word is Stretch! But I had no idea how to reflect it in a quilt.

When I was at Quiltcon in February, I took a design class, Inspired by Architecture, from David Owen Hastings. Let me tell you, David's design process is soooooo different from mine! I learned so much from him and was determined to apply some of his design strategies to my own quilts. This was a stretch for me! So what better time to apply it than with my word of the year quilt?

First up was to take an architecture photo that spoke to me. I took this photo in downtown Atlanta during Quiltcon and thought it was the perfect inspiration...

After printing my photo, cutting it up and drawing with colored pencils on graph paper, I came up with the improv piece used in my quilt.

I paper pieced my letters and quilted this mini (18"x20") with my walking foot on my Janome. I'm really happy with the results!

I'm excited to continue to stretch myself in the coming months.

Do you have a word of the year?

Another Improv Triangle Sewalong

 Well, I didn't mean to start another quilt but here we are. I can't resist Nicholas Ball's (@quiltsfromtheattic) improv triangle sew alongs, I've participated twice before (here and here) and when he announced a third opportunity to sew along with him I jumped right in.

As I told you in my last post, I've been enjoying gelli printing lately. I had a stack of fabrics I had painted and quickly decided those should be triangles...

After lots of cutting I had almost 90 triangles ready to sew! I pulled out my teal/aqua solids and began making triangle units using Nicholas' method. His improv book is one of my favorites! It was looking a bit ho hum to me until my friend Sarah suggested I add splashes of orange. Perfect!

Triangle units began to gather on my design wall. Then I went into crazy mode and couldn't stop sewing.

By the end of week two, this is where I landed. Week three is all about joining the triangle units together. If you look closely, you can see that I already got a jump start on this process. The middle section of my quilt is all puzzled together. This is my favorite part of improv quilting, puzzling the pieces together. I will have a finished quilt top by the end of this week and look forward to sharing it with 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...

2021 year in review

 Whew! What a year! While it would be easy to focus on all of the crazy negative things going on in the world right now (no, I'm not going to list them. you already know!) I'm choosing to focus on the positive. And there sure was a lot of it in my world this year. Here are the highlights.... so I never forget how blessed I was in 2021.

Urban Emergence

In February, my group quilt, Urban Emergence was part of Quiltcon Together, the virtual MQG show that replaced in person Quiltcon this year. It was my very first quilt accepted into Quiltcon. Imagine my surprise when I won first place in my category! As if this wasn't enough, it was chosen for publication in the Quiltcon magazine! What an honor!

Later that month, Sarah Goer and I formed a pARTnership, inspired by Danielle Krysa's In 

tandem Art project. Sarah and I have continued to meet on Zoom every two weeks all year long, encouraging each other in our artistic journeys. One of the greatest things to come out of our friendship is the start of our new improv bee, Quilts Unscripted. This group is incredibly talented and inspiring! 

Again in 2021, I was able to participate in the Virtual Quilt Guild where I met so many amazing quilters. One relationship that came out of that group is my collaboration with Karen Bolan. Karen and I have also been meeting often on Zoom and have shared a collaborative quilt project (Welcoming Lamp), a series of blog posts (Exploring Collaboration) and coming soon..... a published article on Collaboration in Curated Quilts magazine! This was completed in 2021 and will be arriving in mailboxes early 2022.

Welcoming Lamp

One other thing I am so proud of this year is the completion of my Through Ellyn's Eyes project. When I set out on a six month personal journey to create a cohesive body of work and explore my creative voice it seemed daunting at best. The more I worked through it, the more joyful it became. I am so lucky to have had the time and the resources to complete this project and look forward to sharing it with guilds in the coming year.

Through Ellyn's Eyes quilts

So, 2021 proved to be a productive, fun year for me. Most of these things were not even on my radar a year ago, so who knows what 2022 will bring? Regardless, I look forward to sharing it with you. Happy New Year everyone!

Mod Tree

The MQG just completed a challenge called the Make-a-difference challenge. Entrants made a "tree" quilt and submission fees were all donated to Trees for the Future. It was a worthy cause and a fun challenge, so I jumped in and made a tree quilt. 

Winners, chosen by member vote,  were announced today, so I can finally share mine with you. While it didn't win, it was very fun to make. As usual, the design came to me in the early morning hours one day. I hurried to get it into my sketchbook, then pieced it together. I really love the bold, graphic nature... you'll see more of that in days to come. I quilted it with my walking foot on my domestic machine and especially loved the echo quilting I did on the left side of the tree.

Though not part of my Through Ellyn's Eyes project due to colors used, I can see how it fits into my aesthetic. Maybe I'll make another in my project colors? We'll see! 

Congrats to those who won prizes. The quilts were all awesome, and all very different. I loved seeing them all.

Mod Tree 24" square

Casting a Light

Casting a Light, the second quilt in my Through Ellyn's Eyes series, came together fast and furiously. In fact, from start to finish it was only one day. whew.

First my inspiration. I am often inspired by buildings, especially older buildings, and structures like bridges. Apparently I also have a thing for lampposts, as I have taken quite a few photos of them in different cities over the years. These two in London:

Recently, my friend Lisa posted a photo she took of a lamppost in France, which got me thinking about them again. Then on retreat last week, as I was sitting on a bench in downtown Granbury, TX, I noticed some lampposts there on the square (did I take a photo? NO! I did not. but hey, I took the time to notice them). Early one morning on retreat, I pulled out my sketchbook and drew a quick draft of a quilt. I decided right then and there that it would be the second quilt in my series. 

Interesting note, as far as noticing things..... Hubby and I have been watching the Hulu docuseries about Paul McCartney. One thing that I observed about Paul is his intentional presence.... the way he notices little things in his life and they often become big things in his music. I highly recommend watching it. Anyways.....

This quilt uses  Kona Black, Corn Yellow, Chartreuse, and Glacier. It was totally improv pieced from my sketch and finishes at 16" x 20".

Last week, Sarah surprised me by mailing me a copy of Jacquie Gering's book, Walk 2.0. I had shared with her how much I loved the first book and that I wanted to develop my walking foot skills as I continued this work. I promptly dove in and found this awesome divided diamonds pattern that I thought would work well on my lamppost quilt. I really enjoyed doing it and have found that my walking foot quilting continues to improve!

I bound the quilt in capri and added a few signature hand stitched x's at the bottom.

 I really love the graphic nature of this quilt and plan to explore that element more as I continue.  

and then there were two!

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!

This is 60!

When you celebrate a milestone birthday during a global pandemic, what do you do to celebrate? Well, if you are me, you recruit your friends to help you make a joyful quilt!

This is 60 is my last quilt with the Solid Seven bee. I asked my beemates to make me blocks that included at least one triangle (I love triangles, weird, I know) in my prescribed color palette of bright, bright, bright! As always, they did not disappoint!

I added the black/neon borders on two sides and finished off my quilt with faux piped binding (I wrote a tutorial for it a long time ago! you can find it here). My friend Diann at Happy Quilts longarm quilted it in a terrific modern triangle panto which I love so much. 

A day at the park with my quilting buddies (stay tuned for more about that in my next post) was the perfect photo opportunity. A cloudy day was just right to capture the bright colors of my quilt.

I'm three months into 60 and I have to say, it's agreeing with me so far! 

 

 

baby quilt finish

 Well! I certainly did not intend to take 2 months off from blogging, yet here we are! I have been making making making..... which is not an excuse but it's been fun. 

During Quiltcontogether everyone was sharing the cool things they were creating in their virtual classes. For a couple of reasons I had not signed up for classes, and I found myself feeling a bit of FOMO. A little digging in my WIP pile and I found some blocks I had started at Quiltcon in Austin in 2020. I had forgotten all about these and honestly had not touched the project bag since.

The class I took was called Magic Numbers and the instructor was Katie Pederson (sewkatiedid) from Seattle. I will confess that I completed exactly ONE block during her class (I might be that girl who gets distracted easily and talks too much? maybe). Anyways, several other blocks were partially constructed or the pieces were cut, and all of the fabric were there in the bag so it was easy to get started on it again.

These are improv blocks, right up my alley. I a matter of days I had finished the 12 blocks I needed for a baby quilt, quilted a grid on my domestic machine and shipped it off to a new baby! I don't know why I had put this one off, but it was a pleasure to make now, maybe the timing was just right? who knows, but it is finished and gone.

I am recommitting to blogging at least once a week and I promise to do my very best! Thanks for hanging in there with me....

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!

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? 

Plaidish 2

 In an effort to use my scraps this summer, I decided to jump on the plaids bandwagon and make a Plaidish 2 quilt. This quilt is a free tutorial from Kitchen Table Quilting and it's a good one! The quilt top was fun to make and when it was finished, hubby declared it one of his favorites. I decided right then and there to finish it up for him for Christmas.

My friend Anne quilted it for me on her longarm. We bartered for woven towels and shoe laces, which I was so happy to make for her! 

It's a great big quilt, 69"x86", which I knew hubby would love for tv snuggling in the evenings. He was very happy when he opened it up on Christmas morning.

A couple of weeks before Christmas I told him I was making him a Christmas gift and I challenged him to do the same. If you look carefully in the photo above, you can see my gift behind him.

He built me a wonderful storage unit for my rigid heddles and shuttles! It's perfect and much needed.

Christmas sure was different this year, with none of the kids here to celebrate (we visited all of them on zoom) but we made the best of it and enjoyed each other's company. I'm so happy my kids are all choosing to stay safe and make wise decisions. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday as well.

The Big Easy Quilt, AMH version

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to test Alice and Catherine's soon to be released pattern, The Big Easy Quilt. This is an awesome pattern using fat quarters,  perfect for big prints. My test quilt (which still needs to be quilted!) was made all from my stash. If you've been following me for a while, you might guess that it was not an easy feat for me to come up with prints to use! But I did it, and I'll share that quilt with you down the road.

While we were working on our test quilts, Alice shared a version that she had made using Anna Maria Horner prints and I fell in love with it. I have always been a fan of AMH florals, but never knew what to do with them. Finally I had my answer! I immediately began collecting prints for my own version.

This has quickly become my go to snuggle quilt for evening tv watching! 

I couldn't bear to waste the leftover thin strips, so I pieced them into my pieced backing. I must say, the back makes me almost as happy as the front.

Diann and Jeff from Happy Quilts quilted it for me, perfection as always! And the quilting pattern Diann chose is absolutely perfect with the prints. 

I promise to update here as soon as this awesome pattern is available. Also, I have one more quilt finish to share with you before the end of the year. 

My Midcentury Modern Quilt

Eek! This is a big finish for me. Well, not literally. It's actually not a huge quilt, about 46"x48", but the whole process of the making was fun and new.

Somehow, a couple of months ago, I became intrigued by midcentury modern graphics. At some point I decided to try drafting some into quilt blocks. It began with color selection. Even this part took several days, as I auditioned different colors from my stash, let them sit, switched some out, etc etc. These are all Moda Bella and Kona cottons

Then the designing and assembly began! Some blocks were entirely pieced, or paper pieced. This diamond block proved to be especially tricky.

Other blocks lended themselves more to raw edged appliqué...

and this block required a combination of traditional piecing and appliqué...

Several instagram followers asked if I would provide a pattern for my quilt after I finished. After mulling it over a bit, my answer was no, I would not. First off, I pretty much designed each block on the fly! I have some rough sketches I made along the way, but no precise measurements or any of that. Second, I selfishly wanted my quilt to be one of a kind. I struggled with that, but in the end that was my decision.

I delivered my finished topper to my friend Diann at Happy Quilts to work her quilty magic. She found the perfect design (she always does!) which reminds me of the Jetsons in a way.

Those cosmic swirly star shapes really added to the mood of the quilt I think.

Today we had a guild zoom sew day and it was the perfect opportunity to stitch down the binding. Such a satisfying finish.

oh, and can we take a moment to appreciate my wild and crazy covid curly hair? slightly out of control. haha!