QuiltCon 2019. #3

I've been home from Nashville for over a week now and I still find myself thinking about and remembering all of the fun I had at QuiltCon.  When we arrived in Nashville, we went to the Tennessee State Museum to see this exhibit:
 

There were lots of other conference attendees enjoying the quilts as well.  One of the quilts on display was this basket quilt made by Samantha Pack.

Here is a close up of one of the baskets:

As you can see, this quilt was rather intensively hand quilted.  The local modern guilds used this quilt as inspiration for their Charity Quilt.

Every modern guild was invited to make a charity quilt using small pieces and a certain colour way.  The quilts were all on display at QuiltCon, in the hall outside the show and along the outer walls of the show as well.  The basket inspired quilt will be on display at the museum with the original quilt after QuiltCon.

Of course, the charity quilt that I noticed right away was inspired by a Frank Lloyd Wright window. It was made by the Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild. They called it "Transparency Parade".

The quilt below was made by the Greenville Modern Quilt Guild (Greenville, South Carolina).  It was called "Zoomville".

For quite a while, I have been following Paige Alexander's blog, "Quilted Blooms".  I have commented on her blog and she has commented on mine and we have had several conversations by email over several months.  Paige belongs to the Greenville MQG and she made the little pink building with the plus sign on it in the upper right quadrant of the quilt.  You may wonder how I know this...

 
Paige and I had been in touch before QuiltCon and exchanged phone numbers so that we could meet up during the show.  Here is Paige (almost) pointing at her contribution to the Charity Quilt.

Paige is the co-author of "Modern Plus Sign Quilts" and we arranged to meet at the end of her book signing time at the publisher's booth at the show.  After her signing duties were complete, she gave us a tour of the quilts that she had entered in the show.

Of course, Christine, Paige and I had to get our picture taken with her prize winning quilts. This Transparency Plus Sign quilt came in 2nd in the Michael Miller fabric challenge category.

Her second quilt in the show, "Double Crossed" came in first in the two colour quilt category.  What a thrill for Paige to win two ribbons at QuiltCon!

I learned that Paige's paid employment involves lots of numbers so the plus sign theme for her quilts and book is very appropriate!  I did not get a close up picture of the quilt above but there are tiny fussy cut plus signs at each intersection. What a fun detail! 

You can find the link to Paige's blog, "Quilted Blooms" in my sidebar. 

I have made a quilt from "Modern Plus Sign Quilts" and it is in line to be quilted.  I hope to finish it soon. 

There will be more posts from QuiltCon in the next week or so. 

       

Stitching to Nashville and Back Again

If you read my previous post, you will know that I attended QuiltCon in Nashville last week.  From where I live, it is a day and a half of driving to get to Nashville.   Christine and I and our husbands made the journey in our car.  My husband did the driving and Christine and I sat in the back seat cross stitching (me),  knitting and embroidering (Christine).

Near the beginning of our trip, this is what my Frank Lloyd Wright cross stitch picture looked like:

I was soon rounding the corner...

And working on the last corner...

Christine made a cowl with some pretty Burgundy yarn.  Casting on...

And knitting away...

On the way home, I finished off the cross stitching on my picture and started the outlining with gold metallic thread.

Christine and I both bought embroidery kits at QuiltCon.  She worked on hers on the way home as I cross stitched.

It was a sunny day so the lighting was perfect.

Here is my kit...I will work on it when Frank is done.

I worked on FLW again this week at home and here is how it looks now.

This will be tomorrow's project again for Slow Sunday Stitching with Kathy.  I am using Thread Heaven on the metallic thread to keep it from tangling up too much. I know from experience that the outlining can take almost as long as the cross stitching so this will be in my hoop for a while yet.

Make a Mini, Make a Friend!

I am just home from QuiltCon 2019 in Nashville, TN!  This is my first of several blogposts about my experiences at the conference...there is so much to share!  

When I signed up for QuiltCon, I also signed up the for the Make a Mini, Make a Friend Swap.  They had over 600 people participating in the swap with some people mailing their mini quilts to each other if they were not attending the conference and others exchanging their quilts at a pre-arranged time at the conference.  I was given the name and preferences of my swap partner last fall --Evie lives in Maine, USA and likes curves and bright colours.  I decided to use my new Drunkard's Path rulers to make her quilt. 

Two years ago, I took a design class from Jacquie Gering.  She often uses fun foam shapes to design her quilt before cutting the fabrics for her project.  I took out the fun foam, cut out several quarter circle shapes and started to play.  I did not take pictures of all of the designs that I tried out but the picture below shows my final arrangement of the shapes. 

I found a fat quarter in my stash with brightly coloured maple keys on it...perfect for a mini quilt from Canada. 

Next, I had to choose a background fabric...  I tried several options from my stash including solids in various colours, greys, etc.

 This Essex linen in navy was the perfect background!

I sewed all 12 units together and then added sashing to separate them from each other, working from the centre out.

At the last minute, I decided to spin my design by 45 degrees...

I looked over all my quilting thread options and decided on orange, my favourite colour!  I found some backing fabric in my stash with spools of thread on it.

I used my walking foot to add curved and straight lines to the quilt.

Then, I added some orange binding to frame my design.  I called it "Maple Keys from Canada".

Evie and I met up at the swap fairly easily as we had sent pictures of ourselves to each other ahead of time.  Evie's picture included a quilt in her favourite colour...orange!  I had already finished her quilt by then so I was thrilled that she also loves orange.  Evie loved her quilt and I loved mine!  She made my mini quilt with liberated stars and faced the quilt rather than binding it.  I will hang it in my sewing room.

Here is a picture of a small group of us with our mini quilts.

Here is a picture of my mini quilt showing off the spiral quilting.

I will definitely be signing up for the mini quilt swap again.  It was fun to make something for another quilter and to make a new friend!