Facets Quilt Complete!

Since the end of January, I have been doing the Facets Quiltalong with Christa Watson at Christa Quilts.  I received her book as a Christmas present this past year and I immediately knew that the Facets quilt was the first one that I wanted to make.  Plus, I have decided that I really need to increase my machine quilting ability beyond stippling and this was the perfect opportunity.

 

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Here was the fabric that I decided to use:

We had to make pieces of "improv fabric" and then cut them up to make diamonds:

Then we had to add the background triangles to the diamonds:

And I finally finished the whole top:

The next step was to sandwich with the backing and batting and then sew all the straight line quilting- stitch in the ditch around the diamonds and 1/4" offset into the background fabric.  Then, I quilted switchbacks in the background fabric.

(bonus picture of my quilt inspector!)

Finally, the last step was to quilt the diamonds.  Christa suggested in her book to quilt swirls, but I knew that there was no way I would do that.  I love quilting swirls, but hate quilting them along edges, and knew that this would be continual edges for the whole quilt!  I saw on Instagram that one of the other participants was using straight line quilting in the diamonds and it gave it kind of a "facets" look, and I knew that would be the right quilting for me to use!

Here is the whole quilt!

 I really enjoy participating in Quiltalongs- they push me to get a quilt done on a schedule (haha), they also help to push me out of my comfort zone to try new things, and they have great internet camaraderie along the way.  Thanks to Christa for hosting the QAL and thanks to everyone else who participated and made it fun!

 Linking up (later this week) with Finish it up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts :)

My Experience at Quiltcon 2016

Last month I was at Quiltcon in Pasadena CA and I am just now getting to finishing up writing about my experience!  When I came home, I was sick for a week, then having company and various other things have kept me from writing this all down.

I attended Quiltcon with my sister, we had a great time.  However, I didn't really have the chance to make any new friends- I think it was because I went with a "friend" already, I didn't really talk and socialize as much as I should have.  I am making a note already to try to meet more people there in the future!

We took two classes, the first one was 9-12 on Wednesday- "Textural Quilting" with Angela Walters.  This class was taught on a shared HandiQuilter Sweet Sixteen machine (2 people per machine).

Here is some of my work from that class:

 On Wednesday night from 6-9, we took "Free Motion Favorites for the Modern Quilter" from Christa Watson.  This class was taught on a Janome Horizon.

Here is some of my work from that class:

Both of these classes were so much fun!!  We signed up for these classes because it is very hard to find "modern" quilting classes at our local quilt stores.  We thought that both Angela and Christa were great teachers and I would gladly take a class with either one of them again.  The part that I thought was the best was that they were both so encouraging and positive about everyone trying free motion quilting.  Both of them just encouraged everyone to just "go for it" and not be afraid.    Angela's motto was "finished is better than perfect" which is a good line to use.  Both Angela and Christa encouraged people to just keep going and keep practicing.  I loved the positive vibe in both of these classes- it made me energized to go home and quilt!

I also wanted to talk a little bit about trends in the quilts juried into Quiltcon.  Since I live in Houston, I went to both of the Quiltcons in Austin so I have been able to see the changes over the years.  Here are things that I noticed that were new this year: (sorry no pics, they are on my sister's camera!)
- "Facing" instead of binding- there were several quilts with this and I had never seen it before!
- Muted fabrics (fabrics were brighter in past years)
- More noticeable longarm quilting (could see the pantograph repeat)
- Almost no matchstick quilting (thank goodness! last year almost every quilt had matchstick quilting)
- More graffiti type quilting (I definitely want to try this in the future)
- Still lots of straight line quilting but like every 1/2" - 1" and directions varied throughout the quilts
- More fabrics with prints (but still lots of solids)
- Lots of variations on Drunkard's path block
- Several log cabins with neutral backgrounds
- Quilts were larger than in the past (last year quilts were all very small, they were much more "lap sized" this year)

We went to several lectures, but we didn't really enjoy these.  2 of them were panel discussions but I just didn't feel like I learned a lot of new things.

Then we started attending the "demonstrations" on the festival floor and we learned so much there!  We sat for "Scrappy Bits Applique" which was so neat that we ended up buying the book to try it ourselves and we also attended a demo with Violet Craft talking about paper piecing tips, which was very informative as well.

In conclusion, we had a great time!  I would take classes with Christa and Angela again and would love to try some of the longer classes in the future too.  I would probably take less lectures and attend more demonstrations as well.  If I attend another Quiltcon, I think I might try to volunteer and I would also try to make more quilty friends!

My Quilts at Quiltcon, Part 2

Besides my two quilts that were juried into Quiltcon, I had one small quilt for display in a vendor's booth!

I saw a notice from Northcott on the Modern Quilt Guild message boards that they were looking for people to make a small quilt to hang in their booth with their new ColorWorks fabrics.  Unfortunately, I did not see this message until January but I wrote to them and we worked out a deal where I would make them a small 30" square quilt for use in their booth!

Northcott had a beautiful booth at Quiltcon!  All images are from Northcott's Facebook page.

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You can see my quilt in this picture!  It is the small one with the bright pink that is on their table with the wheel to spin for prizes.

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Here is a better picture:

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I will post more pictures of this quilt soon, as well as my process for making it.  I loved using the new Northcott Colorworks fabrics and I absolutely love the half square triangle fabric, I will be buying more of that soon!  It was so much fun working with Northcott and I hope that I will find more opportunities like this in the future!

My Quilts at Quiltcon- Part 1

As everyone knows, Quiltcon was held about 2 weeks ago in Pasadena CA.  I attended with my sister and we had a fabulous time!  Then I came home and found out I caught strep throat, I missed three days of work, and I am still recovering.  Yuck.

However, I had two quilts in the show and I can't wait to show them to you!  But first, a story...

I entered 6 quilts into Quiltcon.  You can enter 3 quilts for $30 and it turned out that I had 4 quilts that I really wanted to enter, 3 of which were made very specifically just to enter into Quiltcon.  My sister insisted that I just throw in 2 other quilts on my 2nd entry in order not to "waste" the rest of the entry.  Those 2 quilts that I entered just to fill out my entry are the ones that got in!  It just goes to show that you really never know what they are looking for!

My first quilt that got in is "Wonky Star Metamorphosis"

I actually made this quilt in the beginning of 2015 because I wanted to write a quilt pattern.  The quilt pattern can actually be purchased from Craftsy.  This quilts was shown in the Modern Traditionalism category.  I experimented a lot with morphing blocks like this this year and it was interesting to see that a bunch of people at Quiltcon had the same idea- I will talk more about this in another post.

Since I am always interested in what kind of comments people get when their quilts are judged, I have made the decision to post my comments below.  I think that all of the comments are fair and true about my quilt.

My second quilt, "Modern Wedding Ring" was displayed in the Applique category.  I have a funny story about this quilt too- I actually created this quilt specifically to enter it into the "Bias Tape Applique" special category at Quiltcon 2015 in Austin.  I submitted it, but it was not juried into the show and it has sat around my house for the past year until I entered it again and it got in this year- I was definitely not expecting that!

And here are my comments about this quilt, I think that they are all fair and true also.

It was so exciting to see my quilts on display and I love saying that "my quilts were juried into an international show" :)

The quilts were returned to me last week, I had them listed for sale at Quiltcon but no one bought them... I will probably re-list them in my Etsy store soon and hopefully I can sell them so I can make room for some new quilts!

Kona Color of the Year Challenge

The Kona Color of the Year is HIGHLIGHT!

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When I was at Quiltcon last week Robert Kaufman Fabrics were handing out the following card along with a fat quarter of Highlight:

In order to join the Kona Color of the Year Challenge all I had to do was make a block using the color Highlight and other Kona solids.  Easy, right?  But what block should I make?? and what colors should I use??

First I took the color Highlight and tried to find some good colors to go along with it.  My original plan was to pair it with Navy, however, I accidentally put the Highlight next to the color Water and then I couldn't get that combination out of my mind.  I also added in Iron for the background.

Then I got out my trusty block book, "1000 Great Quilt Blocks" and started paging through, looking for a good 3 color block.

The following block caught my eye and then I couldn't get it out of my mind:

And here is the final product:

 

It's a fun block and I really like the way it looks with the colors I chose, but there is no way I would make a full quilt out of this block!  If I did, I would have to figure out a more efficient way to make it, it is only 16" square but it took so long to sew together.

I have entered the Kona COTY challenge on Instagram, go there to find all the other blocks that people are making with the color Highlight!

Pillow Covers

Occasionally I do sewing projects for Home Decor things instead of just for quilting.  Recently, one of my good friends found out that I opened an Etsy store and she asked me to make some pillow covers for her mom and she would buy them from my Etsy store.

The only requirements that she gave me were the size and that they had to include a "slate blue".  I did a lot of searching online and send her a bunch of options and eventually we decided on this fabric because it had a smaller repeat than a lot of the other home dec fabrics and would be good in pillow size.

Mental note to myself:  do not choose such geometric fabrics for pillow again!  It took more time to figure out how to cut the fabric so the best part of the pattern repeat was in the center of the pillow and to match the sides and top/bottom of the pillows than it did to actually sew them.

The fabric was slightly see-through so I lined the pillows with leftover curtain lining that I had laying around.  I did try one new thing with these pillows- I added an invisible zipper!  This was my very first invisible zipper project and once I got the hang of it, it wasn't that bad.  I used this tutorial that I found online where you sew together the fabrics first and then sew the zipper in place and then rip the first seam that made apart.  It actually worked really well and I would love to link to the tutorial but I can't find it, sorry!  I will keep looking.

Anyway, here are the final pillow covers, I mailed them out this week.  Hopefully my friend and her mom like them!

Quiltcon, Here I Come!!!!

Today I leave for Quiltcon West, in Pasadena California.  I am SO EXCITED!!!

I am lucky to have attended the last two Quiltcons in Austin TX.  I live in Houston and my husband enjoys going to Austin for the weekend and it was an easy drive to just attend the show for a couple hours.

However, this year I am making a bigger deal out of Quiltcon.  My sister is flying out too (from Connecticut) and we are meeting at the Los Angeles airport tonight (knock on wood) and then we are heading to a fun weekend together in Pasadena.

We signed up for 2 workshops, "Textural Quilting" with Angela Walters and "Free-Motion Favorites for the Modern Quilter" with Christa Watson.  We are also signed up for several lectures throughout the course of the weekend.

I have 3 (!) quilts at the show!  Two will be on display in the "Modern Traditionalism" exhibit and 1 will be on display at the Northcott fabrics booth.  I will share all about these quilts and show lots of pictures when I get back next week.

I am excited about Quiltcon- taking classes and seeing my quilts, but I am mostly excited about spending a fun weekend together with my sister and doing everything together with her.

I can't post this post without a picture, so here is my class homework that I had to put together before Quiltcon, it is basically just a bunch of quilt sandwiches to practice the quilting techniques that we learn in class.  I used fabrics that I hate just to get them out of my stash... you can't tell from the picture but those three in the bottom right aren't white, they are lime green :)  Hopefully I don't blind anyone with these colors.  Also, no idea why I own so much maroon?  This didn't really make a dent in it...