Kristin Shields Quiltmaker

QuiltCon :: 7

This is the last QuiltCon post.  It's all about the one class that I took on the last day of the conference:  15 Minutes of Play with Victoria Findlay Wolfe.  Lastly are some shots out and about in Austin.  Enjoy!

15 Minutes of Play with Victoria Findlay Wolfe

 Victoria's class was lots of fun and it was very nice to finally meet her!  She did a mini trunk show to start, including this polyester patchwork vest.

 Double Edged Love
Best in Show, QuiltCon 2013

 Most of these quilts are in Victoria's second book, Double Wedding Rings: Traditions Made Modern

She did several demos.  The fabric was flying!

I went to class with no clear idea of what I'd do, but as soon as she showed how to use the Dresden Plate template I got an idea.  I "made" some fabric.

Then I cut it with the template and did the fancy (actually super easy) trick to make the points.

I got half the wedges sewn together in class, but I have a plan for the rest.  Will show it when I get a chance to try out my plan!

Out and About in Austin
Instagramming about Town!

It was good to get back home to blue skies and beautiful mountains!  I had a fantastic trip to Austin for QuiltCon and I hope I'll do it again someday.  In the meantime, I have my hotel reserved for Pasadena next year!

QuiltCon 2015 :: 2

Today's post goes onto the quilt show floor at QuiltCon 2015.  I'll start with the major winners (Congratulations to all!), then show some scenes around the show, then onto the categories: Spring Cotton Couture Fabric Challenge, Modern Traditionalism, Applique, and the Bias Tape Quilting Challenge.  Remember, these are all clickable to see more detail.  Also, remember this is my take on the show and I don't have photos of every quilt.  Please alert me if you notice that I've made a mistake on the attributions.  Enjoy!

The Winners

i Quilt (front)
Kathy York
Austin MQG
Best in Show

i Quilt (back)
Kathy York
Austin MQG
Best in Show

Coral Reef
Marla Varner
Bainbridge Island MQG (Washington)
Quilting Excellence Award

Diving Geese
Pieced by Katie Pedeson, Quilted by Krista Withers
Seattle MQG
Best Machine Quilting

Eames Blocks
Designed by Lorena Maranon, Individual Member, 
Pieced by Jen Carlton Bailly, Portland MQG
Quilted by Gina Pina, Austin MQG
Giveaway Quilt (raffled off)

The Show Floor

Upon entering the show floor, there was the Modern Quilt Guild information table, then around the back of it, there was this wall that anyone could write on.  By the end it was pretty well covered.

Below are scenes from the show floor.  The show was very nicely hung, with plenty of space even for the busiest day which was Saturday.  I never had trouble getting a clear shot of a quilt even though I didn't have my wide angle lens.  Sometimes you had to wait a minute or two, but that was about it.  

My only complaint about the way the quilts were hung was that if there were 2 or more quilts on a panel, the signs for each were clumped together in no particular order. You had to read very carefully to figure out which sign went with which quilt.  I would prefer to have the signs to the side of each quilt.  I talked to others who felt the same.

Spring Cotton Couture Fabric Challenge
This is the Michael Miller Fabric Challenge where participants could use mainly solids from the Spring Cotton Couture Pastel line.

The New New
Amy Anderson
Asheville, MQG (North Carolina)

Lucky Day
Cynthia Frenette
Fraser Valley MQG (British Columbia)

Modern Traditionalism

Sunset
Corinne Sovey
Austin MQG

Grand Pineapple- Dichotomy
Allison Lee
Triangle MQG (North Carolina)

Half Square Triangles
Tara Faughnan
Individual Member, Oakland, California

Applique

Bowls and Balls #2
Rachel Kerley
Portland MQG

Hometown Quilt
Gina Pina
Austin MQG

Such a clever quilt!  Here are a couple of detail shots.

Self Study #4 (The One for T)

Chawne Kimber
Individual Member, Pennsylvannia

Bias Tape Quilting Challenge

CPU
Katherine Jones
Tasmania MQG (Australia)
1st Place Bias Tape Quilting Challenge

Friends

I didn't do a great job of getting people shots, except for the photo with my Central Oregon peeps and these two with Marion Shimoda (above), my traveling buddy and Maria Shell (below).  I've been following Maria's blog for a while now.  They each had a quilt in the show and I'll show those when I get to the pertinent category.  Marion and I are great traveling companions and it was all due to her that I even decided to go.  I'm so happy I did!  

I had planned to have lunch with Maria on Thursday, but we kept bumping into her, so spent time with her every day and even discovered my seat on the plane back to Seattle was right across the aisle from her.  Isn't it great to finally meet someone that you've only known online and find out you click in real life too?

Seen in the vendor hall.

It turns out it takes quite a bit of time to put together these posts.  I'll be doing more soon, but I'm also prepping a Powerpoint presentation for my guild on the 9th and have some other deadlines coming up.  I will try to get to these posts soon.  In the meantime, there are loads of other bloggers posting about QuiltCon, including Maria (Tales of a Stitcher).

QuiltCon 2015 :: 1

QuiltCon 2015 in Austin, Texas was a blast!  It was a very busy 4 days for the show and one extra day of shopping in Austin.  My plan for reporting on this trip is to go in mostly chronological order and grouping photos in a way that makes sense to me.  All of the photos for these posts will be clickable if you want to see more detail.  Also, my photos don't represent the whole show (how could they?), but they are a taste of what appealed to me at the time.  

Above is my official PDX selfie.  I'm glad I got there before the carpet disappears.  I left Bend on Wednesday morning and flew through Portland and Seattle to Austin.  Along the way I met up with my travel buddy, Marion.  There were also 5 others from the Central Oregon Modern Quilt Guild who traveled to Austin. Thursday morning dawned beautifully. Unfortunately, this was the last we saw of the sun.  The rest of the days in Austin were very grey.  Our hotel room (Hyatt Place) looked out over the convention center and faced east to the rising sun.

We got to our hotel at 7 pm on Wednesday night, too late to register.  So on Thursday morning we waited in a rather long line while some computer issues were worked out.  We got our name tags and a huge goody bag!

The first event on our schedule was the MQG Awards Ceremony.  The ballroom was surrounded by many of the QuiltCon charity quilts, made from MQG's around the world.  There were more in the other ballroom too.

Unfortunately, the convention center did not have the lecture set up finished and the ceremony started about 45 minutes late.  When it did start, Jacquie Gering had no sound system and the power point didn't start working until nearly the end.  That was very disappointing, but I mostly felt bad for the winners who really didn't get their due.  Below, Jacquie shows everyone how to do the "matchstick quilting" dance.

This is our Central Oregon Modern Quilt Guild charity quilt.  We did liberated houses in this alternate grid format.  All the COMQG peeps who made it to the show are in the photo above: Susan, Kayla, Christy, Lindsey, me and Erin!The charity quilts were really wonderful.  Unfortunately, they weren't labeled with the guild name, so I don't know which guilds made which.  Next time I'll be showing quilts from the Quilt Show floor!  Enjoy!

NW Quilters :: Improv in Solids and Liberated Baskets

My time in Portland at the NW Quilters Guild last week was great fun and a wonderful introduction to the world of a traveling teacher!  The lecture went great and the 2.5 days of class were lots of fun.  I hope to do it again soon.  The first photos are from the improv class.  Very striking pieces, don't you think?  Most of the students hadn't worked improvisationally before, but they certainly caught on fast!  The improv class was 1.5 days, but I think it would have worked well in a longer format.  We are seeing a lot of potential here, but I'd love to see them even further along.  They did tell me that the quilts from these workshops will be featured in their quilt show next year (May 1 & 2, Portland Expo Center).

Above: This student made the print blocks with scraps as she went along, each seam was a leader or ender.  Great idea!Above, don't you think that stripe looks great in this piece!

Above:  This student made the block on the top right without planning it.  We all fell in love with it (we named it the railroad block) and she demoed it so we could all give it a try.  We discovered that value and placement of the thinner strips vs thicker strips makes a difference.  

Above:  I wish I'd gotten a better photo of that middle quilt, Tam did such a fantastic job!  Below is my teaching sample mixed with some other parts I found in the scrap bin.  The Liberated Baskets class was on the last day.  This was a smaller class, but no less fun.  I was so happy to see the students try all sorts of different baskets.  This photo includes baskets from everyone, including me.  I look forward to seeing these done as well.  I'll have to put their quilt show on my calendar!

Willamette Valley Weekend

Now you know what I like to do when I'm not quilting!  I hope you enjoyed this photo essay of our trip to the valley over Labor Day weekend.  As much as I love the high desert, sometimes my New England trained eyes long for the lush, green views of the Willamette Valley.  We had a very nice visit with Chloe too!  If you're interested, here's a list of the places we visited:

Champoeg State Heritage Area
Methven Family Vineyards
Red Ridge Farm
Durant Vineyards
Vista Hills Vineyard
Our Lady of Guadalupe Trappist Abbey
The City of Carlton
Yamhill, Oregon Quilt Barn (see this cool Pinterest board!)
Elk Cove Vineyards

Puzzling World

This top is done, basted and ready to quilt!  This is my entry for the Riley Blake challenge for the Modern Quilt Guild.  It's also my entry for the Mt Bachelor Quilters' Guild Cabin Fever Challenge.  The title is from Puzzling World in New Zealand.  The photos below are from 5 years ago!  Look at those cute kids of mine.  Anyway, the optical illusions created by the stripes made me think of this very cool place.  The blocks are free pieced, cut to the same size and sashed with as much precision as I could muster.  Don't look to closely at the corners!

 

Adios Amigos!

***Photo by Chloe's friend, Ruth.

At long last, we are about to head off to Ecuador to see our Chloe girl!  We've missed her these past 4 months, but she's been having the time of her life!  Zip lines, Machu Picchu, bungee diving off a bridge (??!!).  Oh my gosh, I nearly fell off my chair when I saw that video.  Lucky I only found out about it after the fact.

We are ready for quite an adventure and will have lots to share in a few weeks.  I hope you enjoy your holiday where ever you are.  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

BIQR Day 3: Charlevoix the Beautiful

In our effort to see as much of Michigan as we could on this trip, Jan, Marion and I took some time out one afternoon to drive up to Charlevoix.  This quaint lake-side town has a quilt shop and the famous "mushroom" houses which we set out to find. 

Hearts to Holly is a wonderful quilt shop right in the downtown area.  It has lots of great novelty and modern prints.  I went a little bit overboard here!

After the shop, we went searching for the "Mushroom" houses.  The architect, Earl Young, built these fabulous creations only in Charlevoix.  We managed to see quite a few on a street that went right along the lake.  Such a pretty area.  

Afterwards we went out to dinner at the Weathervane Restaurant and only then realized that that building was designed by Earl Young too.  

We took a walk along the waterfront.

We saw some more wonderful rock formations.  So many quilt ideas here!

Last stop was Murdick's fudge, where we treated ourselves to this Michigan delicacy.  They sure do like their fudge there!

Next post:  The Elk Rapids Farmer's Market and Gwen's favorite antique quilts!

BIQR Day 3: Working Away

By the second actual sewing day I had created the center of my solids piece and started on a string border.  

There is always time to chat in groups.  Gwen talked about some of the quilts in her first Liberated Quiltmaking book.

Here's where mine was going at this time.  The center is all free pieced from the scraps just about as they were.  The border is made of up strings and arranged into a sort of chevron pattern.

In between the chatting you'll find everyone sewing quietly away.

This is where my piece was by the end of this sewing day.  Jan, Marion and I cut out early to take in the sights of Charlevoix, a pretty little town right on Lake Michigan.  More on that in the next post.

BIQR Day 2: Gwenny's Show and Tell

Wednesday morning was the official start to the retreat.  We spent the first part getting a nice show and tell by Gwen.  This first string quilt had me so intrigued.  So intrigued, in fact, that I went out and bought some of the light background fabrics (civil war repros) to try this myself!  I don't usually have civil war fabrics in my stash, but these are pretty cool with the mostly solid strings and this seems like a good masculine style of quilt.  

I love this happy string quilt too.  Wonderful colors.

This one was recently in one of the magazines and I really like it too.  It's definitely fueling my string obsession.

This is a lovely quilt that I have seen before, but it really is striking and a lot of fun to hear the story about how it went together.  It looks pretty formal, but if you look carefully, you'll see that the blocks are not identical.  The casual nature came about because Gwen worked on the blocks individually while traveling and did not have the previous blocks with her to compare the leaf placement.

Gwen's family quilt is the piece de resistance!  I love this one so much and was inspired to bring a photo copy of it to BIQR (since I couldn't bring all of my books).  I was thrilled to be able to study it in person.  The quilt represents all the things that bring joy to Gwen's life, including her children and her pets.  

It was really great to see this up close.  Each animal has their name quilted in beside them.  Below, she pointed out the mother hen and her two chicks, one of whom was a rooster!

After that, the sewing began and went right through to dinner time.  Since I couldn't bring my whole stash, I carefully sorted out all my solid scraps to bring.  This pile did get turned into something that I'll show in the next post.