One Weekend, Two Quilt Shows / Beauties Pageant 327

In general, there are not that many big quilt shows in New England. This is disappointing on many levels—first, because this area was once a hub for textile production and, second, because I live in Massachusetts and it’s nice not to have to trek states away to hang out with a quilty crowd! Last weekend, however, there were two quilt shows happening simultaneously. 

On Wednesday, American Quilt Society (AQS) opened its first-ever show in Hartford, CT. By the time the show started, however, I was already beat! I had trekked down the day before to help my friend Taz set up her Camberville Threads booth in the vendor hall. I cannot express how much physical labor this was. We pushed and pulled and lifted so many bins of fabric, and man, fabric is heavy.

But the effort was well worth it. It was a joy to hang out with Taz and watch quilters interact with the collection of fabric and notions she has curated. (Camberville Threads is an online retail shop, so seeing it as a physical store was a treat that happens only at shows like this.) From Bolt to Beauty was well represented in the booth, too. Five of my designs were displayed, alongside my book, Not-Your-Typical Jelly Roll Quilts, and the complete line of printed FBTB patterns.

There were also, of course, quilts hanging at the AQS show. I had time to visit some of them. The modern section was QuiltCon in miniature, and I was delighted to see work by Audrey Esarey, Betsy Vinegrad, and Susan Braverman displayed at the show with ribbons. (The full list of winners can be found here.)

Then I headed back to Massachusetts for a day to recuperate before venturing north to the New England Quilt Expo in Manchester, NH. There I taught Five-Star Experience, the cover quilt from my book, as a three-hour workshop. 

It was a great teaching experience! Because students received their books the day of the class, I started our time together with a mini trunk show, looking at many of the book projects and explaining how my take on jelly rolls differs from other patterns out there. Then we segued to the talking about the challenges of working with jelly rolls—including those annoying pinked edges—and how to overcome them. Finally, we started on our own throw- or baby-size version of Five-Star Experience.   

Would you believe that I headed back to Connecticut on Saturday for another day of vending with Taz and then breaking down the booth? It’s true!

A big thank-you to everyone who made the effort to seek me out at either show. I saw guildmates I didn’t expect to run into and quilty friends from way back when. I even got to meet one blog friend—Kathleen from Kathleen McMusing—in real life! 

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A Happy (Patriotic) Accident / Beauties Pageant 326

Ideas for my quilt designs spring out of all sorts of situations. Sometimes, I see something—in nature or architecture—and immediately identify the kernel of a quilt project. So I take a picture and file the idea away for a future design session. Other times, I sit down with a particular objective in mind—I want to use up a bundle of fabric or create a project with a specific theme—and that gets my brain going in one direction or another. 

On two occasions, however, I have set out to design an American flag quilt, and both times I failed. I chased multiple ideas in these sessions, but the results were not compelling enough for me to pursue. There are a lot of great patterns for American flag quilts already, and the ideas I came up with didn’t bring anything new to the table.

Both times, however, I realize that I had already designed an American flag quilt. Here are the details ...

Accidental Patriotic Quilt: Love Boldly

Years ago, inspired by one of my older son’s t-shirts and motivated by a QuiltCon stripes challenge, I designed Love Boldly. I love Love Boldly’s bright, oversize hearts sitting against a white background. I finished my sample quilt by quilting a giant X through the center of the quilt top and then echoed in each of those quadrants. 

You can imagine my surprise when I looked at the pattern a few weeks before its scheduled release and saw the stripes of the American flags in its lines. A quick mock-up in EQ8 verified my suspicion: There was a flag hiding in those hearts!

At first, this patriotic flag heart existed as a bonus block to the Love Boldly pattern. But over time, it became more popular than the original, so I spun it off into its own pattern, calling it Patriotic Love Boldly. There may not be a huge market for heart quilts, but there is definitely demand for patriotic hearts on quilts.

Accidental Patriotic Quilt: Twin-Star Cabins

I was certain this accidental-design phenomenon was a fluke. Then it happened a second time.

With the 250th anniversary of the ratification of the Declaration of Independence coming this summer, I was once again thinking of patriotic quilts. I played around with a paper and pencil but couldn’t develop anything unique.

Then, once again, I considered an existing pattern: Twin-Star Cabins. This design, released earlier this year, is built upon stars. All it took was a blue-and-red fabric collection—I chose Sweetwater’s Independence Day—to transform Twin-Star Cabins’ Ruby Star-studded original ...

into a patriotic quilt ... 

I have heard quilters talk about the upcoming 250th anniversary and express an interest in patriotic quilts. Have you heard any buzz along those lines? I’m going to compile a list of patriotic quilt patterns. If you have a favorite—something you’ve already sewn or have on your quilty bucket list—let me know!

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• Post your finish in the linky tool. (No links to your own giveaway or linky, please!)
• Point your readers back here with a text link or use the button above.
• Visit and comment on other participants’ finishes.

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Two Baby-Size WIPs: Done and Done! / Beauties Pageant 325

I’ve been in a weird state of quilty purgatory lately. With two new patterns already under my belt this year (see them here and here), I’ve moved on to the less-fun tasks I’ve been putting off ... I dug out my long-neglected bin of batting scraps and sewed frankenbatting for seven small quilt projects. I’ve been organizing what I can only accurately describe as scrap mountain. And I’ve been quilting and quilting, with something tangible to show for my efforts! Meet two baby-size versions of I Heart Rainbows, from Not-Your-Typical Jelly Roll Quilts ...

 

Originally, these two quilts were part of the same big quilt top. When word came through my guild that we would be donating baby quilts to a United Way event, I chopped it up, creating four little projects. Perhaps that sounds silly. After all, I was planning on donating the larger version somewhere, too. Finishing four projects that met an organization’s needs and would be used right away seemed smarter than finding the right home for a twin-size quilt, though.

These projects feature fabric from Lucky Bugs, a collection by Sugaridoo for Benartex. I love how these prints read as solids, making them more modern and versatile ...

 

The challenge with I Heart Rainbows is that its blocks are wider than they are tall. A four-block quilt, then, would also have been longer horizontally than it would be vertically. I solved the problem by adding thick top and bottom borders, which resulted in two square quilts. Now that I see the projects quilted and bound, however, I wonder whether that was necessary. Would these quilt have been weird without those thick borders? That’s not a rhetorical question: I have two more of these to finish. Please chime in!

Linking up to Favorite Finish at Quilting Jetgirl ... 

Upcoming Event in West Newbury, MA 

 

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The pageant rules are simple:

• Post your finish in the linky tool. (No links to your own giveaway or linky, please!)
• Point your readers back here with a text link or use the button above.
• Visit and comment on other participants’ finishes.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter