Pageant Highlight Reel / Beauties Pageant 50

It’s been over a year since I started the Beauties Pageant, and I have to admit that hosting the linky has proved to be a blessing and a curse. Don’t get me wrong: I love the little community of regular participants the weekly event has created for me—in fact, it’s renewed my interest in blogging. But it has also introduced me to countless new quilt patterns. When will I find the time to make them all?

Take, for example, Jen’s Summer Swoon quilt. I’ve known of this pattern, from Camille Roskelley, for years. It had fallen off my radar, however, until I saw Jen’s version and was reminded that it requires just 16 fat quarters to make. Heck, I’ve got 16 fat quarters! It’s the time to sew up 16 fat quarters that I am short on.

Then there’s Sew Yummy’s Rainbow Swirl quilt. Six years of quilting have turned me into a lover of rainbows—it’s impossible to look at one in quilt form without smiling. The next time I’m in need of a rainbow project, this will be my go-to pattern.

And Susan, of QuiltFabrication, has just released a new pattern, called Just Batty, that she shared in last week’s Beauties Pageant. I don’t make many holiday-themed quilts, but this design has me rethinking that policy ...

Have you seen something in a past pageant that you’ve added to your quilty to-do list? If so, please share in the comments!

* * *

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

Fellow Pieced-Back Fans / Beauties Pageant 49

There’s a fun event going on right now on Instagram that I wanted to tell you blog readers about. Andrea, of 3rd Story Workshop, is hosting a quilt back party, which turns the spotlight on the works of art on the back of our quilts. If you have an Instagram account, you can still get in on the action and be entered to win some cool prizes by posting some backs of your own. Even if you aren’t on Instagram, you can view what others are posting through a web browser. Just click here!

So far I’ve posted two backs to the party ...

The first is from my Neighborhood quilt, finished this past spring. It’s a good example of my quilt-back philosophy: Use up yardage. For this quilt, that meant first taking the Kate Spain/Early Bird fabrics I didn’t use on the top and adding swaths of orange and blue from my stash. The result is a cool transparency effect.

See the full post on this project here.

The second is found on a Christmas quilt I made for my family. When I couldn’t fit these three tree blocks on the quilt’s top, I knew I had to incorporate them in the back. The finished product features those orphan blocks and an awesome Anna Maria Horner print, which I had stashed for years, just waiting for the right project.

See the full post on this project here.

Fun, right? For more examples of my pieced backs and the thinking behind them, check out this post: I Heart Pieced Backs. For my basic approach for piecing backs, check out How I Piece My Backs.

* * *

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

Quilty Orphan Adoption / Beauties Pageant 48

Cynthia Brunz, over at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework has many clever ideas. One of my favorites is her annual Quilty Orphan Adoption event, when quilters are encouraged to offer up their abandoned projects or unwanted blocks. I have two sets of blocks that are looking for a good home.

The first, pictured at the top of the post, is a set of seven concentric hexagons, all pieced by hand and still attached to the papers. Each measures 6 inches from point to point. Five of them have the printed centers, and two have the plain gray centers. I also have more of the corresponding fabric line to include in the package (all of those pieces are a fat eighth or smaller).

The second set is pictured below. It contains two sailboat blocks (both 8.5-inch square, unfinished) from this quilt, along with some 2.5 inch strips of the striped fabric used in the sails. It’s worth mentioning that the pattern I followed to make them is a free one from Suzy Quilts, in case you would want to make additional sailboats yourself.

If you’re interested in either of these lots, please comment on the original version of this post. (In other words, if you use a reader like Bloglovin’, you must click through to my actual site and comment directly on the post.) These giveaways are open to U.S. addresses through Monday, September 16, at 8 p.m. Eastern time. I will pay for shipping. If there’s more than one interested party, I’ll use a random number generator to pick the winner.

UPDATE: The sailboat blocks are headed to Sheila, and Dawn is the recipient of the hexagons. I can’t wait to see what they do with these bits from my sewing table!

Thanks in advance for helping me clean up my sewing space!

* * *

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

QuiltCon Season / Beauties Pageant 47

These ombre fabrics, from V and Co, are going into a new design of mine.

For me, the first day of school also signifies the start of QuiltCon season. Submissions to the show close on November 30, so by the time my boys are back in the classroom and my days are more my own, there are three months left to go.

In general, I’m not a show-quilt maker. I have displayed 47XY+21 at two shows—QuiltCon and the Vermont Quilt Festival (where it won a first-place ribbon)—and plan on submitting it to a few others because I believe in sharing the message behind it. I am, however, a QuiltCon-quilt maker. The audience at QuiltCon is my people, and I get a thrill from seeing my quilts on display when I attend the conference and show.

Another design I hope to submit will be super colorful.

My philosophy with submitting to QuiltCon is that I can make anything I want, and buy any required fabric I want, as long as I legitimately want to make the quilt. (I’ve abandoned plenty of clever project ideas because I decided I wouldn’t want the finished project in my life after the show.) I also try to submit my projects early (by, say, October 15) and believe in resubmitting past rejections. Circa 1870, for example, was rejected for QuiltCon 2018 but accepted for the 2019 show. For the resubmission, I took a new picture—one on a white background instead of against the fall foliage and held up by my husband—and placed it in a different category, Modern Traditionalism, instead of its original one, Piecing. I am not sure whether the category change made a difference, but I think the new photograph did.

So although I have a long list of WIPs that needs attention, it’s all QuiltCon all the time at my sewing machine these days. I have two quilts to resubmit and hope to finish two new ones. Wish me luck!

* * *

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

Quilters Meet and Greet

Hello, everyone! Today is the launch of the 2019 Online Quilters Meet & Greet, hosted by Benita of Victoriana Quilt Designs. By visiting the main event page and checking out participants’ blogs, you will find new quilt bloggers to follow and have the opportunity to enter to win a sweet grand prize that includes fabric, thread, notions, and more.

* * *

If you’re new here, I’m Michelle and you’ve landed at From Bolt to Beauty, where I record my quilty adventures. I have been quilting for over six years and blogging about quilting for five. I’m a modern girl and love bold and graphic designs, oversize blocks, and lots of negative space in my quilts. You can browse some of my favorite projects below. If you like what you see, let’s keep in touch!

• Subscribe via Bloglovin’
• Subscribe via email
• Follow me on Instagram

With Third Time’s the Charm, I made up for the minimalist design and palette with size.
Some of these flying geese are 40 inches in length!

Near Wild Heaven is my ode to oversize stars and the color yellow.

I based the design for Circa 1870, which was displayed at QuiltCon 2019, on an antique house in the small New England town I call home.

Mix and Mingle is my unique interpretation of a nine-patch and was shown at QuiltCon 2017.

I also host a weekly link-up of finishes called Brag About Your Beauties Pageant, or just the Beauties Pageant. Visit each Friday to see the projects that others are checking off their to-do lists. If you’re in need of a new project yourself, peruse the From Bolt to Beauty tutorials page or browse my galleries of finished quilts (here and here). Current or aspiring bag makers should head to my gallery of bags and pouches as well as the Cargo Duffle Sew-Along page. The sew-along is over, but my tips for making your own Cargo Duffle are still posted to help you navigate the pattern.

Thanks for stopping by! Be sure to go main event page to visit others in the Online Quilters Meet & Greet!