Fun With Kansas Troubles Fabrics

I love all the fabrics designed by Kansas Troubles for Moda. I can mix and match fabrics from various collections and they all work together. I love the warm colors, the interesting light fabrics that work so well for backgrounds, and the gorgeous florals that make great borders and backing.

This is my latest quilt top made from Kansas Troubles fabrics.

I love the "negative space" created by the cream fabric. It will be perfect to show of some great machine quilting.

Have a great day!
 

Home Machine Quilting Show -- 2013

Last week was HMQS -- Home Machine Quilting Show. I went to the show on Friday afternoon. (How great is it that I have a full-time job in the quilting industry and had time off to attend the show!)

I spent most of my time looking at the amazing quilts on display. Now that I'm learning to longarm quilt my own quilts, I have an even greater appreciation for the quilting skills that were on display at HMQS.

This was the best of show quilt -- by Marilyn Badger. Amazing!

Jen Alexander, who quilted many of the quilts in my book, also won several awards for her quilts (some made with her mother) and quilting. This quilt was made by many of the people involved in HMQS (including Jen, who quilted it) over the course of 10 years.

Enjoy the rest of the show:

And this one which was one of my favorites. It represents the Young Women values -- Faith, Divine Nature, Individual Worth, Knowledge, Choice and Accountability, Good Works, Integrity, and Virtue.

Off to Quilt Market, but first...

,,, a quick blog post.

It was so much fun last week when this box was waiting for me when I got home from work.

And this is what was inside.

My book has been previewed on Amazon for a couple months, but now it is officially available.

But  imagine my surprise to see that two "used" copies are available for $140 each.

Do people really fall for this?

 

Triple-Play Scrap Quilting: Officially Available!

My book, Triple-Play Scrap Quilting, is now officially available. Yippee!

So, with the book launch underway, there will be lots of fun activities over the next few weeks, not the least of which is doing a schoolhouse session and a couple book signings at the Spring quilt market in Portland later this week.

I recently had the honor of being the the guest blogger over at Stitch This!, the Martingale / That Patchwork Place blog. I have a little more background to the book here since I can be more verbose on my own blog than I can on Martingale's.

After I left my full-time, high-tech marketing job, I knew that I didn't want to go back to work immediately and that I had earned some well-deserved time in my sewing/quilting studio to work on my quilt to-do list. After making several quilt tops that had been designed by others, I thought to myself -- why not make quilts that I design myself rather than make quilts designed by others? That was June 2011.

I had been collecting yellow, black and white fabrics (which are NOT my typical style, by the way) and sat down with Electric Quilt to design something original for those fabrics. The result is the quilt that is on the cover of the book (which I think is very appropriate!)

It was so much fun making that quilt that I wanted to make it again. I had a jelly roll and some yardage from a Minick and Simpson fabric line and realized I could make the same quilt using those fabrics, but scaled bigger because the strips were wider than the original version of the quilt (which used 2" strips). This was the result. Fewer, but bigger blocks. And a much bigger quilt: 84" X 108".

Then I decided I wanted to use up some scraps and made it a third time but with smaller 1-1/2" strips. This one ended up 54" square.

And VOILA! The concept for my book. Three strategies for making scrappy quilts (1) from fabrics in a limited color scheme, (2) fabrics from the same fabric line, or (3) from scraps.

I ended up making 30 quilts for the book -- 3 each of 10 designs. One set of three didn't make it into the book because of space considerations.Yes, that's 30 quilts in one year. I sent off the quilts to Martingale, along with the draft manuscript, in June 2012. And now, it's almost a year later and the book is a reality! I think that there is a tremendous variety of quilts in the book and that they will (hopefully) appeal to a wide range of quilters.

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Guest on American Patchwork & Quilting Radio

Two exciting announcements.  

First, on Monday, May 13th, I'll be a guest on American Patchwork & Quilting Radio, hosted by Pat Sloan. Such an honor!

And second, today I'm the guest blogger on the Martingale / That Patchwork Place blog Stitch This! Be sure to jump over to Stitch This! to learn more about my book.

I've had the pleasure of getting to know Pat because of my employment with Handi Quilter -- an honor that I most likely wouldn't have had otherwise. I'm looking forward to sharing the story and concept of my book, Triple-Play Scrap Quilting.

Here's all the information you need to know to learn more about the American Patchwork & Radio show:

The show broadcasts live at 4 pm Eastern, 3 pm Central, 2 pm Mountain, and 1 pm Pacific times.

Tune in to listen live via AllPeopleQuilt.com. The interview will be available on demand and via iTunes after the broadcast.

 

Seven Shades of Gray

I’m so intrigued by modern quilts. They aren’t my typical style, but I love them nonetheless. I think what I like the best is the simplicity of design (usually), the pure use of color (often), and the negative space that is crying out for a lot of unique quilting (always).

I think the cover quilt from my book Triple-Play Scrap Quilting (coming out on Tuesday!!!) qualifies as a modern quilt – although I didn’t realize it at the time I designed and made it.

Here’s my next attempt at a modern quilt.



I knew I wanted to use a variety of gray solids – from very dark to very light. Finding the various gradations of gray fabrics was actually the hardest part of this quilt. I wanted cool grays – not warm grays. You’d think the fabric manufacturers would have grays in all 10 standard values – but, alas, they don’t. They have three or four cool grays, and then three or four warm grays, and then a couple purplish grays, etc. So I ended up buying nearly every cool gray I could find the right set of grays for the quilt.



I have also been wanting to make a rainbow quilt – using pure colors in the same order they appear in the rainbow. So I combined the rainbow colors with the grays, and this is the result.

So the quilt center is done. I’m still figuring out what to do with the borders. I think it needs borders, but I need to figure out how to make them work with the rainbow and shades of gray concept. Thinking cap is still on trying to figure it all out.

Have a great day!