A fabulous Prize

I won a prize!

Some weeks back I entered a book tour give-away, sponsored by Emily Cier and CT Publishing. I usually don't enter give-aways, mostly because I haven't been commenting much and I don't like to appear like I am just there for the freebies.  For some reason, though, I did comment on the book over at Blue Nickel Studios and promptly forgot all about it.  Scott emailed me a couple of weeks ago, apologizing for the delay in notifying me that I had won!

And a week or so later, I received this:

Pixel Play Quilts by Emily Cier

Two additional of Emily's patterns

Color wheel poster/tool by Joen Wolfram along with her color tool

And a coupon for a discount at Carolina Patchworks

I love the look of the pixel quilts!  I have flipped through it several times over the past few days and I think I will try the Azalea pattern. I am going to look through my stash and see if I have solids that will work, or maybe some prints that read as solid that will work. This is the type of quilt that requires careful cutting and consistent seams to make it work.  I hope I am up for the challenge!

Many thanks to Scott and Emily!

Reboot: A New Beginning, And Some Finishes!

Hello.

A lot has happened since I have spent any time here. I will summarize it this way:

I retired.

We moved to Kansas.

We had a wedding and 'reunioned' with family from far afield.

Things have settled down. 

Also, I joined the Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild and I have been finishing quilts!

I made the top for this quilt in my "piece making basics" class three years ago.   

I practiced lots of designs and echoed the print in border. 

The fabric was a pre-selected kit for the class, and it didn't really 'speak' to me in the way that things do, sometimes.  It has hung in the closet with various other quilt tops of my own making and collecting since then.  It feels good to have it finished up!

A couple of months ago, I took a workshop on free motion quilting from Tia Curtis. Tia is a dynamic teacher and an excellent quilter.  Her passion is helping people get past their trepidation and jumping in to fmq. She also recommended Angela Walters' book which I had on my 'want list' already. 

In the workshop, we made these clever bags with our practice sandwiches. 

I have also been following the excellent year long series of posts and tutorials on fmq at Insights from Sew Cal Gal. Not stitching along, but reading along and saving the tutorials. Armed with Tia's encouragement and the other excellent resources at Sew Cal Gal, I started practicing on some orphan blocks and auction/estate sale partial tops. I finally got to the point where I felt that I could do some designs without 'ruining' a quilt top. 

And, I made a few more bags:

This is another low investment top that I put together with some 30's reproduction prints that I was hooked on for a brief minute. I practiced using my free motion foot to make straight lines. (Well fairly straight lines)  I am going to donate this one.

I have been working my way up to larger tops that I am fonder of.  

Here is just a peak at one that I am going to enter into the quilt show at Quilt Con.  The Mister said he wouldn't mind a trip to Austin in February if my quilt will be in the show! It is a juried show so it may or may not be accepted. I am going to keep it under wraps until I have it completely finished. Just so I don't jinx it, you know.  Maybe I can get on a wait list for a workshop or seminar!

The past two years have been full of change and transition, but I am finally feeling like I am back in the groove!  I have set some goals and one of them is to stay current here, if only for my own record, but I am always pleased to have folks stop by!

Jan

Retreat Recap

I spent the weekend at the first annual Las Vegas Modern Quilt Guild retreat!

Nine members and two guests traveled to Southern Utah for the weekend. We stayed at a wonderful vacation home, surrounded by great scenery (we found the house through homeway.com) While we did venture out for various errands, lunch and shopping, mostly we stayed in the basement theatre/billiard room and sewed.

This is the theatre side of the room. The other side accommodated four more sewing tables, two cutting stations and a pressing table. It was perfect!

I worked on these blocks. They are made from Elizabeth Hartman's Octagonal Orb Block tutorial featured at The Modern Quilt Guild Blog (which was originally inspired by Heather Bostic's pillow). They finish at about 17" across, so I plan to make 6 more, if my fabric holds out. I used a fat eighth stack of Flora, by Lauren and Jessi Jung.

It doesn't look like I got very much accomplished, but I feel like each of the completed blocks was eight blocks in one! I also cut pieces for 3 more orbs and I made some progress on embroidering some of Ruby McKim's Roly Poly Circus blocks for a quilt for Dearest Sister's grandbebe number five (another girl!)

Sharon brought a tiny pieced block as challenge/gift for each person. The pieced block was about two inches square made of tiny half inch squares.

These were some of the challenge projects. Clockwise from the top left: Andrea's beer pong cozy, Cindy's pot holder, Bev's coaster, my pin cushion, Maria's tiny cushion to protect the bed of her featherweight when it is folded up, Tracie's tissue cover and Darlene's iPhone purse.

We all had a great time and by Sunday morning, the discussion had turned to how many days we should add to next year's retreat! We drove home under rainy, overcast skies, but that was kind of a nice change, as well.

I am looking forward to seeing some finishes at show and tell next month!

The Year of the Dragon! And Other Stuff!

We are just a few days past the Chinese New Year which is a big holiday here in the desert. Since the January new year is long gone, I decided to use the Year of the Dragon as a re-starting point for getting my blog mojo running again.

The last six or seven months have been spent waiting for this year, which is shaping up to be a great one! In 12 weeks I will retire and we are going to leave the desert to return to the middle of the country. Most all of our belongings have already moved. The Mister and the kitties will move first, in about 7 weeks, then he will come back for me and the Isetta a few weeks later. We. Can. Hardly. Wait!

The thing I will miss most when we leave, is the Las Vegas Modern Quilt Guild.

Since we formed the group just over one year ago, I have been building my quilting skills through inspiration, challenges and deadlines.

Although I usually stay away from table runners and wall hangings, I have finally seen the appeal of small projects. Generally I think of quilts in terms of bed linens, so doll quilts seemed like the perfect small project for learning new skills. A quick finish, new techniques learned and possible hand made gifts! Win, win, win!

During a late night of Internet Christmas shopping last fall, I ordered several books from Amazon (for me). This one has 24 small quilt projects.

Pretty in Patchwork - Doll quilts by Cathy Gaubert

After flipping through it a hundred or so times, I settled on making this one:

Probably not the best choice for a person of my rudimentary skills. I foolishly thought that improvisational curves might not be so hard. The last little curved seam was ripped and re-stitched until the pieces started to fray, so I finally decided finished was better than perfect and called it good.

And, I had something for show and tell at the January meeting!

The next project was more straightforward:

Dream Doll Quilt - Pattern by Aneela Hoey

Detail of Dream Doll Quilt doll and bunny

Tiny half square triangles are a bit more challenging that they looked, so don't look too closely! The pattern had a template for a little doll and teddy bear, but I used part of a panel called Appleville by Suzy Ultman. Also the original called for applique clouds, but I decided to do embroidered ones, instead. I used flannel instead of batting on this one.

Next weekend, about 10 from our group are headed to Utah for a quilting retreat! I have my machine all packed up with everything (and more, I am sure) that I need. I had a very hard time deciding what to work on so I packed several projects to take, including some embroidery.

I am starting to feel like a real quilter!

Kona Challenge Reveal - Las Vegas Modern Quilt Guild

This is a guest post that I wrote for the Robert Kaufman blog - Swatch and Stitch.

********************************************************************************

Hi! I'm Jan and I am the Vice President of the Las Vegas Modern Quilt Guild. We began forming our group in January of this year and we were very excited to participate in the Kona Solid Challenge.

We selected the Classic Palette charm pack and distributed them to members at our April meeting. The 'rules' were to use at least a bit of all the colors in the charm pack, adding as much yardage as desired of two additional solid colors. Of course, we knew that rules are meant to be broken, so our judging categories were: Best Large Quilt, Best Small Quilt and Best Rule Breaker.

Although, some of the challenge participants were unable to be at our July meeting, nine members 'revealed' their projects.

All members in attendance voted for the winners in the three categories.

Back left: Patty won in the category of Best Large Quilt. Next to Patty, Tracie holds her winning entry in the Best Small Quilt category. Carolina is kneeling with her winning Rule Breaker Quilt. (Carolina traded the 'warm' colors in her charm pack with another member for more 'cool' charms.)

You can see all the entries here.

The Kona Solid Challenge was a great experience and we appreciate Robert Kaufman Fabrics for sponsoring the event!