Here are a highlights, in photo form. Click on the image to see details on what exactly is going on there, and see our entire Portland Quilt Market photostream HERE.

This month we’re working with simple equilateral triangles sorted into lights and darks. For mine, I pulled fabrics with colors that reminded me of Runts candy. Fabric always makes me think of candy but I had yet to make a candy inspired quilt. I decided to use yardage for my background, but you could easily use scraps if the lights contrast enough with the darks.

We cut our triangles with the AccuQuilt, which I love because it takes about 5 minutes and then I can get to the sewing already! What I love about this project is that you can make any size, just add more triangles and rows until you’re out of scraps. Our triangles happen to be 4-5/8″, but any size would work, and a 60 degree ruler could accommodate a lot of sizes.

We had too much fun cutting up our scrap stashes into triangles that I forgot to take photos. Eventually I did capture our dear Adrienne as she started on her triangles.

I can’t wait to see everyone’s triangle quilts! Bring your quilts into the shop, post links to your photos in the comments,  post on our Facebook or in our flickr group, or tag us on Instagram!

Evelyn will be leading our Scrap-along in April with this block using Quiltville’s method for Mountain Majesties. It looks tricky, but it’s just made from half-square triangles, and those are points you don’t have to worry about matching!If you’re local, mark your calendar for April 13 for the next Scrap-along meeting. Oh, and it’s not a club you have to “join,” anyone can come any month. And if not, join us in making these scrappy projects anyway and post links to your photos!

So what’d we actually do at QuiltCon?…

Started architecture inspired quilts in class with Jacquie Gering. (Mine on L, Kathy’s on R.) Maybe we’ll share photos of our architectural inspiration once we make more progress on them.

Learned new techniques & designs on the longarm with the amazing Angela Walters.

While Kathy got to take a class with Yoshiko Jinzenji, I was in Denyse Schmidt‘s class learning that her improv method is not nearly what we all want to make improv quilting into. She is a true artist, and I’ve been thinking about what I learned in her keynote and in her class. At all times of the day, not just when quilting, I’ll find myself doing something a different way as I remember…  stop trying to control perfect outcomes, and be true to yourself.

QuiltCon was especially exciting because it was a totally new experience to see a quilt show full of quilts that I would have liked to make, instead of searching through a show for the very few quilts that truly call to my aesthetic.

This clamshell quilt, “Neutral & Neon” by Latifah Saafir, was one of my, & Kathy’s, favorite quilts of the show. Apparently we have similar taste! (I guess that’s how we so easily agree on what fabric to stock.)

And of course we ooh’d over the Denyse Schmidt exhibit, including some quilts we’d never seen before.

While the Modern Quilt Guild has been a huge force in making a new age of quilting more visible, we’re reluctant to always label everything as either “modern” or “traditional”.  The modern quilters seem to be becoming more traditional, and the traditional quilters are getting more modern, and we have a lot to learn from each other. As Jacquie Gering says, we should all just make what we love.

Of course, we can’t talk about QuiltCon without mentioning all the amazing food in Austin. Hello, food trucks galore! We love to shop & eat when we travel and Austin certainly didn’t disappoint. I overheard some ladies at the convention center talking about having spent an expensive cab ride finding some donuts they’d seen on Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives. So I had to butt in and ask them what it was. (Gourdough’s on 1st Street.) Thank goodness I did because these were the best donuts of all eternity. We just had to go back again before heading to the airport, and I’d go back to Texas just for that Airstream full of yummy. Ok, I’ll stop about the donuts. I guess the actual people in Austin were pretty great too

There are tons more photos of quilts from the show in our QuiltCon Flickr set. And to have us visit your guild for a presentation on what this whole “modern” thing is all about and what we can learn from it, email me.  Here’s to seeing you all at QuiltCon 2015!

Kathy

1. I don’t know any 80’s music. When the nineties came around and everyone
was reminiscing about the 80’s, I realized I hadn’t been paying attention.
2. I have a bionic device implanted in my hip. It delivers a medication, made
from the venom of the poisonous Magician Cone Snail, to a spinal chord
injury.
3. Martha Stewart would be envious of my green 1930’s kitchenware collection.
4. My first quilting friend was Barb, who I met online by signing up for a block
swap that she was organizing in 1996, a year before the internet became
the World Wide Web. She tutored me along for many months after that until
finally we had to meet up in person.
5. I sing tenor.

Jo

1. I’d rather dress like a kid.
2. I love Jack White. When I lived in NYC I found an old school chair on the
street, gave it a good Cloroxing, and covered it in images of Jack White. I left it in NYC when I moved but years later, my old roommate delivered it to me after keeping it through several cross-country moves. It now sits in my closet, which as it happens is the same size as my NYC bedroom.
3. I never get bored. If without internet, a sewing machine, books, or tv, I can people-watch forever. If there are no people, my brain never stops.
4. I’ve spent hours naked in public, in Korea at Jimjilbangs (traditional bath houses) with my sis-in-law. And loved it.
5. I am horrible at lying. Which I think also means I am horrible at acting.

See you in Austin!

But I’m always gonna have those UFO’s in one form or another, so Kathy & I decided to do it! We pulled up Bonnie Hunter’s Scrappy Trip Around The World tutorial and got going.  Kathy’s using some floral lawn from her stash, and sewing all her strips sets together first. I decided to use leftover strips from our Colored Pencils quilt, and add in some neutrals. Since I had so many strips already cut, mine were a bit smaller than the 2.5″ in the tutorial.  Here’s my test block:

While mom is more efficient with her chain piecing, I have to finish some blocks so I can see my progress. My first 9 blocks:

It makes me so excited, I may actually be able to finish it soon. I now have 4 more blocks than this. I can’t wait to see Kathy’s, hers is going to look pretty much the opposite of this.

There are nearly 1,000 people in the scrappy trip along Flickr pool, so I know some of you have made/are making one too… link us to pics of yours in the comments!

This also has us planning a Scrap Club at Suppose where we make scraps quilts and raid the shop’s scrap stash… anyone interested?

Here are just a few of the quilts Kaye shared with us, you can see more of her trunk show here. And listen ye good Kaffe fans! We are planning a Kaffe Club with Kaye, where she’ll walk us through making a stunning quilt with Kaffe Fassett fabrics over the course of several months. If this sounds enticing to you, please let us know by filling out this short form and we’ll keep you updated on when and how it will all be happening. So exciting!

Kaye said something that stayed with me, about any of us who think we’re not creative: “We were not born without creative bones in our body. We’re all creative if we just let ourselves be.” It’s true! Sometimes we just have to loosen up and allow ourselves to get a little weird.

If you’ve been to our shop and seen our wall of Kaffe fabrics, you know we love him. Can’t wait for Kaffe Club to start! If you’re interested and haven’t already, fill out this form to let us know your preferences for Kaffe Club:

Shelley pieced this quilt, and I quilted it with very simple horizontal lines that vary in width in each different fabric. We’re already thinking about what other color combinations we can make this quilt in. Choosing the fabrics might just be my favorite part of quilting.

There’s word that there will be a visit by THE Emily Herrick to a guild here in the Spring which will be opened up to the public, we’ll update as details progress!

This quilt has 18 different fabrics, and every one of them are included in our kits, along with the book. Click here for more info on the kit and to order.

We looove it when you come by to show off your handiwork. Bring what you’ve been making lately to the shop on your next visit, and we’ll feature your photo on the blog too!

We’re pretty happy it’s getting closer to sweater weather here, so we went Fall festive with our windows recently.

We used the Leaves Galore templates to cut leaf shapes from wool felt in autumnal colors, and chain-stitched them to create a curtain of falling fall leaves. These would be lovely as a garland on a fireplace, window, or wall, but I also think it would be fun to put up a leaf curtain, like a bead-curtain, in the doorway of a kid’s room or for a party.

Visit the tutorial to see full instructions on how to make your own leaf garland. If you think of  fun variation, let us know in the comments, and if you make one of your own, show it to us on Facebook or Flickr!

And here’s a few shots of recent quilts.

This one featured the Neptune fabrics, so I did watery quilting–bubbles and swirls.

Sneaking in some hearts…

Pebbles to push those triangles out.

This one is actually the back of the quilt. It was an especially fun one, the April wall-hanging from Calendar Quilts with a thread-doodling sort of style to complete the applique. (Here’s the front.)

Sometimes I actually get around to quilting our own shop quilts, too. This one is called Unfurnished, and has a bunch of Kona solids along with prints from Tufted Tweets, which Kathy pieced improvisationally. (There are kits too!)

I ended up quilting each wonky rectangle differently, and putting random stripes in the white space.

There are a bunch more photos in my Longarm Flickr pool. There’s good stuff to come too, we’ve got some Halloween quilts in the queue I’m excited about!