Quiltcon 2013: The Workshops

Can I just tell you that last week at Quitcon was such an amazing experience! I don't think I have ever really traveled by myself or gone to a conference that wasn't work related. It felt so selfish, but I now realize how important that can be. I get so overwhelmed with the day to day things that I forget to just enjoy life. Quiltcon was a time for me to be selfish on purpose, to focus on things I wanted to do and not be distracted by the little things. By far the biggest influence on me at Quiltcon was the opportunity to take workshops!

I have never been a take workshops person (from an educator this is hysterical I know). I just have never been interested in any of the classes at my local quilt shop. One of the main reasons I actually wanted to attend Quiltcon was because of the amazing Workshops.

I took an all day class on Thursday with Elizabeth Hartman of Oh Franson on Free Motion Quilting on your home machine. I love every aspect of the quilting process, but I had never taken a class. Elizabeth showed us some great techniques for quilting on a home machine, including quilting in quadrants and pulling not pushing your quilt. It was also great to just spend some time perfecting my techniques and trying some new patterns out. I don't often get time to just practice! And look at the fabulous free motion quilting swatches I made!

On Friday I took a morning class with Lotta Jansdotter on Textile printing. This was an incredibly creative and inspiring class. I really had the opportunity to create something new and fell in love with carving my own stamps and designing my own stencils. Lotta's design aesthetic (I feel so Project Runway saying that) is so clean and simple and translates well to block and stencil printing. I can't wait to carve some more stamps and get my son involved in the process.

Overall, these workshops alone were worth the trip to Quiltcon. I hope to continue blogging more about the experience and blogging in general about my crafts. I forget how important it is!

Organic Line Quilting

The front of my wonky star quilt.

I really love straight-line quilting, but it doesn't go with the wonky style of blocks that I have been drawn to lately. I discovered the concept of organic straight line quilting (tutorial at Tallgrass Prairie Studio) and fell in love! I've always been more of a free-motion stipple quilter, or a straight outline quilter. Organic line quilting takes the best of both worlds and combines them. My biggest concern was I would start skewing my lines and under up with more of an angle than I would like. I ended up using two entire spools of thread - but then again, this is one the biggest quilts I've made in awhile. Overall, I really liked the effect, and for the first time - I actually machine washed and dryed a quilt to make it all crinkly!

 

 

 

This is the back of my wonky star quilt.

Purple Mosaic Blocks

I had wayyyyy too much fun buying purple fabrics for my mosaic block! I cut up barely a third of it to pass out for the block swap. I may need to make another purple quilt :)

Mystery Quilts

One of my goals this year was to work on my UFOs (Unfinished Objects) that I had taking up space in my craft room. I started a Mystery Quilt over  years ago, and never really put it together. A Mystery Quilt is a great concept, and a perfect way to stretch your quilting skills. Some stores do Mystery Quilts, or even online magazines, but this Mystery Quilt was created by a member of my MIL quilt group. We were all given a list of all the fabrics we would need for the whole quilt and every month we would receive one step of the process, never really knowing what the end result would look like.  The goal is to finish each step every moth, so that at the end you have a finished quilt.

I came across the main pinwheel blocks a few months ago and decided to actually finish this project. Its funny to see how far I have grown in my piecing skills (or deteriorated, since they everything doesn't match well :)  I have to say I'm glad this was a Mystery Quilt, because I don't think I would have ever gotten this pattern knowing how many triangles I would have to make (I stopped counting after 300).

I hope to finish this up in the next few weeks. My quilt room is such a disaster I have moved my sewing machine to the dining room, and I think my husband would like the space back.