A Day with Jacquie Gering!

As many of you quilt blog readers are aware, today marks the set-up and preview for this weekend's International Spring Quilt Market 2013, here in Portland, OR. Which of course means that professionals from around the world – designers, distributors, shop owners, fabric manufacturers and teachers – have descended on the Rose City (a.k.a Stumptown, Rip City, PDX) for a full weekend of shopping, ogling, and meet & greets.

Spring Market consists just of the trade show, whereas the Fall Market in Houston is a week long festival with quilt show and classes in addition to the closed trade show. However, apparently if you have the right timing and the right space a local shop can luck out and get some of the visiting teachers to do a class while in town. Modern Domestic did just that, arranging one class with Jacquie Gering and two classes with Carolyn Friedlander, bookending the official Market events.

And pretty much as soon as I was made aware of the fact that Jacquie would be teaching a class here in town, I marched on out to Modern Domestic to sign up! And SO glad I did!!​

I was first aware of her work maybe a little over two years ago, seeing some photos online and catching a glimpse or two at her blog, Tallgrass Prairie Studio.​ At the time she was the president of the Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild, and just before she relocated to Chicago one of our Portland local designers, Susan Beal, made a trip out to KC to promote her then newly published book Modern Log Cabin Quilting. During that trip Susan organized a pot holder swap between the KCMQG and the PMQG. And lucky me, the person who drew my name from the hat was Jacquie!

She did her research and matched the colors of my kitchen to a tee! AND, these are no pot holders... I have one lovely table-topper and two generously sized trivets! And I love them all!​

Now to the class. Those of you who periodically read my blog probably know that I am no stranger to improv piecing. But one of my hang-ups is simplifying.​ I tend to take the same approach I do with more traditional scrappy piecing and pull as many fabrics and prints that I feel work within the palette range and often end up using everything I pull. This class was centered around Jacquie's "Slice and Insert" technique, creating compositions of clean backgrounds broken up by linear strokes in a dynamic, graphic, uncomplicated way. It's that last one that always evades me! So this was a good exercise for me!

A few days ago I posted a photo of my fabric pulls to take to class:​

It was good to have so many options to work with, but I definitely learned a little about editing while in the class. I didn't touch most of those oranges, and only used 2 of the navy background fabrics (so far).​

​my blocks from the first 2/3 of the 6 hour class.

And it was also great to see what the other folks in the class were creating! So helpful and interesting to see how others interpret the same instructions and technique.​

​Kathy's blocks

​Cathy working on her blocks, with Rachel's to the left

​Jen's on the left, Jenny's on the right. I LOVE what both of them created!

​Jacquie demoing the impact of different backgrounds on Suzanne's project.

Not wanting to over work my project I jumped in on a second set of blocks for the last hour or so of the class. ​

I have to say that this was such a treat for me! There's nothing better than getting to spend a day learning a new approach to something you love, taught by a truly lovely, easy-going person with an extremely creative vision. Thank you for your time and your insight, Jacquie!

Jacquie will also be tonight's featured guest speaker at the PMQG monthly meeting at PNCA, to which I am very much looking forward. A great start to the upcoming weekend, if you ask me!!

A Flash of Blue, or Green, or Something

I think I shared this photo a little while ago (or one similar)...​

I've since edited out quite a few of those fabrics, added new ones and started building the individual units.​

And thank goodness for design walls!​

​A test arrangement

​But thinking I'll move back to a more fluid arrangement

Like so many projects, this may very well go through a few more incarnations before I start piecing the blocks together, but I am happy with where it seems to be headed. Hopefully I'm capturing what my brother and (future) brother-in-law were envisioning for their friends.

Revving up for Market

Okay, maybe I'm just revving up for events throughout the next week surrounding Spring Quilt Market which is happening here in Portland this year!​ A friend who had helped with the set-up 5 years ago when Spring Market was last held here asked if I'd like to join her this time around - which includes a free pass to the trade show. Unfortunately it does not look like we got a shift this time around, but I have generously been granted credentials from Marie, so I'll hopefully be able to sneak a peek at some point next weekend when I am not helping out at Cool Cottons.

But there are really two things in particular that I am very much looking forward to. First off - getting the chance to take a class with Jacquie Gering of Tallgrass Prairie Studio, coauthor of the book Quilting Modern, and I believe one of the founding members of the KCMQG.  She will be a guest teacher at Modern Domestic while here in town, teaching her "Slice and Insert" improvisational quilting technique. This is the first quilting class I've signed up for in several years, not including the week long Jane Sassaman workshop I attended with my mom last summer in Greenville, NY. I find her work so inspiring, and am eager to get the chance to spend the day in this class! I've begun pulling some fabrics to use during the class, but may very well change my mind before next Wednesday...

​I'm thinking the navy will be background with the oranges and periwinkle as the slices and inserts. Any suggestions?

And part two of the weekend's fun surprises is that I get to meet someone who's become an online friend over the last few years. Jenn, a.k.a. Sunny, an amazingly creative and generous gal who pulled together an online quilting bee for modern quilters several years ago, one which I was SO fortunate to become involved with starting in 2011 and have continued to take part in the follow-up years. Granted, 2 of the 3 quilts I've gotten out of the deal are still in progress, but it's without a doubt been one of the most gratifying experiences I've had in the online quilting community to date.

​From the 2011 Seams Perfect folks

​2012's Friends + Fabric Bee results

​I still have a way to go for this, but it's still 2013, so I'm not TOO far behind... and this round of F+F is still going on!

Is anyone else out there headed to good ol' Stumptown for Spring Quilt Market? I know there's going to be a Happy Hour meet up at Modern Domestic on Friday evening, and I am sure other ​social events as well. It would be so cool to meet some other visitors to our fair city, either while I'm behind the counter at Cool Cottons on Friday and Saturday or at other events. Give a shout-out!

Quilts for Boston

There is no doubt that we are all acutely aware of the terror that was felt 2 weeks ago today as two bombs went off near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. And as a community who jumps in and lends a hand in whatever ways we can, the quilting community has been abuzz with its response.​

The Boston Modern Quilt Guild initiated a block drive to collect quilt blocks in the official colors of the marathon (blue, yellow, grey and white) to be made into quilts and distributed to victims and families directly affected by the bombings that morning. For those curious about how you may become involved, please visit the guild's blog post, linked here. Essentially, they are asking quilters to donate blocks measuring 12.5" tall (by whatever length you desire) unfinished made in the colors stated above, sent to them by May 24. They are also inviting any donations of yardage or fabric suitable for bindings, sashings and backings.

I figure this is a way I can lend a hand from 3000 miles away, and not only show love and support for an amazing city and landmark in our history, but for the endurance and strength of all the first responders on scene and the people there who worked so hard to be a part of the marathon and came together in the face of what happened to hold each other up and keep moving. I am sure many of us (myself included) had friends AT the race that morning and felt the fear as well.

So let's channel that into making something warm and unifying!​

To see many, many more blocks going into this project, made by dozens, if not hundreds, of other quilters, take a look at the Flickr group set up for them. It's an inspiring sight.

​I've just got a couple blocks made so far, but plan to continue to churn a few more out in the next couple of weeks in between other projects. I'm looking forward to having a sizable packet to send off to Massachusetts before the May 24th deadline. If any Portland local quilters are doing the same and want to drop off their blocks with me to send all together, I'd be happy to post them all, just message me!

WIP Wed. - 4/24/13

​I am happy to report that I actually got my butt to the studio EVERY day last weekend - and my definition of weekend here is Thursday through Sunday. Yay me! So that also means that I have a few things to share from this past week :-)

New:​

There's a new Pillow Talk Swap under way on Flickr, and I've decided to throw my hat in the ring for this round.​ I've only participated in one other round of this swap, maybe 2 years ago, and received one of the best swap items that have come my way, pictured here. And on a sweet little turn, though this is an international swap, my pillow-fairy was a local quilter whom I have since gotten to be friends with thanks to the Portland Modern Quilt Guild (I still love this pillow, Brittany!)

It looks like you've seen this before, but really you haven't (unless you were at the PMQG meeting last week). In the neon challenge we were given the option to either do a block to go into a group quilt (or quilts), OR to make an item that we could keep. I chose to make that iPad cover, but was asked if I could make a similar block for the quilt, too. I have trouble saying "no" sometimes. I wish I would have had more of the polka dot to work with, but other than that I was happy to oblige. 

In Progress:​

Made a couple more samples for next month's Simply Solids - Falu block, blogged about in my previous post here.​ I can already tell I'm gonna be happy with this one!

Got this quilt top finished. I'm hoping to quilt it around the same time as my "By Air, Land or Sea" quilt. Now that I've begun organizing my strip scraps I had fun using selective colors for the piano key rows!​

And speaking of strip scraps... I started putting together strip sets and testing out some triangle units for this wedding quilt commission. I've got a long way to go here, but it will be an inspiring journey I have no doubt!​

​Quilting by Jolene Knight of Good Knight Quilts.

And last Thursday night I received this quilt back from Jolene Knight, a fellow PMQG member and longarm quilter (click the photo above to see her website). This is the first quilt I've had someone else quilt for me in several years, and I couldn't be happier with the results! (There will be a dedicated post about this in the next couple of weeks, I promise). I managed to get this 72" x 90" quilt trimmed and just bought fabric for the binding yesterday.​

AND I am ticking more quilt tops off my list of needing quilting... revisited a classic quilting stitch that I haven't used in a long, long time – the good, ol' meander.​ That said, let's move on to the last category...

Completed:​

Phew! It's in the washing machine as I type this post. I actually marked the quilting lines on this one! (another thing I haven't done in ages)​

and two more sets of pot holders.​

No Progress:​

navy/beige HST

Design Camp 2 Improv quilt

By Air, Land or Sea

Dollhouse quilt

and there are probably others I just can't think of right now...​​

Thanks for taking the time to visit, and please be sure to pop over to Lee's blog Freshly Pieced to see a whole lot more inspiring and motivating posts linked up!​

Another Bee, Another Block

May is my month to host the Falu circle of the Simply Solids Modern Bee.​

When I first signed up for the bee I was intrigued, but unsure what I would want to request for my own quilt. Then I saw this quilt in progress, by ​{thriftomancer} on Flickr. (she has since finished the quilt top which can be found in her blog, I Like String. I've actually included both shots in my inspiration mosaic for next month.)

​sample photos of quilts and blocks made by other quilters. Click this photo to see the link in my Flickr photostream with the source links attached.

There is no question that I am a fan of the quarter log cabin block. I've made several from a more limited palette, using a pattern in Judy Hopkins' book Big 'n Easy: Supersized Quilts for Queen Beds.​

But this one already has a totally different feel to it!​ And I am excited to see what the other bee-mates add to the mix!

This bee offers a couple of different approaches the "Queen Bee" may use on her month. One may send out fabric to the other people in the circle, thus keeping a cohesive palette in one's quilt; OR one may ask the other bee mates to work from their own stashes, in which case ​you have no control over color selection, and the block size is limited to 12 1/2" square.

And I am so behind door #2! Only one of the many online bees that I have participated in over the last few years has NOT been a stash-based bee.​ And it's not that I have a problem investing in the fabrics for my quilts (as many can attest!) but part of my enjoyment from these online bees is getting a taste of the other folks' tastes.

So to the members of Simply Solids Falu, bring on your quarter log cabin blocks! As scrappy wild or sedate as suits you. They'll all be beautiful and find a place in this quilt-to-be!

A neon anachronism

Is it wrong to be channeling my '80s pre-teen and teen years while making an iPad cover?​ Back in a time when Atari and Apple II were the height of consumer electronics and Cyndi Lauper, Boy George and George Clinton all had hair in these colors? (Okay, so George Clinton's hair doesn't narrow down the decade, but you all get my drift, right?)

Michael Miller Fabrics is joining with Portland Modern Quilt Guild to do another challenge, akin to the Cotton Couture block challenge from last year.​ This year it's to introduce their new (or upcoming?) neon fabric line. And WOW! These guys are true to their word... especially that yellow, just seems like it could be bottled up and set in a window to attract visitors!

​the initial swag

​Each of the due-paying members of PMQG who wished was generously given a stack of 10 fat eighths with which to work, combining both the new neons and a few neutral solids from MM's cotton couture line. We were asked to either make a quilt block to be judged and potentially included in a group quilt for future display as a Michael Miller promo, or we could opt to make an accessory or item, as long as it incorporates both patchwork/piecing and some quilting.

I thought about what I might make for just a couple of days. For some reason making a quilt block just didn't appeal to me - I knew I wanted to come up with a thing to make.​ But what? I don't know why the iPad cover hit me, but it seemed like a good way to use these fun fabrics in a self-contained project that I might actually USE.

I started by mapping out general ​dimensions and thankfully was able to put this together without buying ANY extra supplies... well, that's not quite true, unless I want to use ugly beige velcro as the closure I do need to buy a cute button and some round elastic or something. Details, details. I had just about 1/3 yard of Timtex on hand, and as I was going through the process I would probably have preferred Craft-Fuse, but this worked just fine with a little basting around the edges along with the "back" and the fleece or batting all sandwiched.

As for the design, I knew I wanted to go more or less improv style with the bolder fabrics slashing across the grey polka dots. I had to mix it up a little bit to make sure the fat eighths would last. I'm glad I was working within that constraint, because I am really happy with what came out of it!​

And on the "inside" I went simpler, since 1/3 of it would be covered by the device anyhow, but still had fun playing around. And I actually think I'll be glad I chose to use the orange for behind the iPad... it's not blinding, nor is it such a contrast to mess with the light or reflections near the screen.​

One of the biggest challenges was doing the outside edge joining all of the layers, plus the elastic strips and then flipping it right side out with that long piece of Timtex inside. I had to just bite my lip, smoosh it up and force it through the opening in the hopes that I didn't mess up its stabilizing effect.​

As you can see, it definitely got a little distorted in the process, but not to fear! Once I flattened out those outside seams and top stitched around the edges it was apparent that with the addition of the quilting I'd have a flat, secure cover. At least I was keeping my fingers crossed that that would be the case! My test run...

So on with the quilting!​

I knew I wanted to try something geometric and graphic that would not necessarily follow the improv piecing but emulate some of the shapes and designs from that decade of my youth. Hope I did justice to that idea.​

And all together...​

I have to admit, I am actually much happier with the outcome than I ever thought I would be. I may actually carry this thing around with me and be proud! How could I have just skimmed this trend back in the day only to be pulled into it at this age?!? I'm craving my earth tones now, let me tell you!

FAL Q2

Let's do this! Finish-A-Long, Q2 is just about to get underway at She Can Quilt, and what's the worst that can happen? That I maybe don't finish something? Unheard of! I'm sure that's never happened to any of us, right?​

I mean, that's never scared us off from trying. That's what I meant to say... So as we enter into the second quarter of 2013 how will it differ from the first quarter? Let's see...​ Well, for one I'm not starting out with any pot holders in progress. You'll thank me later ;-)

1.​ & 2.

​By air, land or sea.

​A modern crib quilt (I believe)

I'm going to sandwich, quilt and bind a couple of different kids quilts whose tops are already pieced.​

3.​

I WILL finish this little guy! As I think I've mentioned before, I got hung up on the quilting since I decided to quilt in circles, but I just need to persevere and get it done.​

4.​

​The tea cozy that ate the PNW

​I've unsewn the binding and corner seams as documented here, but it's long past time to cut this thing down to size and finish it up again so it can go live in the home for which it was intended. LONG past time, so this is a must-do for me!

5.​

​Michael Miller neon solids, dots and some Cotton Couture.

​The details are in the details...

These are for a guild challenge in conjunction with Michael Miller Fabrics. Check out those neons! I don't know if this is technically considered a current WIP as I have prewashed the fabrics and have a sketch done but haven't begun any cutting or sewing. 

And if I'm really, really ahead of the game:​

6.​

​Encapsulated, from a class with Lee Fowler over 6 years ago now.

One of these days I will quilt and finish this piece. And when better to do it than in the next 3 months? At the very least I just bought enough batting to tick this one off along with the others mentioned earlier in the post, so that's something, right?​

I think that should cover me for a while. Now, don't be surprised if you see other projects hopping in from time to time. That's just the nature of the game and I don't know how to play any other way. But perhaps when June rolls around I'll be able to post each and every one of these projects in a mosaic saying, "Look what I finished!!!​" So to start that out I'm going to link up on Leanne's blog with the rest of the self-challengers for Finish-A-Long, Quarter 2!