QuiltCon 2015, Goodtimes!

What can we say about QuiltCon and Austin, Texas? It was the biggest ball of inspiration and love! The restaurants and food were amazing! Everyone we met was oozing inspiration and everything we saw was colorful, eyecatching and beautifully executed. Thank you for all the inspiration and encouragement we will try to put it all to good use!

Chelsey and I took some classes and learned lots of techniques for making our own fabric designs. Being in class with others is such a good experience: you learn so much not only from the teacher but from the other students as well.

Chelsey pulling paint over a screen.

Screen printing with Celina Mancurti

Mod Corage with Anna Maria Horner

Block Printing with Lizzy House

My carved block and test prints.

The lectures were abundant and the speakers were well prepared. The topics were relevant and every lecture we attended were full of great information. What a bonus and surprise to get so much encouragement and ideas for future projects.

The Art Of Teaching With Jacqui Gering

Social Media Lecture with Christen Barber

The vendor booths were full of inspiration, we love how the fabric houses draw you in with color and style!

Windham Booth

Cloud 9 Booth (NYC Metro Mod Guild made the HST Quilt!!!)

The quilts were so imaginative and unusual, I submitted a quilt that didn't make it in.  It was good to see exactly what got in, learn from what was hanging, and how to make the next quilt one they will accept!

We were lucky enough to travel with Helen at Till We Quilt Again! We had so much fun eating and learning our way through Austin. There was a (real)tattoo booth and plenty of tattooing going on!! We opted for the fake tats from C&T Publishing's booth and had tons of fun taking pics!

As you can see we had a great time. We even got to share what we learned in class with each other after delicious dinners out. So glad I got the opportunity to experience QuiltCon in Austin.

Go make something!

Nini~

Guild Challenges for Fun and Nurturing Creativity!

I belong to Camaco Quilt Guild and they held a challenge last spring: to make something that is 90% rectangles and it had to be quilted. Easy enough you would think.  I've always wanted to make a friendship braid quilt so I looked around and saw some good tutorials and ideas I liked.  I cut some fabric using the binding tool as my guide and started sewing it together, nice long rectangles! Then I looked up the definition of a rectangle and they have four 90 degree angles!!!!! As I sewed the braid together I realized there are corners that AREN'T 90 degrees!! Uh oooooh!

This is the binding tool I used for cutting the "rectangles".  As you can see, there aren't four 90 degree angles.

NOT 90 degrees!

90 degree angles!!!

I also belong to Jersey Shore Modern Quilt Guild who participated in the Michael Miller Challenge at  the same time, they gave us fat eights of Michael Miller fabrics to use, you could add any solid or Michael Miller fabric to make something, it had to be quilted were the only rules for MQG challenge.

Michael Miller Challenge Fabrics 

I thought I could make one project for both challenges until I realized the 90 degree angle problem. I had plenty of fabric for the Michael Miller Challenge, so I decided to use the friendship braid for that and I used the rest to zip up a zipper quilt for Camaco's challenge. Whew!! So glad that worked out!! I love the brightness and the color scheme for both.

Table runners for my porch, nice bright summer colors!

A little straight line quilting.

I hope this inspires you to go make something!

Nini~

1 Year of Quilting!

February marks one whole year since I began quilting!  I have learned so much more about fabric, thread, and sewing machines than I ever thought I would!

Table Runner - First completed quilt project!

Sailboats - Second Project

Some free motion quilting - Wicked Blog Hop

Quilted Mug Rug

Twin Sized Quilt - Quilted on a Long arm

Baby quilt from the book "Quilt Modern"

Love Swap - free motion quilted the three "loves" at the bottom

Quilt top made, not yet quilted

Huge thanks to my Momma, Helen of Til We Quilt Again, and my MomMom for teaching me the basics and helping me with any questions that arise.

Can't wait to see what lies ahead!

Here's to many more quilting years!

Wishing you big waves and an artful day,

~C