Thursday, September 20, 2012

Modern Quilting, Bright and Early

"It's 4:00 in the morning. Do you know where your Quilt is?"
Why yes, I do! Hanging out with 500 other quilts at the NW Quilting Expo in Portland, Oregon! There and well, there was the one covering me up until my alarm scared me into getting out from under it at 3:45am... But it was worth it! I got to be on KGW morning show with Heather and Jolene and talk about the Portland Modern Quilt Guild, Modern Quilting and joke with host Drew Carney for his Out and About show this morning.
TV spot!
That is me (left) and Jolene Knight (Good Knight Quilts) standing with Drew in front of Petra's (Sew Paint Create) lovely quilt. PMQG VP Heather (Joy of All Crafts) was taking the photo (Thanks Heather!) We were on for about thirty seconds, but it was fun to get to talk about Modern Quilting and promote our guild. One of our guild members, Cherri Langley won a ribbon for her 'How Many Stars?' quilt, quilted by the talented Nancy Stovall.
Cherri's Ribbon!
Her quilt was inspired by Elizabeth Hartman's Sparkle Punch Quilt and is just wonderful. Speaking of Elizabeth Hartman, you can still get a 25% discount on her Inspired Modern Online Quilting Class by clicking on the link. I had the opportunity to review her awesome class and am working on finishing my second project based on her Low Volume Tiles quilt.
I have a quilt in the show this year. 'Doll Quilt Revisited'. It was a super fun summer-long project that I look forward to writing about soon! Here is a photo of me standing in front of it.
Doll Quilt Revisited
And now for that second cup of coffee...

Saturday, September 15, 2012

More Craftsy Goodness and Good news

This just in! I just saw a facebook post for Craftsy's Endless Summer Sale All classes are on sale for $19.99! Did I say ALL CLASSES? Wow! The sale ends Monday, September 17th at midnight so don't wait! I think I might have to take Wendy Butler Burns Machine Quilting: Free Motion and More class. Which one do you want to take?

Craftsy's Endless Summer Sale

The other good news is that I just got my quilt back that I designed for the McCalls Quick Quilts October-November issue. I am planning to blog (as in brag!) about it next week. You don't mind, do you? I am really proud of this design and a little nervous to share it with you. It is what I like to call 'traditional with a twist.' It is not what I would consider modern or post modern for that matter, but I am excited to talk about my design process and get feedback.

For now I am going to enjoy this gorgeous day, pick some figs and apples from my trees and sneak in some sewing.
Michelle

Monday, September 10, 2012

Inspired Modern Quilts with Elizabeth Hartman and Craftsy

Online Modern Quilts Class
What a treat to get up this morning, take my daughter to school. take my dog for a walk and then take Elizabeth Harman's Inspired Modern Quilts class on Craftsy! The best part? I got to take this class on my computer at home with a latte and some fresh chocolate zucchini bread (courtesy of my good friend Tanya.) Life is good!

Many of my fellow PDX quilters have taken classes from Elizabeth but I never have. I have followed her blog, Oh, Fransson! for a few years now and have been in several presentations she has given for the Portland Modern Quilt Guild. I always learn something new from Elizabeth and this class proved to be no exception!

The length of the video is around three hours. During each 20- 30 minute class I found myself thinking (more than once,) "but wait, there's more?" There is so much packed into those three hours! The ten lessons, including how to create a design wall and pressing board, great information on how to select fabrics for your projects and the seven patchwork projects are worth every penny (I seriously think this class should cost more!)

My favorite project by far was the Low Volume Tiles Quilt. Two friends of mine are having twins this winter and I thought this would be a great project to make for the four babies. With this clever design I could highlight a different color solid for each child. I also just got a package of low volume fabrics from the Big Ten Inch Swap run by Monica Nauart who blogs at Button Counter. The only challenge was that these fabrics were all 10" x 10" cuts. I decided I could change the measurements from Elizabeth's original pattern which used a larger size to start with. There were a few math problems to solve before I cut into my stack, but I made some quick design decisions and went for it. Here is the layout I decided on.
low vol layout

If you take this class you will notice I also eliminated a row. I didn't want to make the strips smaller than 1 1/2". This was a tip from Elizabeth from a different project and I thought it was sound advice. I also planned to work with a few less fabrics than Elizabeth's original design which would yield three less blocks in my finished version. It didn't take long to cut the pieces -- Elizabeth gives very thorough instructions in her class and it was fresh in my mind from just having watched it. Also, once you take any class on Craftsy it is yours forever. This is really cool - it never expires! I could watch it again as many times as I needed to. The written instructions are clear and easy to follow as well. They are in a downloadable pdf format and I had them up on my desktop to refer to as I worked.

low volume tiles quilt wip

I got as far as cutting all the pieces and laying them out on my design wall. I am really excited to finish this project and make it's 'twin'. I love how the low volume green and blue fabrics do their job and make the solid blue really vibrate in the composition. I was worried that they weren't neutral enough to get the same effect as Elizabeth had in her grey and yellow sample, but the beauty of Elizabeth's designs is that there are so many ways to create variations! She does a great job of showing this concept in her class, which is something I enjoy about her books as well.

Low Volume Tiles Quilt Layout

One thing I will add about the Inspired Modern Quilts class is that it is somewhat cumulative. Elizabeth shares so many useful tips and techniques through out the class but if you start in the middle you might miss some really great stuff. One of my favorite things I learned today was a technique she showed for cutting matching angles during her Wonky Log Cabin Quilt. And she introduced a product in the Clementine Applique lesson that I had no idea even existed. I won't spoil it too much, but she does get points for saying the word 'lubrication' in a quilting video (sorry, had to go there!)

Well, if you have made it to the end of my super long post (seriously I could write another thousand words on this class!) I am happy to remind you that you get 25% off this class if you sign up from the link at the beginning of this post. This will be available until the end of next month, so I hope treat yourself to this class. You will be happy that you did!

Friday, September 7, 2012

Back to School Craftsy Style!

With all the excitement about going back to school I decided to enroll in a few classes too. We recently had a presentation at the Portland Modern Quilt Guild about the on line classes at Craftsy and I got inspired! I am going to take Elizabeth Hartman's Modern Quilting class on Monday. You might know Elizabeth from her popular quilting books The Practical Guild to Patchwork and Modern Patchwork. She is also a founding member of our quild.
I'd love for you to join me so we can have a fun chat about it! Here is the link to sign up.
Online Modern Quilts Class
I also am happy to tell you that anyone who signs up from this post gets a 25% discount on the class. How cool is that! Craftsy has a ton of really great online classes and it is free to join. Hope some of you will join me over there!
I am planning to take the class first thing on Monday morning and I will write about it and post my thoughts and blocks I make on Tuesday. I pulled all my fabrics and am looking forward to going to class in the morning!

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

And the winner is...

Comment 10, Connie!

Congratulations Connie who writes the blog Freemotion by the River and thank you to everyone who commented and participated in this giveaway. It was super fun to read all your comments over the last week. It took a while to delete all my replies so I could get an accurate count to put in the random number generator (oops! I'll know for next time!) and the final count was 104!
I will be sending Connie this collection of Pendleton Eco-wool scraps from my Go-Retro quilt that is in the Winter Woolen Issue of Stitch Magazine. And she gets a copy of that magazine too!

And this is exciting -- the Pendleton Woolen Mill Store has generously put together a few kits with all the fabrics you need for this project for -- wait for it -- $55! That is less than a yard of Eco Wool! And if that wasn't good enough, they are putting it on sale TODAY for their annual Fall fabric sale, so it will actually be 40% off and only cost $35. Thats really affordable! Whoot Whoot! They ship anywhere too, and they also carry Stitch Magazine there!
I am looking forward to chatting with all the new happy campers who joined my site. I have hopped over to many of your blogs and have had fun exploring them. Well, off to finish sewing a project for the spring issue of Stitch! After I go get something I forgot to pick up last trip to the fabric store. Typical me!
Have Machine, Will Travel,
Michelle