Taupe Spiderweb and some Step by Step FMQ

I had some help with my laundry  line photo shoot this morning.  He couldn't quite understand why it was harder to run through the folded quilt on the line now than an couple weeks ago (in my header pic), well dude, mommy quilted it.  It's heavy now and warm.  Once he found out it made a good tent, we had some fun.
I basted this huge thing last weekend, it's 85" x 101" and if you follow me on IG, you have seen that I've been staying up way too late at night to work on the quilting.  I put undulating S curves in the stars and organic-ish swirls in the spider webs, but then I was at a loss for what to do with the borders.  I flipped through Christina Cameli's Step by Step Free Motion Quilting and fell in love with the Filament pattern.  (why is it so easy to fall in love with quilt patterns?)
I practiced a bit on paper, crowd sourced my FMQ questions late last night on IG, tossed it around in my head til I figured it out and then I gave it a try.
Christina's instructions are so clear.  If you are stuck in your FMQ or scared to step out of your comfort zone, please pick up a copy of her book and give it a try.  There are something like 80 patterns in there.  Use one as is or alter it as you like.  That's what I did last week on a pillow cover.  I let George pick the pattern and then I tried it with spirals and squared spirals.  George approved.

I totally have a long way to go with my FMQ, but I'm definitely out of my rut.  I've got a pile of tops completed and all I want to do now is baste them so I can try out more cool things.  Summer vacation, you'll be here soon, right?

I wonder what Filament would look like done across an entire quilt....?

NYC Metro Mod Guild, June meeting

My Saturday Stitches program at the Rockville Center Library is on hiatus til the fall (check the events tab for October dates and a possible book signing in September), so I got to go to the NYC Metro Modern Guild meeting in Manhattan yesterday.

Wow, oh, wow.  I missed those quilters.  So much inspiration and laughter, and two full tables overflowing with free fabric (whoever thought of the swap table, omg, thankyou.  I made out with probably forty 1.5" snippits and crumbs.  Where I will use them, who knows, but they made me enormously happy).  Gotham Quilts also had a whole wall with fabric and patterns for sale and seeing as I don't live near any modern quilt shops, it was the first time that I've seen much of the newest fabrics all over Instagram in person.  I snapped up some Lizzy House Natural History prints.  I'd like for the tiny green dinosaurs to make it into Jack's big boy quilt, but I don't have much time to work on it now, so I hope by recording that note here, I'll remember when the time comes.

Here's a bit of show and tell, there will be more more (and more details) over on the guild's blog:

 Here's Bernadette and Lisa holding up the guild's group EPP project.  They started this in February 2014 (during my EPP workshop) and they've been cursing me ever since.  Hey guys, I told you it was an addiction...

Here's Karen and her big star quilt (long armed by Rachael Dorr) that I nearly spilled coffee on before show and tell.. thankfully it was protected in plastic.  Sorry again, Karen.

This absolutely awesome R2D2 quilt was made by Jackie.  The patter was in a magazine, but I didn't catch which one.  I'm sure the info will be on the guild blog.

 I brought my big taupe spiderweb as my show and tell and Jackie took this pic of me.  I tried to keep it quick because there were so many people on the show and tell list, but I could talk about this quilt for days.  In fact, I probably will.  It needs it's own blog post, that's for sure.

It was really cool to get into the city and get to enjoy a meeting.  I hadn't been to one since the fall.  I forgot how inspiring it is to actually be in the same room with quilters and their quilts.  Instagram is great, but now I see it's missing something.  I spent the last year focused on my own projects, first the book and then book-recovery sewing (finishing the spiderweb was a huge part of that for me).  I think I'm ready to re-enter quilting society.  I've missed my tribe.

And on that note, I have decided to revive the Monday Morning EPP linky party starting tomorrow.  If you've got some EPP you're working on, quick, take a picture and link up with us!  (flickr and instagram links are welcome.  Full blog posts are always nice too..)