Runaway Flowers

This quilt was featured in issue 16 of Quilt Now magazine (October 2015). I'm excited to see it all professionally photographed! Once it came home from the magazine it went on another trip - to be exhibited at International Quilt Festival Chicago! 

Runaway Flowers (Longarmed by T & F Quilting, Lemont, IL) 57” x 71”

Inspired by the stark, colors and shapes of graphic art, this piece was made as a challenge of my color choosing ability. I stretched my comfort zone to choose fabrics that reminded me of summertime. Like summertime, these colors remind me of popsicles, pure blue skies, and rich vibrant flowers. A play off the daisy-chains I wove as a child, the drunkard’s path blocks connect into flowers and create the basis of this light and airy summer quilt.

IQF used my quilt in the online promos! Way cool!

This quilt was shown at the International Quilt Festival 2016, 

Special Exhibits: Modern Quilt Guild, Drunkards Path.

Bohemian Friendship - Accepted for IQF Chicago!

I'm excited to announce that my Bohemian Friendship quilt has been accepted to the Modern Friendship Star Challenge for the International Quilt Festival - Chicago show! 

I'm really excited about this because this quilt is an important part of my quilting journey. While this quilt was finished nearly three years ago,, it holds a special place in my heart. First of all, this quilt has been kept - for some reason I think it should be a baby quilt for the baby that I haven't yet been able to have. That alone makes it emotionally important. But even more, this quilt came to be because of the extreme generosity of the modern quilting community. You can read more about that here and here. In short, the fabrics were sent to me from around the world - scraps - tiny, (almost) unusable scraps, but they were sent to me from friends who knew of my love for Anna Maria Horner fabrics. These were scraps from her very first fabric line (very very out of print/very hard to find). More so, I backed this quilt in silky smooth sari fabric that Shruti sent me. It's like one sweet hug from around the world!

Also - I'm demo-ing again in the Open Studios at IQF-Chicago! Come see me at the Quilt Studio Thursday, March 26th, 10am-12 for, and Friday, March 27th, 12-2pm for Foundation Paper Piecing. I'm really excited to be doing this for the third year in a row! It's always such a rush to teach and share with so many at this show! 

International Quilt Festival Chicago: Open Studios

What a weekend! Last weekend Chicago (Rosemont) played host to the International Quilt Festival! We're lucky to have the festival here this year and I was even luckier to be chosen to demo in the show's Open Studios. 

Open Studios was the place to find demos for all sorts of projects and techniques ranging from stitching / quilting / painting / embellishing. The demos were set up in two hour segments and on Friday I demo'd foundation paper piecing. 

As excited as I was about demoing I was also a little bit nervous. It all turned out great though. It was a really excellent experience! In the quilting studio there was a sewing machine available - and I had a bit of trouble getting it set up at the beginning of my demo time - thankfully my guild friend Sarah came to the rescue and fixed the presser foot / threading! (thanks Sarah!!)

The demo went really great. I had a lot of people stop by during the two hour demo, and they all seemed really responsive to paper piecing! Some couldn't believe how easy it is once you figure it out! 

I had an excellent experience demoing at open studios, and it makes me even more excited to get started teaching some classes. I hope that will happen soon. In the meantime I'll keep perfecting my skills! 

(Thanks to Emily B who took lots and lots of pictures on my camera while I demo'd!)

Quilt Festival Chicago! Modern Meetup & Demo-ing!

I can't believe how quickly this week has flown by! It's already Friday! I had intended to announce this earlier here, but better late than never! 

This weekend Chicago is host to the International Quilt Festival and we're so glad that it's come back to our city! As a way to encourage our guild members to attend the quilt festival, the Chicago Modern Quilt Guild has joined up with the Naperville Modern Quilt Guild to host a "Modern Meetup" Anyone interested in the modern quilt movement is invited to join us! We'll be meeting at the Rosemont Hilton, Liberty Bar, 7pm.

In other exciting news I'll be demo-ing at the Open Studios at the quilt festival tomorrow! If you're roaming around the festival between 4-6pm stop by the Quilt Studio - I'll be teaching about foundation paper piecing! I'm pretty excited about this! My bags are packed and I'm all ready! You can check out the schedule for the Open Studios here.

I hope to see you guys there!!