Twinkle, Twinkle

February's bee blocks both happened to be stars. For the Stash Bee, Em at Sewing by Moonlight requested any star using the colors green, blue and/or aqua and a non-white neutral background. I broke out my copy of Carol Doak's 50 Fabulous Paper-Pieced Stars and put it to work.

Suzy of the Hope Circle of do. Good Stitches asked for Starflower blocks following the tutorial at Ellison Lane. A nice benefit is that the tutorial results in two identical blocks. Instead of using a white background, Suzy had us use a text print, which created a nice effect.

I'm linking up with:

Los Colcheras Quilt Guild Show - Part I

The Las Colcheras Quilt Guild of Los Lunas, NM recently hosted a notable quilt show. You can see all of the quilts in my Quilt Show Gallery. 

Vicki Conley's Chain of Craters won Best Use of Color and Best Theme Quilt. The integration of a photographic image within a raw edge appliqué quilt was very striking. The sky created by tiny fused rectangles secured with a straight line of stitching on either side was an interesting technique with a modern feel.

Linda Gerritson's New Mexico Radiance has an intriguing contrast between subtle, saturated colors and bright colors.

Krystyna Swirydczuk employed a nice assortment of quilting designs in her "Over, Under & Around" first place winner.

I'll have more to share soon, so don't forget to check back.

Jacquie Gering's Log Cabin - Modern Makeover

This past Sunday, I was privileged to take a workshop hosted by the New Mexico Quilters' Association and presented by Jacquie Gering. Jacquie co-authored "Quilting Modern" and is the Chairwoman of the Modern Quilt Guild Board.

The class I attend was Log Cabin - Modern Makeover. I was impressed with Jacquie's skill at developing a wide variety of modernized variations on a traditional block. 

The elongated log cabin was one example. Jacquie's version is called "Not Lost in the Woods" and features a great woodgrain print on the back.

Scandia Crush and Orange Crush are examples of minimalist log cabin blocks. As Jacquie says, "It doesn't get more minimal than this (referring to the block consisting of a single square)."

Jacquie encouraged her students to explore improvisation. The "Anything Goes" block certainly captures this sentiment.

The air log cabin works negative space to its advantage.

While Jacquie's television quilt was a bit too whimsical to be included in her book, it does not change her affection for this clever design, and she has no regrets about the adorable antennas. 

The tunnel log cabin is stunning in its simplicity.

Who knew scraps could be so beautiful?

Jacquie even showed the group how to plan for the anticipated size of our blocks and to piece together blocks of varying sizes into a quilt top.

Under Jacquie's guidance, our group had a very productive day.

Jacquie's workshop was both fun and informative. I miss her already.

President's Quilt

This past year, I served as president of the New Mexico Quilter's Association. I'm not going to lie, there are some job perks. One of my personal favorites is that the ladies have a tradition of showing their appreciation by making a quilt for their leaders. I chose star blocks in red, pink, lime, aqua, and orange. Knowing the talent of the members, it comes as no surprise to me how beautiful it turned out. (Please excuse the accompanying dust ruffle.) It was quilted by Andra and set by Rosanne. Susan even bound it by hand. Hip Stich, our awesome local sewing lounge, generously donated the backing. I'm so lucky to have had the honor of working alongside such talented and generous women.

Trained Pattern Tester

I've been doing a little pattern testing for Ester of iPatch. She's working on a Chugging Along pattern that includes a locomotive, train station, passenger car, caboose, coal car, freight car, and water tower so far...

I couldn't resist, as my son is a major train fan. He has quite the Geotrax collection, and has been known to take up the entire living room floor with his tracks and such.

I've learned a couple things through testing paper-pieced patterns.
1. My printer thinks it knows more about paper-piecing than me, but it doesn't. This results in it printing at sizes other than 100% if I'm not careful about preventing this tendency. That's no fun for me, as it means pieces don't fit together or blocks aren't the size I intended.
2. Like babies, paper-priced blocks are all the more cute because of their itty-bitty components. However, this does mean adorable, tiny animal eyes or, in this case, train wheels can take a really, really long time to piece.

I'm still not certain if the rock fabric is too realistic in comparison to my other fabric choices. What do you think?

I have discovered that I would like to add some of the other blocks Esther has created to this train when the pattern is released.

I'm linking up with:

  

Happy Valentine's

I decided to get a little festive for the upcoming holiday. The appliqué robots came from the quilt pattern Robot Riot.

I'm linking up with:

        

UCMQG Medallion Quilts

During Quilt Bliss retreat, I attended a trunk show presented by the Utah County Modern Quilt Group.

Last year, they challenged themselves to create modern renditions of medallion quilts. I think each and every one is astounding!

To see more, check out their Flickr group.