Quilt-achusetts

I'm very excited to share that the Modern Quilt Guild's book Modern Quilts for a New Century is now available to purchase !! Inside you will find more than 200 beautiful modern quilts curated by Riane Menardi, Alissa Haight Carlton and Heather Grant.  I'm completely honored to have my quilt, Modern Stepping Stones, included among so many other breath taking quilts.   When I designed Modern Stepping Stones I wasn't sure who I was as a quilt designer and only knew that I liked clean geometric designs but being fairly new to quilting I clung to the idea that quilts needed to be made up of blocks and grids. Then I stumbled across a pillow at West Elm that featured a circle bisected by a long rectangle and thought to myself, 'I could make quilt like that.' From there I ditched the grid and designed a my first quilt as though the entire surface was a canvas.   Since then Modern Stepping Stones has been on quite the journey. It was accepted into t

Cheryl Brickey , Meadow Mist Designs , is hosting a Best of Linky Party to wrap up 2017.  I joined in last year and really enjoyed reading all the post and I've chosen my five favorite finishes for my best of 2017: 1.  Bananas for Ananas This quilt was designed by me and bound by me so I was in charge of the beginning and end but the quilt was a group project for your guild and this year's raffle quilt, tickets still available, wink wink.   This made my top five favorites because of how great all our guild members were and how we all put so much work into making this amazing quilt. 2.  All's Fair in Love and Board Games   This quilt is in the top five because of the back story, game nights with my friends.  There's some pretty awful shadowing in this quilt that kept me from entering it in QuiltCon but I'm going to remake it in 2018. 3.  Misprint I designed this quilt and almost a year ago and even though I really liked it I kept

Living in the Northwest I've experienced a handful of earthquakes.  Most small but some a little larger.  The last one was a 4.6 magnitude earthquake in 2011 that woke me up.  The largest earthquake I experienced was a 6.8 magnitude earthquake while I lived in Seattle back in 2001.  My personal memories of these earthquakes aren't as poignant as the memory of my mom telling me a story from her childhood in Western Washington when she was in school and there was an earthquake.  She turned around in her desk to see the girl sitting behind her and she was physically higher than my mom as the earth rolled under them.  I can never forget the first time I saw pictures of the aftermath of the Great Alaska earthquake in 1964.  I especially remember seeing a picture where a road was shift a good 4-6 feet like it was a town piece of paper.  That's where I started when I designed this quilt, Tectonic Shift. Tectonic Shift (60" x 72") I'm very excited to share th

The last time I made a quilt without a deadline was my Balance and Fade quilt in July.  It was also the last time I designed and created a quilt for no other purpose than the joy of the process... until now.  Here's my Stratagem quilt! Stratagem Quilt The inspiration for this quilt came from a Parcheesi game board and the first time I saw Parcheesi was on Christmas morning so the timing of this finish couldn't be more perfect. My dad got my sister and I a board game a piece for Christmas one year when we were kids.  She got Parcheesi and I got Tripoley.  Upon opening the gift I was very unappreciative, teasing my dad for picking such an "uncool" gift but after a bit of persuasion we played Parcheesi and had a blast.  We eventually played Tripoley and it was a great too. As you can see from the game board above the overall design of the quilt meant only to capture the feel of the Parcheesi board and not be a literal representation but the quilting p

  Several weeks back Christa Watson ( www.christaquilts.com ) asked me if I'd be interested in participating in a blog hop and giveaway for her debut fabric line Modern Marks by Benartex .  I couldn't believe it, I'd been eyeing Christa's fabric line via Instagram and her blog dreaming about how I can use them in a quilt design and now I had an amazing opportunity to do just that. Modern Marks by Christa Watson I set out at once playing with quilt designs and in the end I settled on a sampler styled quilt featuring many of the prints.  When I got my hands on the Modern Marks fabric the first thing I noticed was how bright and saturated the colors were and then secondly what great quality the fabric was and how easy it was to work with. When I started quilting my design I couldn't help but smile when seeing these colors under my needle.  They're just so cheerful.  I also wanted to try some phantom shapes in a few areas of the quilt, it was

I wasn't able to attend Quilt Festival and I'm hoping next year I'll be able to make it but I did have two quilts in two separate showcases at the show.  Both my Urban Trek quilt and my City Planner Quilt were in Houston and through social media I was able to see my quilts. First up, Urban Trek (I hope you're not getting tired of seeing this quilt): Urban Trek was hanging in the Modern Quilt Guild showcase.  For more details on the showcase please check of Whole Circle Studio's blog post .  Sheri was also kind enough to send me a picture of my quilt.  Sheri's quilt Road Work was also in the showcase. Urban Treak - MQG Showcase Quilts, Inc. offered a quilt appraisal for quilts in the show, for a fee, and I elected to have Urban Trek appraised so I could have an idea of what the monetary value of my quilts are, mainly for shipping insurance purposes.  It looks like Julie of Balzer Designs (a fabulous artist) may have caught the appraiser in ac

I read an excellent blog yesterday by Yvonne Fuchs ( www.quiltingjetgirl.com ) listing the quilts she's entering into QuiltCon 2018.  I was particularly intrigued by her Transparent Ribbons entry, both of them, because they are the same design but one is in solids and the other in Christa Watson's Modern Marks prints .  It will be interesting to see what the jury does.  They are both so different I'm guessing they will both be accepted.  Yvonne also encouraged other bloggers to share their QuiltCon entries and I loved the idea so here they are. 2018 QuiltCon Submissions This year the Modern Quilt Guild changed some of the rules for entering quilts in QuiltCon which meant I needed to to change my entry strategy.  I originally entered 10 quilts but decide to withdraw 5 after submission, more on that later.  Here of the five that I still have entered. Urban Trek - Modern Minimalism I had no doubt that I would enter this quilt.  It's my favorite mak