I leave for QuiltCon tomorrow, and I am so excited to go! I feel a little bad I signed up for so many classes...I was one of the lucky ones that was able to get into all their classes before the registration site crashed last summer. But I am so ready to LEARN all the things! One of the classes I'm taking is called "You Do the Math!" to do the math for quilt patterns. I have a couple ideas that I would love to get written up for my next pattern, but I've been struggling with how I want to break up the quilt into easier blocks to make. All of these classes are taught by some really awesome instructors, so I'm going to need to control my fangirling. Hopefully I will still have time to go look at all the awesome quilts and the vendor show. I'm actually tempted to bring some of my books to see if I can get them signed. The only issue: books are heavy! Next year is QuiltCon West so the chances of me getting my sister to come join me should be higher. (Hey Jie, *nudge nudge *wink wink, mark your calendar for this time next year!)
This past week I have been working really hard to get things done before leaving. I have been obsessed with the Chic Country quilt so my goal was to finish making the white centered blocks. I overachieved and got all the blocks done! I just need to sew them together into rows then the quilt. This is such an amazing quilt, I LOVE IT! I will be so ready to bring this to next year's Winter Quiltfest to share. I took the photo before I realized the top-right corner piece was rotated incorrectly; it'll be fixed when I sew the row together.
I caught up on the Modern Building Blocks Quilt Along by completing 8 blocks. Too bad with QuiltCon I'll get behind again. @kupitis is also going to QuiltCon so I'm hoping to meet her in person too! 😀 Have I mentioned how excited I am yet?
Block 38 - This block is the same as Block 41
Block 44 - Divide the block into a 4 grid and press seams in alternating directions
Block 16 - Seam direction don't really matter
Block 18 - Divide the block into a 9 grid to press seams in alternating directions
Block 48 - This block is the same as Block 35
Block 33 - Divide the block into a 4 grid to press seams in alternating directions
Block 12 - Divide the block into a 9 grid to press seams in alternating directions
Block 14 - This block is very similar to Block 9, just with different dimensions in the center
This past week's Quilter's Planner Block was the Irish Rose Chain By Shelly Folkerts of The Carpenter’s Daughter Who Quilts. This block used a foundation paper piecing method for the Half Square Triangles (HST). I never really understood why anyone would use paper piecing to make HSTs. I kept an open mind and used it for this block, and low and behold, I fell in love with it! I can definitely see how it's much faster for sewing HST if you need to make a lot at one time. Quilting and What Not has HST paper you can print in multiple sizes.
I deviated from my plan of what I was going to do this week. I didn't actually work on the America's Garden Quilt this week. I instead decided to finally make a Farm Girl Vintage Layer Cake Block for my sister for her birthday in March! This block was released on the one year anniversary of the Farm Girl Vintage book by Lori Holt. It is so cute and darling! The one difference I made from her tutorial on her site was I did not press my seams open. All my seams were pressed to one side, typically to the piece that has the least number of seams.
I also finished my Starkiss Pillow top. This was another project from Winter Quiltfest 2017. It is also going into my ever-growing stack of to-be-quilted items! Someday I will need to hunker down and quilt up all these tops that need to be quilted! Hopefully QuiltCon will help me feel more comfortable with Free Motion Quilting. I will need to do some sort of personal challenge of daily FMQ practice, maybe I'll do that next month!
2/21-2/28 Weekly Goal:
Available time for quilting:
QuiltCon
Projects I want to work on:
QuiltCon Classes
Goals for the Projects:
Have Fun at Class!