QuiltCon 2019

If you follow us on Facebook, you already know that we attended QuiltCon last week in Nashville, TN and have shared many pictures of the quilts.  QuiltCon is the annual quilt convention of The Modern Quilt Guild. We attended our first QuiltCon in 2017 in Savannah, GA; this was our first visit to Nashville. The winter storms brought significant rain so the weather wasn't great, but it finally stopped and the sun came out on Sunday which we saved for sightseeing.

This was a welcome sign in the airport.  We took an Uber to our downtown hotel which was just a couple of blocks from the convention center and Country Music Hall of Fame.

The front side of Music City Center was designed to resemble a guitar - you can kind of see that here.  (Apologies for the thumb blocking the corner.)  In this post we'll try to give you a feel for a mix a quilts and some of the sights around Nashville.

The Best in Show quilt above is called Smile by Leanne Chahley of Alberta, Canada.  The blocks were made by members of her international quilting bee, who she asked to make colorful improv blocks.  She quilted it herself on a longarm, and says it never fails to make her smile.

Burst, by Marge Tucker of Norwell, Massachusetts, is the winner of Best Machine Quilting done on a frameless, needle stationary machine (domestic or mid-arm).  She challenged herself to improvisationally piece Dresden plate blocks.  The half Dresdens are completed by the quilting in the border. The mosaic look is the result of using the gray background in the center and layering it over navy blue which makes the seams stand out.

The Modern Drunk is by Jodi Robinson of Enon Valley, Pennsylvania.  It is the winner of Best Machine Quilting done on a framed machine where the needle moves (longarm).  This is her modern interpretation of the traditional Drunkard's Path block.  She wanted to create quilting that creates movement, in this case radiating from the center.

On Thursday evening we met friends for dinner at BB King's Blues Club, which was a great recommendation and one of the highlights of the trip.  We were treated to live music by the Mike Hayes Band and they were fantastic!  If you want a sampling, Google "Mike Hayes musician" and give a listen. Have you ever seen anyone play guitar behind their back?

The AT&T building is the tallest in Nashville and it's twin peaks can be seen from anywhere.  It is fondly referred to as the bat building.

One of the corner bars contains a very large mural of Legends of Country Music - here is just a portion of it.  How many legends do you recognize?

On our Sunday tour, we visited the former Marathon Motor Works building that now houses various shops, among them the Nashville location of Antique Archaeology.  If you're not familiar with them, this is one of the shops of American Pickers (Mike & Frank) whose TV show airs on the History channel.  Their original shop is in LeClaire, Iowa. Check out their show if you haven't seen it.

We hope this gives you a taste of our Nashville experience, and will share more in the coming days.

VQM Fall Exhibits

On Saturday Sue and Elizabeth attended the Celebration of Modern Quilting at the Virginia Quilt Museum in Harrisonburg, VA, and also had the opportunity to see all of the current exhibits.

The event included viewing the exhibit including demos, lunch, and a presentation by Violet Craft. 

The Heritage Revisited exhibit, curated by Susan Emory of Swirly Girl Designs, is on the main floor of the museum.  Here is Sue next to her quilt "Primary Improv" - the red, yellow, blue and green piece to her right. It's a wonderful exhibit that provides an interesting contrast to the historic architecture of the museum. The quilts juried into the exhibit are examples of work in the following categories - improvisational pieces, use of negative space, foundation piecing, alternate gridwork and applique.

Above is an opportunity quilt designed by Susan Emory called "Seeds of Color".  It includes alternate grid work, improvisational quilting, applique, and foundation piecing.  Tickets for an opportunity to win this quilt are $1 each; the drawing for a winner will be on December 16.  Tickets can be purchased at the museum or on the website.

After a boxed lunch, we attended the presentation by Violet Craft.  Violet is a fabric and pattern designer from Portland, OR, who is active in the modern quilt movement. She shared her journey into the quilt industry and progression to where she is today, beginning with a children's clothing line, venturing into fabric design, and of course quilt design.  She has licensed some of her children's patterns to Indygo Junction and the photo above shows some of her "Forest Abstraction" pattern designs.  She has recently transitioned from designing for Michael Miller fabrics to Robert Kaufman. It's always interesting to hear how others have found their way into the quilt industry, often starting out in a completely unrelated field.

Back at the museum, we finished our tour of the exhibits.  A small room on the main floor held some "Treasures from the Vault", including the Belle Grove Album Quilt above (1991).  This was the museum's first fund raising quilt, which raised over $20,000 for the start of the museum.  It was designed by Anna Holland, hand appliqued by sixty quilters across Virginia, and hand quilted by Margie Hockman. The quilt was won by the Skyline Quilters Guild of Front Royal who donated it to the museum's permanent collection.

An outstanding exhibit on the 2nd floor is called "13 Perspectives" by the New Image Artists, a fiber group from the Washington, DC area. The photo above features a group of 8" mounted quilts showing the artists "Eye-dentity", each square created from their own unique perspective.  The pieces in this collection curated by Trudi Van Dyke run the gamut from figurative to abstract, wall art to 3D display pieces, all very intriguing. "Mastery of traditional as well as innovative techniques and materials provide a rich tapestry of visual excitement and stretch the definition of quilting."  It is well worth the trip to see this exhibit.

The final exhibit is the work of Pat Sloan, fabric and pattern designer.  This collection traces her evolving style of work over her career as a quilter.  Her signature pieced style combined with applique is evident in most of the pieces.  But also included are some more traditional as well as improvisational pieces.  It's a treat to be able to see a well-known quilter's work up close.

Not to be left out is the gift shop which contains an eclectic and ever changing array of gift items (for yourself or a friend!).  The photo above includes some pieces created by the artists of the 13 Perspectives exhibit.

We hope you will have the opportunity to make a trip to the Virginia Quilt Museum while these exhibits are up through Dec. 16.  It's great to have such a wonderful resource in our state, and always a treat to be able to make a visit.  And if you are so inclined, donations are welcome.  The museum does not receive any funding from the state, so depends on its membership, visitors, and donations to continue its mission to preserve our quilt history and share the art of quilting.

Heading to Savannah

On Thursday Sue and Elizabeth are heading to QuiltCon east, presented by the Modern Quilt Guild and being held in Savannah, GA.  Usually at this time of year we are off to Hampton, VA for the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival.  But after so many years of the same quilt show, we decided it was time for something different, and made arrangements to attend QuiltCon instead. 

Like MAQF, there is a quilt show/competition, vendors, workshops and lectures.  We are not registered for any workshops, but plan to take in a few lectures.  We will arrive mid-day Thursday and plan to spend Friday and Saturday at the show.  That will leave Thursday afternoon and Sunday for sightseeing around Savannah, and then return home Monday.  Neither of us has ever been to Savannah, so this is a new adventure for us.  We look forward to seeing some of the historic sights in Savannah, including the Juliet Gordon Low birthplace.  Old Town Trolley Tours has several packaged tours, or you can pick and choose the things you want to see.  Downtown Savannah is home to one of the largest National Historic Landmark Districts in the US.

Stay tuned to hear more about our adventures at QuiltCon and in Savannah!

Scrappy Modern

Yesterday Sue took a class with Jacquie Gering, co-author of Quilting Modern and author of Tallgrass Prairie Studio blog.  Here's what she has to say about it.

While I've admired "modern" quilts and have several books, this is the first time I've taken a class or tried this genre of quilting.  It was fun, but does involve thinking a little differently about your process.  Modern quilting (as I see it) includes a lot of negative space (background), simplistic design elements (at least they may appear so), more solid colors than traditional quilts, and clean shapes and lines.  As Jacquie put it, they have their roots in traditional quilts, but with a different interpretation.  And though they may look simple, they are less so when you start looking at the construction.

Yesterday's class was called Scrappy Improvisation.  We started out by making blocks from scraps (or yardage) that consisted of squares, rectangles, wedges - just random piecing; no specific sizes or shapes.  The difference between this and other methods of free-form piecing was that we incorporated pieces of the background fabric as well for "inflow" - so the background would flow in and out of the blocks, making them seem to "disappear" into the background.

Above Jacquie demonstrates how the blocks seem to disappear when placed on the background because of the orange built into the blocks.   Below is my pile of scraps and the first block I made.

After some time spent constructing blocks, Jacquie showed us 2 methods of working with the blocks to construct a quilt top.

Below are the blocks I was able to make during class. Here they are arranged next to each other, but that's not how they'll stay.

With assistance from Jacquie, I played with a layout of the blocks and background and starting filling in the gaps to construct the quilt top.  This is the arrangement I ended up with, though it's not finished.  I will likely make more blocks/pieces to make it larger, but feel like I've got a good start and a better understanding of the concept of "modern quilting".  And even though the background looks like it could be muslin, it's actually a very small print.  I think quilting the finished piece with a variegated thread will help transform the "muslin" look.