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.

New Cork Project

Last November at Quilt Festival in Houston Sue bought 2 pieces of cork fabric, gray and black, to use in making a cross body bag.  She knew she had a pattern by Pink Sand Beach Designs that she previously used and hoped it could be adapted to work with the cork.  It's called the Barbados Bag.

After studying the pattern and parts of the bag, she came up with a plan she hoped would work. The problem with using cork fabric is that is thicker than cotton fabric which could pose a problem when sewing multiple layers.  The front and back pocket pieces both are intended to be folded in half, and since she wanted to make them from the cork, she knew that double cork would be too thick, so she made a fabric lining instead.  She chose to use cork for the main body of the bag as well, thinking that 2 layers of cork wouldn't be too thick. So, here we go.

This is the front pocket and accent fabric section above and behind the pocket.

Here the pockets are layered over the bag pieces (gray).  Wonder clips are great for holding the pieces together, since you can't pin the cork without leaving holes.

These are all the pieces ready to put together - outsides on the left, linings on the right.

Here the front and back are sewn together at the bottom.  The cut outs at the sides form the gussets for the base of the bag.  This is where it started to become apparent that the thickness of the layers might be a problem.  You might be able to see the topstitching along the seam; rather than decoration, the purpose was to hold the seam allowances open and flatter!  For the most part, sewing parts together was not a problem till it came to those gussets on the bottom corners.

Because of the bag body and pockets both being cork, that meant 4 layers of cork in the side seams, plus the lining layers.  There's also some décor bond stabilizer in there.  When it came to the gussets, there was also that seam at the bottom of the bag adding into the equation, and that's where the difficulty came in.  It was just too thick for the Baby Lock machine to sew through.  So Sue got out the old faithful Pfaff and was able to get across - carefully - all the layers.

The previous picture is the front of the bag, above is the back.  The final challenge was turning the bag right side out.  It was a bit stiff, but as you can see - success!

Here's the final result with the strap made and attached.  If she were to make another with cork fabric, Sue thinks she would stick to just one layer of cork rather than 2.  Since we are headed to Nashville next week for QuiltCon, Sue will get to test drive the bag and see if it performs as she anticipates. Of course, we'll have pictures to share of our Nashville adventure!