Sewing & Quilt Expo - Tinley Park, Il

Something exciting happened this weekend - my quilt was on display at the Sewing Expo!

Look at the official sign for the show!

This past summer Emily and I organized a mini quilt swap for our Chicago Modern Quilt Guild. 24 people participated, and we made mini quilts that were inspired by a work of art chosen by our partner. I can't begin to explain how awesome these quilts turned out. They are really outstanding.

Here's my quilt, made for Natalie Granato.

At the end of the swap we all brought our quilts to the CMQG meeting and shared a bit about the inspiration work, the process, etc. It was great to hear about the process each person went through to create their quilt.

This hangs below my quilt - telling bout the process of making the quilt, inspiration etc.

Exciting enough, our guild member Sara H. pulled some strings and all 24 quilts were chosen to be displayed at the quilt show that accompanies the Sewing Expo. The first stop for our quilts was last weekend in Tinley park! They will then go on to travel to 17 cities across the nation throughout the next year!

Obligatory picture of me next to my quilt.

Sara managed to get us all tickets to the expo too - so several of us carpooled on Saturday (Shout out to my boss who let me off work for the occasion!). Guild friend Cathy drove our group, and I spent most of the day wandering around with Emily and Sally. It was an excellent experience - I'd never been to a quilt expo before!

People admiring our quilts!

When we arrived the first thing we saw was our quilts - all hanging in a row! I guess I have never thought of how professional it would all look! It was a lot of fun seeing other people looking at our quilts and talking about how neat the idea for the swap was.

I may have taken a zillion pictures.

Filming with Ellen.

Upon arrival we also met Ellen Rushman (she'll be a lecturer at QuiltCon!), we were told to ask for her. She is a quilt historian and is traveling with the show and shooting 3 minute videos titled "This is My Quilt" for their website. Emily and I both filmed "This is My Quilt" segments. It was really fun chatting about our quilts!

My first try at a long arm!

Also noteworthy about the Expo, I tried a long arm for the first time! There were several long arm dealers who had booths there, and I decided to give it a try. I'm planning on using my friend Marla's long arm to finish a baby quilt before Christmas, so it was nice to get a feel for it and see that my free motion work on a domestic machine will translate over pretty well!

Here's what I quilted - Not bad if you don't count my mis-spelled name! 

I tested out three machines, an Innova, a Gammil, and a Juki long arm. My favorite was the Innova. (as if I know enough to form an opinion on such things!) I did however, manage to get distracted and misspell "emedoodle" - lol. Note to self, don't get distracted when quilting.

If anyone happens to visit the Sewing Expo later this year, I'd love to hear what you think of our quilts on display! You can find a list of the cities it'll visit here.

You can read more about the Chicago Modern Quilt Guild Modern Art Challenge here.

CMQG - Modern Art Challenge (part 2)

As promised here is the picture of the fabulous quilt I received in the guild challenge!

Sara had chosen my bag - which included a picture of Bernini's Baldacchino, which is within St Peter's Basilica in Rome (well Vatican City, if you want to be precise). My instructions were that I don't like brown or gold, and that she shouldn't take it too literal - I love the texture and the movement of the piece, as well as the way the light shines in... and the Holy Spirit window behind it (the dove).

Click here to see the picture I sent her - it's the first image. 

I love that Sara pulled grey fabrics for the main part of the piece, and added in the bright sunshiny yellow up there- and the piecing in the yellow has so much great movement just like sun shining through a stained glass window! Her quilting is flawless too! I'm so happy with this quilt - even though I know she fretted about it for a while. I really didn't mean to provide such a challenge! 

(Photo taken by Rachael from the CMQG flickr page)

I can't begin to express how excited I am with this quilt!! Sara did such a great job at interpreting it into a quilt!!! I really feel like the quilt gives me that "home" feeling that St. Peter's gives me! Thank you so much Sara!!! 

For a little bit of background, I have visited Roma three times. One of those times was for a college study abroad, where I lived around the block from St. Pete's. I was studying Catholic theology so it's not surprising that this basilica holds my heart in a special way. I long to return to Rome. One day we'll retire to a little apartment in Rome. :) I can dream! 

Chicago Modern Quilt Guild: Modern Art Challenge

Today was the day that we swapped our challenge quilts! Our Chicago Modern Quilt Guild meeting today was so fabulous! It was a love fest of amazing quilts and fun speakers! I'll tell you a bit more about the meeting in general (and the AMAZING quilt that I received later this week, but for now I want to show off the pretty little thing that I made for my partner!

Emily and I organized this swap (who's idea was it ladies? I don't even know)... and I blogged about it here and here (the details about the swap are in those posts. In short we each chose a work of art and a piece of fabric to inspire our partner. We brought them to the meeting in a bag and then chose a bag out of those that the other people brought. :) Random selection! 

Natalie & I and the finished quilt!

I chose Natalie's and I'm glad I did! First off she is a really awesome lady and it was a real joy to make this for her! She sent along a picture of a piece of art she has hanging in her home. I came up with this. Pixelated, ruffled, and wavy quilted! I was insanely inspired by the bag she brought her art in (pictured below), as well as Shruti's recent quilting piece here. 

Finished quilt, fabric sent (used as backing and for color inspiration), art sent, and bag.

For this quilt I tried some new things. It was a first for me to add a ruffled border (what's the technical term for that?). It proved to be a little challenging since my center portion was stabilized with interfacing.... But it turned out great! Also, it was the first time I've ever buried my thread tails. Yes, I know... I should be doing this all the time. I'm getting to the point where I have no excuse for it other than laziness. I used Ebony's method (video here) for burying them (there were a TON of tails to tuck under!

A simple label. 

I also added my little tiny prairie points to the side edge. I really enjoy those. My thoughts for this piece is that it's like the layers and layers of a lush garden. I highlighted some of the details. 

I'm really glad to have taken part of this swap. I feel like doing swaps like this with our guild helps us to form tighter bonds with each other. We grow as a community. I feel so much more connected to Natalie now, after working on this quilt for her, and I hope that that happens with all our participants (there were about 25 of us!)

I'm not there yet...

Learning to bury my thread tails!

I'm doing a bit of quilting tonight.

Not a lot, nothing crazy, just a little doll quilt.

I'm adding the quilting to my Chicago Modern Quilt Guild Modern Art Challenge quilt, and I'm contemplating.

I'm contemplating whether I should finish the "sister quilt" that matches this one. If it's worth spending the time making another (everything past the first step) so that I can enter it into a show.

Getting a quilt into a show is one of my goals. I'd like to get some proper, serious exposure to the general quilt world because ultimately I'd love to teach at one of these shows. This is a pretty lofty goal, and it's still something that's only on the edge of my thoughts. I think that's where I want to go as an artist  (look at that, I dropped the "A" word). I don't know what I'd teach should I get to that point - that'll work itself out - but I'd like to teach something to people who know what they're doing (not beginners).

I'd love to teach solid intermediate - advanced piecing. I'm not sure if I've found my specialty yet - or if I'll ever stick to one thing. Maybe I'm bound to continue my work on teeny tiny piecing, or paper piecing. Perhaps it's free piecing / design as you go that I'm into. It doesn't really matter right now, I'm still perfecting my own work. I'm not there yet.

Back to my original train of thought. I'm not sure if I want to make another one of these quilts to enter into the show - I could - and the deadline is still a few weeks away... but I'm not sure if I should go for it now or just wait.

I am planning on entering a quilt or two into the show for QuiltCon - but that's different. I don't know how QuiltCon will grow and change. I don't know what to expect from it now or in the future. Maybe one day I'll want to teach there - but for now I feel too intimidated by the talent there. The people teaching at QuiltCon are people who I have been following and learning from since I started quilting.... I don't know that I would feel good enough about my style to stand among them. It may be because I'm not as not as knowledgeable about the teachers at the national shows that I am not worried about comparing myself to them.

So I guess I'm putting it out there in writing for the first time. I do want to teach. I want to share my love of sewing and quilting and playing with fabric with others. (I just don't want to have to teach them how to use a sewing machine first!).

PS - I'm learning to bury my thread tails as I'm quilting. Ugh it's annoying (but it's very pretty and tidy). Thanks to Ebony's video tutorial I know how.