Eye Candy

Fellow Quilters,

Today’s post is a quick one, to give you some eye candy of what I’ve been up to lately.

I had a great time in New Liskeard 2 weeks ago teaching my Stacks of Presents class to an enthusiastic group of quilters at Buy a Yard or 2.  Mike cooked gourmet meals for the weekend retreat, including a turkey dinner, since the project was holiday-themed, and Gayle partook in the class.  Long-time quilting friend Liz billeted me.  Several gals either finished or almost finished their quilts – well done, ladies!  Those northern gals were so much fun!

Shirley’s Stacks of Presents

Shirley posted a picture of her completed top on Facebook.

I am scheduled to teach the Stacked Presents workshop next March 21 – 25 at A Mountain Quiltfest in Pigeon Forge, TN as well, along with my lone star, simplified double wedding ring, bargello, and mitered borders workshops. I notice that Cynthia England is also teaching there, and is the speaker one night!  Cynthia just won best of show at Quilt Festival in Houston last week.  For details on Mountain Quiltfest, visit http://www.mypigeonforge.com/events/quiltfest/.

Over the summer, I spent a bit of time piecing a couple of small quilts, but didn’t spend any time quilting – I was at the family cottage, and my longarm machine is not portable.  I really enjoy the quilting part of quilt-making, so I got my fix last month quilting several of the quilts to be featured in Northcott’s booth at Quilt Market.  Here are some photos of a couple of modern ones.  It is stretching me as a quilter when I put one of these on my frame, trying to think of the best way to quilt it.  I really enjoyed the process!

Strips & Bars pattern by Patti Carey

Strips & Bars quilting detail

The grey one is my Strips & Bars using Northcott’s Colorworks Concepts, out next March.

R-evolution by Kat Wilson Tucker

The white & stripes one is by Kat Tucker Wilson of Next Step Quilt Designs using Simply Stripes.

I was part of the Northcott team manning the booth for Quilt Festival last week, and colleague Elaine challenged me to make a wall quilt using Stonehenge Gradations in the new Graphite colorway for a display in our booth (we were challenging attendees to make one using 5 chips (5” squares) from the Graphite fabrics.  The fabrics said “cow” to me, and I added a super-quick fusible cow face to my Rail Fence quilt, and named it Don’t Fence Me In.

My “Don’t Fence Me In” challenge quilt

It attracted a lot of attention, as did our entire booth.  Quilt Festival is like Mecca for quilters – 25 aisles of booths, and then there are the quilts!  I was thrilled to see my Psychedelic quilt hanging in the Superior Threads booth.

My “Psychedelic” quilt in the Superior Threads booth

My entire thread stash is Superior Threads!  Ninety percent of my stash is variegated thread, and Superior is king of variegation.  My Gammill and I are particularly in love with Fantastico, a high-sheen variegated thread.  I picked up a cone of Superior’s newest thread, MicroQuilter, a super-fine 100-wt for applique and micro-stippling, and am looking forward to giving it a try.

At Festival I met up with Susan-Claire of Gourmet Quilter – my mom and I are making her That Town & Country Block-of-the-Day quilt, and Mom’s version is half-size.  We have the first 49 blocks done – yes, I know, we are about 35 weeks behind.  Susan-Claire snapped this photo of me in her booth with Mom’s version.

Mom’s mini Town & Country quilt

I am participating in 2 blog tours next week, with prizes being given out for both of them, so if you are not a subscriber to my blog, please make a note to drop by on Tuesday Nov. 15^th for the Quiltmaker 100 Blocks tour and Wednesday Nov. 16^th for the Quiltmaker 100 Blocks minis sew-along. You may win a prize or two!

See you next week!

Patti