Mostly Not About QuiltCon

I was thinking of sharing my pictures and thoughts from QuiltCon here, but Leila and I are going to be presenting to The Des Moines Modern Quilt Guild about it in a couple of weeks, so I don't want to spoil things for my guild members.  I think I'll still plan to share about it, but after the guild meeting. 

By the way, I wanted to show you the cool triple zip bag that Leila gave me for finding her a place to stay in Austin or because she's just really nice.

front

back - I really love this bag and the fun fabrics.  Thanks again, Leila!

 One thing I will share from QuiltCon is about the workshop I took.  Registration for classes was crazy with classes selling out in nanoseconds, so most of the classes I was interested in were gone immediately.  Although, I already know embroidery stitches, I was curious about the class "Redwork in Modern Quilting" with Rachel Hobson.  I wanted to know how embroidery was translated from traditional redwork to modern quilting. 

The quilt top on the wall is Rachel's second and incorporates embroidery in some of the negative space blocks.

Ready to do a little stitching

Some backstitch, split stitch, stem stitch, and french knots.

Although I already knew how to do these stitches, I did learn a few new tricks.  I am very glad I took the class because it reminded me that I really enjoy handwork.  It was also great to meet Rachel because she's a very nice, interesting, and fun person. 

I also believe that taking the class pushed me to respond to a recent email from Penguin and Fish looking for people to stitch up samples of the embroidery kits being sold.  I sent in some pictures of my work, said I'd love to, and was chosen to be a stitcher!  Yay! 

The patterns I'm stitching came in the mail in this!

First one done - alligator

One done, seven to go

Not only do I get to have fun stitching up these cute patterns, but I'm getting paid in fabric and a book! 

Visiting Austin

When I found out that QuiltCon was going to be in Austin, Texas, I sent a message to my college roommate Anna, who lives there.  I asked her if my friend Pam and I could stay with her and she graciously said yes.  Well, it turned out that Leila was planning to go to QuiltCon and was looking for a place for her and her baby to stay.  Again, being a generous hostess, Anna said she had plenty of room and Leila and her little Becca stayed with us too. 

Little did we know that we'd be staying on a ranch!

Anna lives in an apartment above the garage, while a family lives in the main house. 

The ranch is a small one, but they have some cows, horses, chickens, a rooster, and some peacocks.

This is actually a zebu, which is a relative of the cow.

moo.

This guy was tempting me to make him into dinner.  The morning after a VERY long day of travel, he decided that everyone should wake up at 5:00am.  He was persistent about it.  I suppose he was just doing his job, but these guys should have a snooze alarm built in.

I took a lot of pictures of these guys.  Peacocks are such pretty birds. 

It was so nice to see flowers!

Hee hee.  There was a "bull" for riding.  I'm pretty sure I lasted more than 8 seconds.  Yeah.

Me, Pam, and Leila

Pam, Anna, Anna's friend whose name I've forgotten! (sorry!), and Leila, and baby Becca

I didn't have my camera when we went shopping, but that was an interesting experience. There are several quirky stores and I'd never seen so many dismembered mannequin hands in my life. There was also a facial hair contest that Kim from My Go-Go Life tells about. They aren't kidding when they call Austin weird. Unfortunately, my friend Pam became very sick pretty soon after that last picture was taken and that was only our first full day there, so it wasn't a great trip for her. I was at the convention center a lot so I feel like I only got to experience a tiny bit of Austin, so maybe I'll have to go back some day.

I'm back!

So for the 2 or 3 of you who read my blog, I apologize for not posting for such a long time!  I was preparing for QuiltCon, at QuiltCon, and then recovering from QuiltCon!  So you can anticipate lots of blog posts in the near future, because 1) I took lots of pictures and 2) I have things I've been thinking about and things I'm excited to share.  

Today I'll just update you on what I did just before QuiltCon.  First, my mother had a birthday at the beginning of February and I thought it would be fun to make her a cake that would be a surprise.

M & M decoration

The surprise inside - it's a rainbow!

It was fun to see her cut into it and realize that it wasn't just a boring old single color cake in there. :)

Then there was Valentine's Day, so I stitched up a little something for my husband.

 I gave my son a bag of Sour Patch Kids.  I think candy is his love language.

Then I had some bee blocks to make:

I used this tutorial to make these blocks for the Harmony circle of do. Good Stitches and I really like how they turned out.

I made these blocks for Deb from Trio Stitch Studio for the Mo-Stash Bee

I had some extra pieces from making those two blocks, so I made this one for fun so she can put it on the back of the quilt.

 
Then I made two more blocks for the Sister's 10 BOM at Gen X Quilters. 

And I made myself a new name tag to wear at QuiltCon and guild meetings.

I used a leftover strip that was cut from my QuiltCon block submission (the header of my blog) for the border and cut out the letters for my name from the Julia Rothman line"Type".

Backside of my name tag.  My son loves elephants and my husband has drawn a really cool picture of a turtle, so these are little reminders of the guys I love while I'm away from them.  It has a little pocket so I can stick business cards in there.

Okay, so that about wraps it up for what went on before QuiltCon as far as making stuff.  Tomorrow I'll share some about the trip to Austin!