QuiltCon prep and a big announcement!

I am currently in a high state of excitement due to my forthcoming trip to QuiltCon in Nashville next week!

This will be my 3rd QuiltCon after Savannah in 2017 and Austin in 2015 and I’m sure this one will top those previous trips due to even more UK pals travelling with me, and even more wonderful international quilty friends to meet there! And I have a quilt in the show!!

I’ve been busy prepping for classes and making things to take with me, but before I share these I did promise you an announcement in the title so, without further ado…

I’ve written a quilting book!!

This is the reason for the fancy new portrait photo of me above, taken by my DH Jonathan (who just happens to be a photographer, amongst many other things!), it’s my official ‘author’s photo’!

The book is for Stash Books and is due for publication early 2020 and I can’t tell you anything else at this time. I will have more to share in August. But I have been working on this for most of the last year and keeping it a big secret so it feels really good to reveal it!

Meanwhile back to the QuiltCon prep.  I am taking a ‘map quilts’ class with Timna Tarr and we were instructed to find a map of a location that is important to us and take it to a copy shop to be enlarged.

I decided that I wanted my map quilt to be of Shangri la Farm, the 7 acre plot where I live.  Regular readers will know that after moving here 9 years ago we have planted thousands of trees and tried to make it a haven for wildlife. Jonathan has sympathetically landscaped the land, creating ponds, garden areas and many paths.

As there isn’t an actual map available to enlarge I hand drew it using a google earth satellite picture (helpfully updated last summer) and my own memory.  I walk around our land most days so it is intimately familiar (and precious) to me.

Here is my fabric pull for the project.  My friend Sarah Ashford (who is coming along with me) makes these fabulous personalised project pouches and is just venturing into an A3 size (not listed on her Etsy shop yet but available very soon! Email her for more info in the meantime). She kindly sent me a ‘myBearpaw’ one to try out and it is perfect for organising my class supplies, even the rolled up map fits snugly inside!

I am really looking forward to working on this project, I have plans to embroider the names of our favourite spots and pathways like ‘piney ridge’ and ‘cherry tree avenue’ (names made up by ourselves), and the names of all the bridges over our stream.  And an added bonus is I am taking the class alongside my oldest blogging pal, Dolores, who I get to meet at QuiltCon every two years!

The first time I went to QuiltCon I made myself a whole suite of bags and pouches, including my original Workshop Bag, and a tote bag for all my swapped badges/pins.  However this year I knew I wouldn’t have time and I was fine with that.

But then I saw a post on Karen Lewis’s IG feed where she was making a Japanese Rice Pouch and adding hand quilting to a lovely scrappy panel that included her beautiful screen printed fabric.  It looked so good that I knew if I didn’t make one too I would regret it every time I saw Karen’s (and as she is my roomie at QuiltCon that would difficult to avoid!!).

So I downloaded the excellent pattern from Karen Stevens and last Saturday, on a day off from teaching, I started putting together my panel using up some orphan blocks, like one of my blue tits and a tiny improv house. I added a couple of applique circles and embellished it with embroidery/hand quilting using a few colours of Aurifil 12wt wool (my new favourite hand work thread).

I finished the bag yesterday and I have to say it is one of my favourite makes ever.  I really can’t help myself from staring lovingly  at it! (is that weird? Do you ever make something and do this?!).

Using the blue tit and the tiny house scrap has made it so personal to me, but I have also added that piece of linen with a big red flower which was actually screen printed by me at a class at my first QuiltCon (pattern by the teacher Celina Mancurti). Plus I have included some of Karen’s fabric, my beloved applique circles and a lovely mix of textiles with those pieces of linen (I especially love the nice fringed edge on the selvedge of that blue ‘Arroya’ piece).

I chose to make the larger 8″ version of the bag and it’s going to be perfect for throwing in all my class supplies and even my lunch!

I’ll be back here in a couple of weeks with a QuiltCon report post, meanwhile you can keep up with all our #britsdoquiltcon shenanigans on my Instagram feed – these may involve margaritas 😉 !!