Irish Chain QAL- Appliqued Chain Block

This week on the Irish Chain QAL at Happy Quilting we had to stitch our appliqued chain block.  Last week we pinned the petal shapes to our backgrounds and this week we had to secure them in place.

We had many options- we could use a straight stitch, a zig zag stitch, or a blanket stitch.  We also had to choose if we wanted to blend or contrast our thread with the block.  My first choice was easy- I wanted to contrast the thread and use black so it would show up on the petals.  The stitch type was a harder decision but eventually I decided that I should try something new again, so I tried the blanket stitch because I usually use the zig-zag when appliqueing.  I love how it turned out- the black looks great, you can see it in the picture below.

 

And here are my 5 blocks:

I can't wait to sew them all together this week!

Appliqued Chains Block- Irish Chain Quiltalong

This week on Irish Chain Quiltalong at Happy Quilting, we had to assemble the blocks for our appliqued chains.  We cut out the petal shapes and placed them on the background squares.  There were two choices for assembling the petals to the background squares- you could starch and pin the petals or use a two sided interfacing and "glue" them in place.  Since I have used the interfacing method before, I decided to try something new and starch and pin my petals.  Melissa suggests that you keep starching and ironing the petals until they are "as hard as a frisbee".  Well I tried that and mine would just not get super hard.  Finally I realized that it was because I use a "light body sizing" instead of the standard "starch" haha.  I decided just to go ahead and pin them in place anyway :)

Here are my 5 blocks all pinned and ready to go for my baby size quilt:

I am looking forward to sewing them together next week!

Also, since I tend to be kind of impatient, I hung up all my blocks on my design wall to see what the quilt top will look like when it is done..

I love it and I can't wait to sew it all together!

Also linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced!

Modern Patchwork Blocks- Irish Chain Quiltalong

This week on the Irish Chain Quiltalong we had to take the units that we made last week and make them into complete blocks.  Reading the instructions, it seemed like it was going to be a lot of work and I was kind of dreading it.  However, since I am only making the baby quilt size (and that was only 8 blocks), everything went together relatively quickly!

Here is the completed stack of blocks...

And here is all of them on my design wall..

 

The hardest part was properly distributing the scrappy colors so that there was a good distribution of the colors and all the oranges didn't end up in one block.  The best part of this particular quiltalong so far is that there has been no real matching of seams :)  I would actually like to see this particular block that we made this week in a quilt by itself, I think it could be really pretty, it has lots of "movement" with the different sied colored blocks in it.

Now time to go back to dreading the applique block that is coming up next, hopefully it won't be too bad!

Also linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

Twist on Tradition Units- Irish Chain Quiltalong

I am very happy to tell you that I am still managing to follow along with the Irish Chain Twist Quiltalong at Happy Quilting!  Melissa is doing a great job at splitting all of the work up into manageable units, this week we chain pieced "twist on tradition units".  It was pretty easy, here is my pic of what mine look like all finished:

We are going to make these into blocks this week, I am excited to see what they will look like!

Also linking up with WIP Wednesday at Freshly Pieced.

Thoughts on Quiltcon 2015!

I want to share some thoughts with you about my Quiltcon 2015 experience- mostly that I had a great time!

I attended the first Quiltcon in 2013 in Austin (mainly because I live in Houston and it is just a couple hours drive) and I was disappointed.  There weren't that many quilts to see and they didn't have very many vendors either.  I was in and out in maybe 1- 1 1/2 hours?  Part of the reason why I was disappointed is because I live in Houston and I attend the International Quilt Festival every year which is HUGE and amazing.  Also, it seemed like a lot of the quilts had the same "look" about them and kind of had the same color scheme, and a lot of them weren't really my "style".

In contrast, this year's Quiltcon was several times better than the first one (and not just because I had a quilt on display!).  It took me and my sister about 4 hours to see everything.

Things I loved:
-There were a ton of quilts on display, in lots of different styles (However, the matchstick quilting did get a little bit repetitive)
-I loved a lot of the quilts and could see myself using them as inspiration for future quilts that I sew. 
-The vendors were much better- there were 4 large rows and there were tons of "modern" quilting fabric there
-We enjoyed the "exhibitors" also, especially testing our Kona IQ! 
-My sister and I enjoyed all the instagram photos- it was fun looking for our quilt before we were able to get to the show on Saturday!

Things I would change:
-I was disappointed not to be able to purchase a program with all of the quilts listed, especially since my quilt was there!
-This is kind of nit-picking, but we would have liked to be able to purchase the "Quiltcon 2015" bag that they were giving away as a goody bag for the people who were in all the classes.  It was so cute with all the Austin things and sewing things on it!
-I downloaded the Quiltcon app and it was sending me reminders what felt like every 15 min to fill out surveys.  I eventually had to uninstall it because it was eating up my phone battery.

Our quilt "Sunrise Sunset" on display!

Our favorite quilt was probably the 2nd place quilt in the "Modern Traditionalism" category- "Deconstructed Lone Star" by Amy Struckmeyer.

I am kind of sad that Quiltcon is moving to the West & East coasts starting next year, it was really nice being able to drive and not have to commit 12 months in advance to attending.  If I decide to attend again, I will probably try to take some classes because everyone looked like they were having so much fun in their instagram photos!