Announcing the Speakers for Quilters Take Manhattan 2016!

2016 QTM speakers announced Ticket sales open to members March 14  The 6th annual Quilters Take Manhattan will take place September 23-25, 2016 and we are so pleased to announce our speakers: Kaffe Fassett and Brandon Mably Dr. Carolyn L. Mazloomi  Mark Lipinski interviewed for QSOS by Marie Bostwick Our QTM Add-On offerings on Friday and Sunday include more museum tours, fun garment district tours, and a scavenger hunt!! and more. To ensure that we have everything ready to go when we begin ticket sales, we are changing the launch date for Quilt Alliance members to Monday, March 14, and nonmember registration will start on Monday, March 21. All members will receive an email on Monday, March 14 by 6pm EDT with a link to the QTM 2016 information and registration page. QA members not only get the chance to purchase their QTM tickets first, but also receive a significant discount! Be sure your membership is up to date by emailing or calling Debby Josephs at admin@quiltalliance.org or 828-251-7073. You can start or renew your membership online here: www.allianceforamericanquilts.org/support/support.php Kaffe Fassett Brandon Mably Dr. Carolyn L. Mazloomi   Mark Lipinski Marie Bostwick

Meandering Down The Pacific Coast Hiway

The Pacific Coast Highway is one of my favorite drives.  Oddly, I have never made this trip with my husband until now.  We took a couple of extra days to spend time here.  The first day was the 17-mile scenic drive:

 And the next day we drove further south to Big Sur.  

It was a beautiful day to drive with the convertible top down!

First stop was Point Lobos State Park.

The windswept sandstone looks like something you might encounter on the moon.

I never get tired of looking at it.

This little guy sauntered right between Tim and I to lay down in the shade.

We drove as far as Nepenthe (owned by Kaffe Fassett's family).

Here is our view while we shared a cheese plate.

This little thief was quick....he stole multiple bits right off the plate!

Here is one of the many seating areas on the outside patio at Nepenthe.

Looks very "Kaffe-like", doesn't it?!

Using Kaffe Fassett Shot Cotton in a Baby Quilt!

I'm sure I'm late to this party, but I recently fell hard for Kaffe Fassett's "shot cotton" collection.  I even splurged and bought the entire palette of colors, and as you can see by this image, it is a very big selection of colors!  I bought this quarter-yard assortment from Glorious Color.com.

My first project using these gorgeous colors involves a baby quilt.  I co-hosted a shower for a young (LA Modern Guild) friend recently, and decided to pre-fuse the fabric with Mistyfuse, then die-cut circles and flower petals in a selection of colors she is using in the nursery.  Each shower guest was asked to write a word describing a characteristic they hope the baby will have.  I used Pentel gel roller fabric pens for this and they worked beautifully.  For ease of use, I temporarily fused the die cuts onto squares of parchment.  

The fabric on the left is stretched over a canvas for nursery decor.  I am basing the baby quilt colors on it.

A close-up image of one of the shot cottons.  Gorgeous!

After fusing the cloth sections are doubled up and die-cut with my Go! cutter

I cut 4.5 inch squares from all these prints.

The flowers & circles will be fused onto the squares after the shower.

Rather than a traditional batting I have decided to use one layer of diaper gauze to keep this lighter in weight.  This is, after all, a California baby.  I also know that the baby has received two other beautiful quilts!  

 Here is the Pentel pen.

A sample....

die-cuts fused temporarily onto parchment squares....

After piecing the quilt top the die-cuts were fused to the surface

Two sections of diaper gauze yardage were zig-zagged together for the "batting".

This stuff is lovely!  (although I found out later that it causes a lot of tension issues when I attempted to free-motion quilt it!)

I pinned the quilt top to the gauze.

I decided to pillowcase the quilt and avoid the additional bulk that a binding would create.  Therefore, I pinned the gauze to the quilt top-only, stitched the quilt back (right sides together) around the perimeter and left an opening.  The quilt was turned right side out and the opening hand-stitched closed.  The edges were steam-pressed and re-pinned.  

I found that I had to use my regular presser foot (#1) and use feed dogs up to stitch this quilt together.