The International Quilt Museum in Lincoln Nebraska

 I am lucky to live in Lawrence Kansas - for many reasons. I've realized lately that one of the best reasons is that it's only a three hour drive from the International Quilt Museum in Lincoln Nebraska. And I have been taking advantage of that nearness for the last couple of years.

I have been up there three times in the last two years. The exhibits change several times a year, so multiple visits are a MUST. The first time I made the pilgrimage was to see Paula Nadelstern's exquisite kaleidoscope quilts and hear her lecture. I've taken a class from Paula and have loved her unique kaleidoscope quilts for a long time. 

Paula uses fabrics with elements that have bilaterial symmetry, which she found difficut to locate early on. She turned that challenge into an opportunity to develop her own fabric line - which of course I love and collect. I highly recommend you check out her website at the very least - better yet, see her works in person. Actually, I have so much to say about Paula, that I think she'll get her own blog post - stay tuned.

The second visit featured the work and exhibit tour of

Katie Pasquini Masopust, with whom I've also had the priviledge of taking an on-line workshop. Katie uses fabrics as well as paints to create modern art quilts, usually in a series. To me, Katie's pieces are more Art than Quilt and really beg to be looked at up close for all the interesting surprises. Katie was recently inducted into the Studio Art Quilt Associates Quilters Hall of Fame. Stay tuned for more Katie as well.  

The third trip was to see the huge graphic quilts of Victoria Findlay Wolfe and the fun and whimsical wool applique of Sue Spargo. The quilts of these two fantasitic artists could not have been more different. Victoria's huge quilts featured a limited color pallet and strong graphic lines and shapes. I've had the priviledge of taking a workshop with her at the Woodland Ridge Retreat Center in Wisconsin. Victoria will definitely get her own post!

Meeting Sue Sparge is still on my bucket list. Her wool applique quilts are so adorable. I'm working on two in the form of Block of the Month quilts from Quilting Bits and Pieces in Eudora. So I was super excited and inspired to see Fresh Cut - the original. I studied her piece for quite a while.  

I'm sure I'll be coming back often - I have just joined the Friends of the IQM Board. We've got lots of great exhibits and exciting events happening - I'm sure I'll be writing about many of them. 

Curious about the International Quilt Museum? Check out their website and plan your visit. Let me know when you're going to be there - we may run into each other!

A Different Kind of Paper Pieiceing - English Paper Pieceing

I'm deep into several paper piecing projects - not foundation paper piecing (see Foundation Paper Piecing ) but rather English Paper Piecing (EPP). 

Paper Piecing / Foundation Piecing? What's the difference? Foundation piecing uses a foundation (usually paper) to sew and flip the pieces, enabling you to get really good points where it would be difficult to piece. English paper piecing uses forms (usually paper or card stock) in different shapes (hexagon, diamonds, squares, or triangles).

So, as is usual, I sort of over did it. One project led to another, then another. Before I knew it I had so many I had to organize them and make sense of what I have. 

It started innocently enough - Grandmother's Flower Garden. My Quilting Bucket List includes making a traditional quilt by hand, so what better choice than a Grandmother's Flower Garden? I even used reproduction 30s fabrics for it. To date, I have 40 out of 54 "flowers" completed. I'm going to put them together with green diamonds - so it will look something like this one. 

The Grandmother's Flower Garden got me hooked and now its a full blown addiction. Enter Katja Marek of Katja's Quilt Shoppe in Kamloops British Columbia. She has this wonderful book - The New Hexagon. In 2015 she facilitated an online Quilt Along to make a gorgeous and challenging quilt called Millefiore. It is constructed of about 14 Rosettes using the hexagons from Katja's book. This was one of the most challenging projects I've ever done. The construction is fairly straight forward, but choosing fabrics so that each round flows smoothly is quite a challenge.  I got two Rosettes done and decided to put it away for a while. Even now when I look at it, I think I might want to redo some of it.

Katja teased me again the next year with Quilts on the Go. For this Quilt Along, I decided to use Asian fabrics from my stash. This lasted through the first hexie and then I figured I'd better buy some more. Now I have 3 good sized totes filled with focus Asian fabrics to fussy cut and a bunch of fillers. This project is mush easier than Millie because each hexie stands alone. Once made, the hexies were appliqued to a backing and they were quilted. So, each one could stand alone as a mug rug; put a few together and you have a table topper; put them all together and you have a quilt.  I progressed a little further on this one, but I still have a few to make and then I'll whip-stitch them together into a quilt.

The next couple of Quilt Alongs that Katja has done are in the "collect and do later" category. We have Hex-Plosion and Perpetually Hexie. Cool projects and I couldn't stand not adding them to my EPP collection.

Katja is not the only designer doing cool EPP stuff. Tonya Owens from HillBilly Quilt Shop designed a mystery EPP with cool fabric from Paula Nadelstern (see my previous post).  Although I didn't keep current with the Quilt Along, the out-of- this-world table runner is ready to be quilted!

Another forerunner in EPP is Australian Sue Daley. I met Sue at the first Missouri Star Academy in Hamilton in May 2017. During her class, she showed (teased) us her new EPP BOM (don't ya just love the acronyms) called Round We Go. They are circles! I love them. Quilting Bits and Pieces in Eudora is hosting the BOM - starting August 2017. Again, these are in the "collect and do later" category. 

In addition to all being EPP, most of these projects have something else in common - they use lazer cut paper pieces available from PaperPieces.com. If EPP is an addiction, PaperPieces is an enabler. They carry all sorts of shapes in multiple sizes. They also have packages with all the pieces for projects. If its EPP you want, look no further.


Join me in my addiction! 

 

Space Journey EPP Mystery Quilt - Hillbilly Quilt Shop

So what's better than an fussy cut EPP project combined with a mystery? Not much! Tonya Owens of Hillbilly Quilt Shop designed this project using Paula Nadelstern's Chromazone medallions.  

We were directed to choose 3 fabrics that complement the Paula Nadelstern medallion fabric. I choose a bright lemon-lime, a teal and a fuscia. Love, Love, Love those colors.  

At this point we have hexagons, diamonds, large and small triangles and no clue how they go together.  I prepared all my paper pieces to take on a cruise (that never happened). Oh they were beautiful - little baggies of color.




Piece by piece the sections took shape. Tonya gave them wonderful space-type names like Stars, Meteoroids, Super Novas, Space Stations, Tie Fighters, and Space Rovers. 

I now have it half completed and I am liking the look. I'm sort of toying with adding another section. Luckily I had a premonition that I might want it longer, so I bought some extra medallion focus fabric. 




Another great EPP project!

Houston Class #2 - Paula Nadelstern: Simple pattern, complex fabric

Continuing the series on classes I took at the Houston International Quilt Festival . . .

Class #2 was stellar, as in star like, as in Paula Nadelstern!
I took a Needlestar (get it? needle star, as in Nadelstern) class from Paula several years ago in Dallas and I just couldn't get enough.  I need to go back and finish the quilt I started in her class because it really is awesome.

The bottom line for the class I took in Houston reads use simple patterns and let complex fabrics do all the hard work.







Her new fabrics fall into two categories she likes to call prima donnas and allovers. Here is a perfect example of the prima donnas with allover sashing.




She had her new book available, which of course had to come home with me.  Ooooo lots of great projects in here. Also, got some new fabric. Surprised? No me neither.

OK, so if you ever have a chance to take a workshop or hear a lecture from Paula, do it! Do not pass it up. She is actually teaching on a quilting cruise to Norway this summer. I so wish I could go, but its not in the budget this year.

I'm telling you, you need to be CURIOUS about Paula Nadelstern!