Welcome to Colorful Colorado

 If you have been reading my blog for awhile, you probably know that I grew up in the beautiful state of Colorado. I try to visit at least once every year. The photo below was taken within an a hour's drive of my childhood home.

With that soft spot in my heart, it was not difficult for me to say yes to Katie when she asked if I would test her new pattern called, "Welcome to Colorful Colorado".

The 66" x 81" quilt would look great as a wall hanging or even on a twin bed. It can be viewed vertically, as if you are standing looking at a sunset behind the mountain range or horizontally, where it represents the plains, mountains, and mesas of the state of Colorado.

 Because of the many pieces and the angles that need to be cut to make the design, the pattern is best suited to intermediate or advanced quilters. With accurate seam allowances and good labeling of the pieces, this makes for a fun project, though, once the cutting is finished. It's like putting together a puzzle!

 Welcome to Colorful Colorado is available for download on Craftsy. You can find it here.

 The cutting is straightforward and easily achieved by following the clear directions. Katie has included tips for sewing everything together successfully as well as some quilting ideas that can be achieved on your home sewing machine. (I haven't gotten to that quilting part yet, as you can see.)

 The quilt really is like a piece of art and I'm looking forward to seeing mine hung on a wall! If you love working with solid fabrics, this might just be an idea for your next project. I used Kona but Katie's version is lovely using Oakshot Cottons.

The No Prints Allowed Challenge

The second Thursday of every month is a special one......it means it's time again for the Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild meeting! I drive about 40 minutes one way to get there...that's how much I enjoy attending. I know there are members who travel even farther, including our president. It's pretty inspiring to be there every month. A record breaking 91 quilters attended last night!

 This month our meeting was especially exciting as we unveiled our projects for the No Prints Allowed Challenge. A few months ago we were each given a charm pack of Kona solids, generously donated by Robert Kauffman, and our challenge was to make a quilt using a piece from every charm in the pack plus any other solid fabric we wanted to add. Here is the quilt top that I created using a pastel color way charm pack plus Kona charcoal and white.

The block is called the Exquisite Block from Gwen Marston's Liberated Quiltmaking II. As you can see, it is just the top only as I didn't give myself enough time to get it quilted before the meeting. I thought it appropriate to photograph my unfinished quilt on my husband's unfinished garden shed that he has been working on since Thanksgiving for awhile now! (To be fair it has been snowing a lot...good excuse for the barn, but not the quilt!)

The pastels got a little washed out in the crazy sunshine, but hopefully you can get the idea. I first became infatuated with making a quilt like this exactly one year ago when I saw this one that Ashley was making at FilmintheFridge. I may not be very original, but I know what I like!

I used a folded one inch wide strip of white to add the accent flange and some dimension to the quilt.  I'll do a How-To post on that soon, in case you would like to try it. Wait. Can you even SEE the white strip in these photos? Trust me, each triangle has one!


I thought that you might like to see some of the other quilts that were made for the challenge, so go pour yourself a Pepsi and maybe even pop some corn.....there are not a few pics to follow ...just so you know!  Enjoy the show.................... 

Can you even believe all the talent in this group? And this is only part of what was shown! Now you can see why I never want to miss a meeting!

New Challenge

                                                         Oh, my!  What's all this?!

 Yep!  You guessed it right.........charm packs of Kona solids!  100 of them to be exact.....One for each member of the Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild (plus a few extras).

 Our challenge, should we accept it, is to create a quilt using all the charms in the color story that we chose. Some of the squares can be used on the back, if we want, but each one must be represented in the quilt somewhere.  We can add as much fabric as we want to make the quilt, as long as it is solid.  No prince  prints allowed!! Oh sure, we cut up the squares into any shape, and do not have to use the entire square, but at least a small piece of every color must be pieced into the quilt.

 Of course, I couldn't resist!  It was soooo hard to decide which pack to choose. I started out with the brights (the most popular with the quilters last night, I'd say), then changed to the dusty packet before finally ending up with the pastel charms in my bag. The quilts are due at the March MQG meeting...a celebration, of sorts, of our one year anniversary! Thank you, Robert Kaufman, for such a nice gift to our guild.  We love us some solid colors!!!


We also love us some prints!  Look at this beauty, made by Paula and shown off by the maker and our President, Jacquie.

Paula did a presentation of the Six Minute Circle (which she can make in four minutes!) She used the method to create the circles on this wonderful quilt.  I am definitely going to try it!
I love me some modern quilt guild!!