Quilty Pleasures: Modern Hexagon Quilt

At QuiltCon Jacquie Gering taught me how to machine piece hexagons, so our Modern Quilt Guild in Las Vegas, NM, asked me to share with them what I learned.

So I shared, in my kind of muddly way, and now we are working on some pieces using giant hexagons. I have been doing my usual procrastination thing and haven't made much headway but Betty brought her finished quilt to the last meeting and it is impressive, more so in person.

Note that the gray background isn't one piece of fabric, but hexagons, too, which adds depth to the quilt. The gray isn't your standard quilting cotton;  Betty thinks it might be auto upholstery fabric. It is tweedy and textured, a fun contrast to the center solids.

This quilt is going on a special trip to a long arm quilter where Betty will quilt it herself, her first time.

Betty is one of my quilting heroes: a fearless experimenter, always up for a challenge, ready for adventure.

If you live near Las Vegas, NM, come to our next MQG meeting. We meet the first Monday of the month at 1 pm at ThreadBear.

Quilty Pleasures-Quiltcon Part 2: Best in Show in Detail

The previous post had a pic of Victoria Findlay Wolfe's Best in Show Quilt, "Double Edged Love," but here it is again as a reference point.

I like how design and color play around with the Wedding Ring Quilt design. Sometimes the rings disappear and sometimes they are strongly linked. Sometimes there is darkness and other times the colors are bright and happy. Whether the artist was going for these ideas or not, that's what this viewer felt while I was looking at it.

Lisa Sipes was the long arm quilter and I would have been cross-eyed after working on this quilt! Her intricate attention to detail is amazing.

Straight line quilting, teensy pebbles and grids are the predominant designs Lisa used. The hand quilting adds even more interest. My handler would have said, "Step away from the quilt."

Distance between the squares might be around a quarter to a half inch or so. Look at that triple line of stitching. I would have been screaming insanely right around now if I were sewing.

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I've been following Victoria's blog, Bumble Beans, for several years now and admire her commitment to the idea that it's okay to play around while designing quilts.

I have just discovered Lisa Sipes and her blog That Crazy Quilty Girl. Her most recent post discusses the controversy surrounding the idea of modern quilting and how should we conduct ourselves when we see a piece we don't like. In addition, she shows some of the quilts she has made herself or has quilted for others. Her work is amazing and she's just a kid!