2016 Quilt Con Charity Quilt Update

The design team met two days ago and we made some good progress.

We laid out the "background fabric" created by Carol, Alicia, Becca, Lorena, Tami, Sharon and Tami.  All of the blocks look great together!  A big "thank you" to the "background team."  We quickly realized that need to make a bit more background fabric, but we think we dug up enough additional fabric (thanks Deb!) to get us to a twin sized quilt. Kim will start sewing the background fabric together and incorporating the additional fabric over the next couple of weeks. 

We're going to proceed with a "landscape shaped" quilt with 3 scrappy hearts on it in the following colors.

Also, we sorted through the fabric donated by our very generous guild members (thanks everyone!!) and are now almost ready to start sewing up the "fabric" for the applique hearts (we just need to shop for a bit more blue and yellow fabrics).  We agreed that we better be in the same room as we sew the hearts so that there is some consistency between them and so we can make design decisions together. 

More to follow in a couple of weeks............

Momen+ Shopping Spree on Saturday October 10th

I think it's safe to say that we all had a great time shopping at Momen's 6th Annual Sale followed by lunch at the Red Car Brewery.  We're already trying to decide where our next shopping trip should be...... 

October 6th 2015 Guild Meeting with Latifah Saafir

We were honored and pleased to have Latifah Saafir (co-founder of the Modern Quilt Guild) come to our guild meeting to show us her spectacular quilts and to help guide us in the creative process. 

Latifah shared her story with us and it sounds like she has a great family and a wonderfully unique educational background.  Her major in college was Engineering and she was formerly known as "The Quilt Engineer".  She attributes the creative side of her personality to her dad and her "just do it" attitude to her mom.  All I can say is "good job" and "thank you" to her mom and dad!

Latifah encouraged us to:

• Look for inspiration everywhere
• Museums
• Architecture
• Tile patterns
• Fashion (which is usually a couple of years ahead of things)
• Fabrics 
• Nature
• Just driving down the road
• Observe your surroundings.....

• Keep an inspiration journal (capture sketches, photos, patterns, colors, textures)
• From time to time, disconnect from other people's ideas (Instagram, web, etc.) and just focus on your own ideas
• Don't let perfection stop you or slow you down.  
• Let accidents happen.  Imperfection can lead to beautiful accidents.
• Take classes and then explore and play with the new techniques you've learned.
• Try something new, let go, don't overthink it
• Just do it!

Now for some pictures.......

This is one of Latifah's earlier quilts.  She pointed out that this quilt helped her realize that even the width of your binding needs to be a design decision.  A quarter inch black binding just wouldn't have suited this quilt.

Another of her earlier quilts is based off of the traditional clam shell pattern.  However, Latifah's version is called Glam Clam and is 100% pieced versus appliqued.  

Also, she will have a new ruler coming out later this year for making this quilt (and other curved shapes) and I know I plan to buy it and try it out.  If you can't wait for her ruler, go to her website for Tips on Cutting your Glam Clam Quilt and a video for Pinless Piecing of your Glam Clam Quilt.

This Medallion Quilt was a definite "crowd favorite" at our guild meeting. You can find this quilt in Janice Zeller Ryan's and Beth Vassalo's Modern Medallion Workbook.  It is constructed in wedges and is a mix of paper piecing and appliqued bias tape.  I love the colors.  So fun!

A couple more wonderful bias tape quilts.  The 1st one features some novelty fabric which Latifah really enjoys using.  The second one combines both the Six Minute Circle technique on the right side and bias tape on the left side.  

Latifah encouraged us to learn various techniques and then play with and experiment with them as she did is these two quilts.

On the above quilt, notice Latifah's signature free form grid quilting pattern.  While the lines are free form, she controls the quilting process and keeps her lines from drifting too much by spacing out major and minor quilt lines throughout the quilt, then coming back and quilting between these guidelines in a free form manner.

The following are two versions of her Molehills quilt pattern which is available on Craftsy. The second one was inspired by a tile pattern she saw in Vegas.  

The following is another Glam Clam quilt.  This time Latifah explained that the fabric choices in this quilt were somewhat accidental.  Many of the fabrics in this quilt just happened to be sitting next to each other in her sewing area and she realized it was a great combination and she just "went with it".  

Here's a sampler quilt designed by Latifah.  Notice that it has some unifying factors i.e. each block has a splash of pink and one fabric that is repeated in every block.  

Latifah encouraged us to check out Sherry Lynn Wood's book The Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters.  Here's a bias strip quilt that Latifah did for the book.  It's absolutely amazing.  I fell in love with the greens (Kona Cotton Solids) when I saw this quilt at a demo that Sherry Lynn Wood did at Sew Modern a few month ago.  

  
It was a wonderful night and we can't thank Latifah enough for sharing her love of modern quilts and her exceptional talents with us.  To find out more about Latifah, visit her Latifah Saafir Studios website.

To finish up the evening, the following are some Show and Tell photos:

And last but not least, thanks to Alicia, Carol, Tami, Sharon, Tami, Becca and Lorena for helping out with our 2016 Charity Quilt.  They each completed their improvisationally pieced fabric panels which will become the background of our quilt.  I think we're off to a great start with the quilt!