Cool days and hot appliqué

With this hot summer we're having, it feels good to think ahead to Fall and next February.  So, why am I thinking about Fall and February?  Because that's when I'll be teaching my machine appliqué class!  February will be at QuiltCon (Friday, Feb 22) and I'll be teaching locally in the Fall - stay tuned for details on that.

I had so much fun designing this pillow. Don't my mama and baby birds perching on their wire look darling?  And I had to add some text.  Text fabrics are some of my favorites, but I love to add my own words too.

So, wouldn't you love to learn how to create this adorable pillow?  We'll be using fusible webbing in this class and we'll talk about some of the different options.  We'll also learn about preparing your shapes for appliqué, when to stitch what, some stitch options and much more!  I hope you can join us.

Also locally this weekend is the Greater Ann Arbor Quilt Guild Quilt Show, "Passing On the Legacy".  There will be over 200 quilts in all styles as well as a special exhibit by Sue Nickels and Pat Holly (local and award winning quilters), a silent auction and lots of vendors.  I'll be there selling my patterns - make sure you stop by my booth to say hi!  The show is in the Morris Lawrence Building at Washtenaw Community College from 9-5 on Saturday and 11-5 on Sunday.  Admission is $6.

Maker Faire Detroit is also this weekend.  I would so be there if I weren't at the Quilt Show, but a couple of my quilts will be there.  The Ann Arbor Modern Quilt Guild meets at MakerWorks and they'll be there with a big booth.  What a busy and fun, creative weekend for SE Michigan!

A quilty weekend

I took a fantastic class at the Greater Ann Arbor Quilt Guild yesterday.  It was on stars by Edyta Sitar of Laundry Basket Quilts.  The quilt we worked on in class is similar to this picture.  Edyta does not publish the pattern for the class project so that the students get a special pattern - what a great idea!

Edyta packed in tons of great information and left us plenty of time to sew (I still only got one block done :)).  The class included a kit for the project so I was working with some fabrics that are totally not me.  Edyta uses mostly civil war reproduction fabrics mixed with batiks.  (She also designs fabric for Moda).  This is an unusual combination, but her choices really make it work.  It will be interesting to see how I can take some of these blocks and make a quilt that is more my style.

At the guild meeting on Saturday, Edyta presented a lecture entitled "Reasons for Quilts".  I lost count of how many gorgeous quilts she showed us!  I should say that we are lucky that Edyta lives about an hour away from us so I don't know if she is able to show so many actual quilts when she travels farther away to talk, but I was completely impressed by her lecture, her beautiful quilts and HOW MANY of them she had.  As a person who sews a lot, I can't even imagine how she has created so many wonderful quilts.  If your guild is looking for a speaker/teacher, I highly recommend her.

Have you taken any great classes lately?

A Modern Quilted Pillow Swap

Linked - 20"

I'm participating in a new kind of pillow swap on Flickr called A Modern Quilted Pillow Swap.  Tiina of Cotillelo dreamed it up.  Instead of being assigned a partner and stalking them and hoping for clues and feedback and then stressing that they'll be disappointed by what you made, you just make a pillow and send the picture to Tiina.  She posts all the pictures so nobody can tell who made what.  After the deadline, everyone votes for their favorite pillow, 2nd favorite and so on.  Then, the person who made the pillow that gets the most votes gets their first choice pillow.  The person who made the pillow with the second most votes then gets their first or second choice pillow (depending if they chose the same as person #1) and on down.  I can't wait to find out which pillow will be mine!

Linked back

When it came to making the pillow, I had two choices.  Actually make what I wanted to OR try to psych out what other people would like so my pillow ranked well and I'd get one of my top choices.  I'm not so good at figuring out what other people think, so I just made a pillow I wanted to :)  I've had this idea about framed squares linked together in my head for a while and decided this was the time to work it out.  Strip piecing made it go pretty quickly.

almost, but not quite, the same color

I wanted to put a zipper in the back since I think it makes the pillow fit the form better.  I'm trying to use things I have instead of running to the store every 5 minutes and I had a zipper that was the right length and close to the right color, but not quite.  I decided a zipper with a flange covering it would be a good solution.  I'll be mailing out my pillow tomorrow - I hope the recipient enjoys it!

Giveaway Winner!

The We Love Color and new Kona solids giveaway winner is Ethne!  Congratulations Ethne!  Ethne is a long time reader of my blog, as I am a long time reader of hers.  I am particularly fond of her applique with her own hand dyed fabrics - beautiful!  You can find her blog at Flaming Stitches.

So, what were your color crushes?  Yellow greens like chartreuse and lime and greeny blues in the aqua and teal family had the most votes.  Pinks, oranges, yellows, greys and dark blues came in pretty close next.  Thanks for playing along!

I'll be back soon with a post about my machine applique class at QuiltCon.

We Love Color Giveaway

Did you all follow along on the We Love Color blog tour?  The grand prize from Robert Kaufman is a We Love Color-themed Bounty of Basics Box containing 100 fat quarter pieces of the top 50 colors used in the book!  With such a fantastic prize tempting me, I followed along and took notes on the colors the bloggers said were their favorites.  Since I was lucky enough to get a copy of the book itself at Quilt Market, I didn't comment on many of the giveaways on the blogs on the tour.  But, wouldn't you know, I won one of the giveaways where I did leave a comment!

A little more about the book first - We Love Color, published by Stash Books, includes 16 quilts designed by 16 amazing designers all using Robert Kaufman Kona Cotton solids.  If you've been thinking of making a solids only quilt, this book will have one for you to try.  If you are already sold on solids, there will still be quilts from this book you'll really want to make.  (Honestly, these quilts would look great in prints too, shhh).  There is a wide variety of quilts in the book - from bold to subdued, few pieces to many, symmetrical and asymmetrical, small and large.  The cover quilt, by Jacquie Gering, is one of my favorites - big shapes in a quilt are such fun and so bold and dramatic.

On to the giveaway part!  I have a book to give away AND a charm pack of Robert Kaufman's 28 new Kona colors (also scored at Quilt Market :)).  To enter, tell me what color you are crushing on now - it doesn't have to be your all time favorite, just what you are dying to make a quilt with today.  Follow my blog or like Esch House Quilts on Facebook and leave me a comment telling me so for a second chance to win.  Those of you who are no-reply bloggers, don't forget to leave me your email address in the comment so I can reach you if you win.  This giveaway is open to international entries and will close at the end of the day Saturday, July 14.  Good luck!

QuiltCon News

The Modern Quilt Guild announced all the classes and lectures for QuiltCon yesterday.  I am totally blown away by the amazing people they have on the schedule.  I am even more in awe that I'm one of them!

More about my classes in a minute, but look at this list of people:  Yoshiko Jinzenji (!!), Denyse Schmidt, Lotta Jansdotter, Amy Butler, Anna Maria Horner, Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr, Jacquie Gering, Malka Dubrawsky and more!  I am so impressed at what a fantastic job the group organizing QuiltCon has done so far.  It is going to be an outstanding event.  Registration opens August 30.

I'll be teaching three appliqué classes at QuiltCon.  Today, I want to tell you about my bias appliqué class which will be on Sunday, February 24 from 9-5.  I'm so excited about the projects I developed for this class.  I kept the projects small for all the classes since nobody wants to have to bring a suitcase full of supplies with them especially if they're flying.  

Students in my Bias Appliqué class will have a choice of which project to work on.  Since the QuiltCon site is showing the petal project, I'll show the mug project first.  I have to say, it was so much fun to make!  I used some of my favorite Echo by Lotta Jansdotter fabrics and a Half Moon Modern background.  There is a little too much sun in this picture, but I love the brick wall with the mugs - so cool coffeehouse looking :)

Or, for the petal project I used some Flea Market Fancy, some Reunion and a little more Half Moon Modern.  Working with bias lets you draw with fabric.  I can't draw at all with regular drawing tools, but I love drawing with bias.  The impact you get when shapes are distilled down to their minimum gets me every time.

If you'd like to see some other examples of projects in which I've used bias, check out my Modern Bias set on Flickr.

So, are you going to QuiltCon?

Happy Fourth of July

to all my US readers!

As quilt color schemes go, red white and blue is not one of my favorites.  My Twinkle quilt, made with a Hometown charm pack, is the closest I could get :)  I think its star and overall colors still work for the Fourth of July.

Have a fun and safe holiday!

Siblings Together

I can't imagine what it must be like to be a child who loses his parent (in one way or another) and then also loses contact with his siblings.  Earlier this year, Lynne from Lily's Quilts told us about a charity called Siblings Together and wondered if a few people might like to contribute some quilts these children could call their own.

Siblings Together brings children who have been separated from their siblings by the foster care system back together at a camp.  You should really go and read Lynne's post today about how the organization got started and a much better description than mine.  I'm thrilled to say that generous quilters have exceeded the original goal and Siblings Together is happily planning more ways to give quilts to children.

As soon as I saw Lynne's original post, I knew I had to help.  My husband's brother and his wife adopted three teenage siblings several years ago and my own brother is adopted as well.  How lucky we are to have them all in our lives.  I also knew I had to send "sibling" quilts.  After searching my brain for how I would manage to make two new quilts around my deadlines, I remembered these.  Blueberry Lime Fizz and Choppy Seas were early versions of my Triangle Maze pattern and I promptly sent them off.  I hope they are loved to death by their new sibling owners.


Lynne has a linky party going on today for those who contributed to Siblings Together and I'm linking this post.  Thanks so much Lynne and Delma and everyone else involved with this wonderful organization!