I always feel so inspired being right in the middle of QuiltCon and can’t wait to get home and jump into quilting to try everything I learned while away. Then my momentum slows down, and next thing you know it’s 8 months later and I haven’t accomplished anything. One of my goals for this year was to finish a few old projects that have been hanging over my head and after attending Victoria Findlay Wolfe’s engaging presentation, I have decided to attempt her 15 Minutes of Play concept. Not sure if I will sew for 15 minutes or sew one complete block or sketch and design a quilt top etc. and I don’t even know if I will be able to do this once a day, but I am going to try. My goal here is to do something once a day so that I create and feel like I have accomplished something. If I can keep that momentum going longer than previous years, I will consider this goal a success! These are the 3 quilts that are at the top of my UFO list. The green and grey one I started at QuiltCon in 2017 and only needs a bunch of blocks made to sew into 2 rows and attach to the rest of the quilt top. All these bright coloured squares have been on my design wall for longer than I care to remember. This is where my 15 minutes a day or one 9 patch a day theory will begin. If I can get one block done in a few minutes here and there I can clear off my design wall for my next really old UFO. The Double Diamonds quilt was one I started years and years ago. I need to make more blocks and lay out the completed blocks so I can get a handle on finishing this quilt. I think these blocks will take longer than 15 minutes, so maybe my goal can be to make 1 block at a time. Another outcome from all the lectures I attended at the show (the lecture pass is a great way to learn a lot from a wide variety of speakers) is that even though you might think you know a subject or topic already, there is always something to learn. The speaker might have a different way to look at something then I do. Or the speaker might mention something that I already knew but totally forgot about. There are so many ways you can learn even just one thing from somebody else, so don’t close your mind to learning. Now on to the don’t get discouraged or down on yourself topic- let’s talk about Bob. Bob was a #quiltconreject for the 2019 show. We all know that mid-December there is the happy hashtag of quilts that have been accepted to QuiltCon and the disappointing hashtag of the “rejects”. If Patti the maker of the Bob quilt had been discouraged after getting her rejection letter, who knows what would have happened to Bob. But she didn’t. She entered Bob for the 2020 show and not only was he accepted, Bob won the People’s Choice award and ribbon. Bob is a great example for quilters to keep making and entering their quilts into many different types of quilt shows as you never know which one will be right for your quilt. I interrupt all this chatter about quilts and QuiltCon to bring you photos of the delicious food in Austin. I have to say tacos really should be a food group! We had margaritas, chips and salsa and tacos most meals, with some Asian mixed in. I had Thai for lunch one day and ramen for dinner another day. As well as the obligatory Gus’s Chicken and a glass of wine for lunch too. Sadly, I gained one pound a day eating and then sitting for hours and hours in lectures. Which is crazy thinking how much walking I also did. Another non quilty morning I had was at the Austin Public Library. My daughter joined me for a few days and I loved learning about the city through her artistic, book loving eyes. Each night at dinner she would tell me about her day exploring and show me the photos she took along the way. The morning she left we spent an hour at the library sitting on the roof chatting and looking out at the river. She is back at university and I miss her already. OK I’ll dry the tears in my eyes and back to quilts. On Wednesday we took a bus tour to La Grange to the Texas Quilt Museum and saw their quilt exhibit as well as the past winning quilts at QuiltCon exhibit. This Motel sign quilt was my favourite from the show. And what would this blog post be without show quilts? Here is my favourite quilt at QuiltCon. I have the Inspiring Improv book and this quilt is from the book. It’s on my to do list for future quilts to make once my design wall is cleared off. I also wanted to point out that this year I found quite a number of quilts had hand stitching in addition to machine quilting. Here are a few examples. The hand stitching really added interest to the quilts. I won’t post any more photos about quilt, you can find all the winners here (with much better photography) > 2020 Ribbon Quilts.
My last thought is a really big thank you to all the MQG staff and board members and volunteers for putting on another fantastic quilt show.
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