Quilters Take Manhattan 2016 Blog Hop for Quilt Alliance

I'm excited to introduce Day 1 of the very first Quilters Take Manhattan Blog Hop organised by the Quilt Alliance,  I've helped Amy Milne, QA's Executive Director, put this pilot together so it's super special to bring it to you today :D

Quilt Match 2016 - Meet The Contenders

Announcing Quilt Match 2016 hosted by the Quilt Alliance at this year's annual Quilters Take Manhattan main event on Saturday, 24 September, at FIT, Manhattan.

Each year at QTM, Quilt Match brings together 3 contenders for the Featherweight Champ of the Quilt World title. Previous contenders include Luke Haynes, Heather Jones, Denyse Schmidt, Karla Overland, Laurie Russman and last year's winner Edyta Sitar. Quilt Match contenders have one hour to design and layout a quilt top - 'no patterns, no plans, no regrets'.

I expect you're wondering who this year's Quilt Match contenders will be; well, one of them is none other than me. I've been chosen to represent the NYC Metro MOD Quilt Guild, and I can now share details of who my fellow contenders will be. 

Amy Butler Talks Fabric

Last weekend Quilters Take Manhattan came to, well, Manhattan!  It's the busiest weekend of the year at my LQS, The City Quilter, so it's all hands to help on the shop floor meaning I don't get to actually attend the event anymore.  It's not all bad news, I do get to meet all the quilty names that drop by the store to teach classes, give talks, meet up, etc.

This last weekend was no exception - in fact, it was marvellous - and the absolute best bit was that I got to nip over to FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology) to meet Amy Butler, escort her back to the store, then host the Saturday afternoon Amy Butler Talks Fabric event.

Amy was, as anticipated, super lovely - and very understanding when I apologised for taking a 5-second peep at my mobile phone to see if my Grandson had been born as my DIL was in labour!  As it was he kept us waiting a further 3 hours!!!

Anyway, time to share with you the pics I took on behalf of The City Quilter during Amy's talk.  

 The Glow Trunk Show collection

Piecing, quilting and ribbon embellishment

Check out the handles on this incredible tote - a fab reuse of one of Amy's leather belts.

Beautiful surface detail and texture.

Ocean Wave Knit Pillow - made with Glow Knit fabric.

that knit fabric is super soft

Amy showing off her Glow Voile Quilt with a little help from the artist and designer Luke Haynes - made with Glow Voile and solid ivory voile.  Read more about my workshop with Luke Haynes here.

The back of the Glow Voile quilt

The Glow House Quilt - pattern designed by Lucy Fazely.

Amy's dress matches her projects!!! - If you love it like I do the pattern is from the I Am Cute Dresses book by Sato Watanabe.

A close up of Amy's Glow House quilt.

Eye candy everywhere!!!

Amy talked us through her design process from concept to fabric production to sales point.

And that's me with Amy - Amy's soooo tall (and I'm not!), in this pic I'm on my tip toes and Amy's bending down!!!

If you'd like to see more pics from the event you can follow this link through to the store's Facebook photo album

What a great weekend :D

For details of other fabric, yarn, trim and notion stores that I've visited around the world along with the NYC stores I love, exhibitions and events I've attended and wonderful people I've been lucky to meet click the links below or in my sidebar :D

Disclaimer: This post is for informational purposes only, no payment or commission is received on click-throughs and opinions are my own.

Meeting, Chatting, Knitting and Stitching

Made time this week to knit something for my Grandson-to-be, Oliver, excited to finally get to use some of the wool I bought on my visit to Atelier Yarns in San Francisco.

Here's the pics of my progress along the way as seen on Instagram

Had it finished within 3 hours on Memorial Day - haven't knitted baby clothes for 20 years and I'd forgotten what a quick make they are.  Working on a matching sweater now but it'll take a little longer as life's kicked into 'super busy' mode again with deadlines, teaching and travel plans but we'll get there - a plane journey is just what I need to sit a while and knit :D

I have a handful of other pics to share too of people I've had the pleasure to meet over the last few weeks:

Sarah of Quilt Candy came to visit NYC

and look who's dropped in at work:

Novelist, Marie Bostwick (check out her latest book 'Apart At The Seams' - there's even a trip to The City Quilter, my LQS, in it) and Meg Cox, Quilt Alliance President (so looking forward to Quilter's Take Manhattan in September);

 Mary Fons of Papergirl and Quilty, QNNtv (Mary's just moved to NYC so hopefully we'll be seeing more of her in store and her new book Make + Love Quilts is beautiful);

and Kathy Doughty of Material Obsession (it's the second time I've met Kathy when she's been teaching at The City Quilter and one of these days I'll get to join in one of her fabulous classes myself - we fast realised that both trying to press the button while taking a selfie plays havoc with maintaining your photo smile and keeping the phone steady!).

For details of other fabric, yarn, trim and notion stores that I've visited around the world along with the NYC stores I love, exhibitions and events I've attended and wonderful people I've been lucky to meet click the links below or in my sidebar :D

Disclaimer: This post is for informational purposes only, no payment or commission is received on click-throughs and opinions are my own.

Introducing Fab People & Places

I'm so lucky, living in Manhattan's back yard and now working there gives me access to some of the best Trunk Shows, Exhibitions and Events and then I get to travel some too.  If you've been following my posts for a while you'll know how I love to report back on everything I attend and I got to thinking that many newer followers may never have seen my posts about Tula Pink's incredible Trunk Show or Denyse Schmidt's amazing quilt exhibition at Quilters Take Manhattan, not to mention the 'Workt By Hand' Exhibition that's still ongoing at Brooklyn Museum and even a tour of Liberty, London and many more!!!

So I had an idea to create a blog page just for these type of events, so you can check back on them whenever you like and new readers can easily find them too.

Here's a link to the new page and you can also find it at the top of my blog in the tabs under my main blog photo:





Grab a cup of tea, sit back and enjoy - you may be here a while! :)

Linking To:

And We Did ... Take Manhattan That Is!

 What a great day!

Firstly I'll tell you what I haven't got to show you ... so wrapped up in everything I forgot to take photos!

The Silent Auction Items -  
didn't bid on anything myself but my friend Maren at The Agitprop Quilter did and is now the proud owner of a Go! Baby Fabric Cutter

The Door Raffle Prizes -
didn't win anything but WOW to the lucky lady who won the Brother Laura Ashley Innov-is NX2000 sewing machine

The Coffee Break Biscuit Table -  
weighed down with sugar laden snacks (shame I don't eat sugar :( )

The Aurifil Display Stand -
now I want to get my hands on my own Aurifil Colour Card

The Brother Display Stand

The FIT Building

The conference room full of fellow quilters

Amy Milne, Head of the Alliance who did a fab job leading the event

but HERE's what I DO have to SHARE with YOU!!!
(be sure to click on the images to make them larger so you can see all the gorgeous detail better)

 

Event Goodies - I treated myself to a copy of Denyse Schmidt's book (love my signed message) and then just look at that Goody Bag - WOW at those freebie fabrics! Denyse Schmidt's Free Spirit Chicoppe fall collection and Michael Miller's Cotton Couture Charms

 

Here's Denyse Schmidt being interviewed by Meg Cox, Alliance President, for The Quilt Alliance Save Our Stories

A full transcript of the interview will soon be available on The Quilt Alliance SOS website link and I recommended you look out for it

Quilter and Author Jennifer Chiaverini sharing with us her quilting and writing background and she then read us an excerpt from her next novel 'The Giving Quilt'.

And here's me and Maren on the back far left along with other members of the NYC Metro Mod Quilt Guild (original photo link)

And here I am with Denyse Schmidt

Me alongside Denyse's Save Our Stories quilt - One Big Square

 And finally, here's my photos of Denyse's quilts that were on display at the event, so inspiring and a real treat to see her fabric choices, the textures, piecing and quilting up close.  Each of the quilts is featured in her book Denyse Schmidt: Modern Quilts, Traditional Inspiration (that's the book - detailing how to make 20 beautiful quilts - that I picked up at the event and detailed in my top 'Event Goodies' photo).  You can find out more about Denyse at her website and facebook page Denyse Schmidt Quilts.

I love, love, love this quilt - it so makes me think about the Modern Sampler Block quilt that we've been making this month for our NYC Mod Queen Bee Nicole (My September Bee Block(s) - Yes, There's Two Of Them! and Pinterest: Quilty - Modern Sampler Blocks).  I particularly enjoy the small details of patterned fabric in amongst the solids.

Again - it's all in the detail - small areas of colour and pattern in an otherwise black and white quilt.

Finally, here's just a handful of the 'Home Is Where The Quilt Is' entrants that were on display at FIT.  The rest were on display at The City Quilter and, unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me when I nipped in for one of my many visits of the week on Thursday.  I promise that if any of the 'houses' are still on display next time I'm in I'll take photos to share with you.  If you don't want to wait then you can see all the entries here on The Quilt Alliance website and you can also see the winners detailed here.

That's my 3 favourites highlighted in the top row and I had many more favourites over at CQ!!!

For details of other fabric, yarn, trim and notion stores that I've visited around the world along with the NYC stores I love, exhibitions and events I've attended and wonderful people I've been lucky to meet click the links below or in my side bar :D

Disclaimer: This post is for informational purposes only, no payment or commission is received on click-throughs and opinions are my own.