Spring Quilt Market 2013: Portlandia

Portland was a great place for Spring Market this year. I'd never been to Portland before, so it was exciting to get to see a new place, and to experience it with so many great people. If you haven't visited Portland before, make sure to arrive with an empty stomach - the food is unbelievable!

Mother's Bistro was a great breakfast spot, with quite possibly the best french toast I've ever had. Granted, I haven't been to Paris or anything, but I thought they were amazing. It could be in part because I haven't had the luxury of having french toast in a long time, but the ambiance in the restaurant was also really cool.

AnneMarie and I also walked on over to Frank's Noodle House for dinner one night, with their amazing homemade noodles and super tasty dumplings. It was a really interesting little place, and the food was just delicious. Definitely two thumbs up.

And who knew that Portland had awesome ice cream?!? Not me! After the Modern Domestic Happy Hour Friday night, a group of us walked over to Salt & Straw, a super fresh ice cream shop with very unique flavors, ranging from arbequina olive oil to more classic flavors like chocolate with gooey brownies. I had a mixed scoop of the chocolate with gooey brownies and the sea salt with caramel ribbon ice cream. Definitely an amazing match up! Even if it made the mild weather feel nearly arctic afterward ;)

awesome photo of us in line *yes there was a line!* at Salt & Straw by Jamie

l-r: me, AnneMarie, Jen, Sukie, and Lee

The other thing you'll need when you go to Portland is your wallet, because there are so many great fabric stores! On Thursday, AnneMarie and I managed to get out to a few fabric stores, thanks to our hotel shuttle and the kindness of strangers. We headed to Bolt, which was a beautiful little shop. Gorgeous fabrics, lots of modern finds, and lots of crossweaves as well. Definitely an inspiring kind of space. I picked up a few goodies there, and at the cutting counter, stumbled upon a kind stranger who was heading to Fabric Depot next. AnneMarie and I had planned to venture out to the public transit system to get out there, but our kindly new friends offered to drive us. How nice!

Our new friends were Susan, the fabulous owner of The Quilt Asylum in McKinney, Texas, and her daughter, Audrey. Thanks again, girls! Fabric Depot was definitely an interesting experience - kind of Wal-Mart meets quilt shop, with loads, and loads of bolts of quilting cottons ranging from solids to popular collections. They even had a bridal fabric section! Definitely lots of variety there. I picked up some great stash builders there, as well as some fabric to put together a Super Tote for Jacquie with her signature color, orange, and a fun dark denim I found.

Last but not least, I did a bit of shopping at the Modern Domestic Happy Hour, breaking my no-fat-quarters rule, because they were too cute to pass up. If you get up to the Portland area, definitely be sure to check out the Modern Domestic class schedule, their teaching space is just breathtaking!

Don't you just love checking out quilt shops in other cities? I know it's something I look forward to when I travel to new places. Have a great day today. Happy Wednesday to you!

Spring Quilt Market 2013: Fabric sneak peeks!

Though I'm happy to be home, Portland was really wonderful. From the awesome people to the great food and gorgeous scenery, it was a great trip, not to mention all that fabric! And thankfully, I brought my camera, so I can share it all with you guys :)

Today, I'm going to share the great booths and fabrics that I saw at Market, starting with....

Violet Craft's booth! Violet was sharing her upcoming Waterfront Park collection for Michael Miller, which should be arriving in stores this summer. Violet has such a bubbly, infectious personality, it was fun getting to visit with her. I especially adored the bridges quilt behind her, it's really stunning in person.

Also in the Michael Miller booth, I spotted a great upcoming line from Emily Herrick. I especially loved the movie theater seats that Emily recovered in her new line, Technicolor. I adore the colors in this line, it's so bright and cheerful.

I was also really excited to see Mo Bedell's booth. Mo is such a sweetheart! She featured her newest line, Full Moon Lagoon, in her booth as well as her next line, Hothouse Flowers, shown in swatches to the right of the seahorse quilt. Mo won a ribbon for her beautiful booth, for best new exhibitor. So exciting for her!

Another line I was pumped to see was Denyse Schmidt's upcoming Florence line, which should be in stores at the end of the summer. No surprise here, but it's gorgeous and brimming with all of the things we love about Denyse's past collections: beautiful, rich colors, small prints that are so easy to use, gorgeous stripes, and a fantastic vintage feel. I will definitely be getting lots of this collection!

The Kokka booth was also outstanding, full of Melody Miller, Echino, and Ellen Luckett Baker fabulousness. Melody's next line even has a small cameo of the viewfinders from her first line that have been so beloved and impossible to get. Melody also wore a fabulous dress made of the arrow print while she was at Market, but I didn't manage to get a good picture.

I also enjoyed seeing Jeni Baker's new line, Nordika. While the colors aren't colors I would normally attribute to her, as soon as you see the fabrics, the collection is totally Jeni. I loved the embroidery hoops hanging in her booth and the mix of both fun garments and quilts showcasing the new line.

The Cloud 9 booth was so cheerful. It's entirely possible that it's mostly due to a big dose of Pigeon. Oh yes, Mo Willems's famous Pigeon from his books has made it to fabric! I know my son would love to have a pigeon quilt on his bed.

The other fantastic thing I saw in the Cloud 9 booth was Rashida Coleman-Hale's upcoming line Koi. Rashida's booth featured booth Koi and her current line, Tsuru, but Koi definitely was the showstopper of the booth. With a similar color palette to her super-popular Washi line, but fresh, new prints. Rashida's sunny personality really comes through in this line, which will be available in both quilting cottons and voile.

And those are the fabric collections that I saw that really inspired and struck me. I'll write some more about the fabric shops I got to visit in Portland next in another couple of days, and I've also got lots of photos to share from an amazing trunk show by Jacquie Gering, too. First up on the lengthy To Do list I've returned to: laundry! Wish me luck! Have a great day :)

To Market, To Market...with a new bag!

Whenever I travel, especially on quilty adventures, I feel the need to make a new bag. And usually this feeling doesn't come over me until the last possible moment, so right on schedule yesterday, I found myself desiring a Super Tote. Have you seen these bags? It's probably Kelly's fault, because she made a gorgeous one adorned with applique leaves for Tracey, come to think of it. All the same, Anna, as always, wrote an amazingly easy to follow pattern that yields beautiful, professional looking results. I am super excited to board a plane to Portland today carrying my new bag. I love this bag.

It's huge. I could probably even fit my laptop in here, but I'm not going to try on this trip. Inspired by Kelly, I made a few changes to the bag - I added the exterior pocket to both the front and back of the bag, because I like pockets and I added a crossbody strap rather than two shorter straps. At Market, you wind up lugging a bunch of stuff around, so I figured the crossbody strap would be way more comfortable.

I used Essex Yarn Dyed in Flax for the linen bits, Melody Miller's amazing viewfinders in aqua for the exterior pockets, Madrona Road Sprout in Straw for the lining mixed with an old Kumari Garden print called Tarika for the lining gusset. I only wish I'd bought a whole bolt of the viewfinders when they came out, now that they're out of print!

All in all, I'm really happy with how this turned out and have plans to make a second one for Jacquie. She jokingly asked me to make her one to bring to Market, but rather than rush through it, I'm going to make it for her after I get home. She can use it to cart some of her necessities to all of her wonderful classes that she's teaching these days. You should check to see if she's teaching near you, because she's seriously awesome!

I'll be back with loads of pictures from my trip next week, and I will indeed be posting to Instagram (with my terrible camera phone) while I'm away if you want to follow the #quiltmarket fun. Have a wonderful rest of your week!

Hope Valley Progress!

Thank you all so much for all of your well wishes on my book news. I'm still pinching myself over the whole thing! I'm so touched by the things you guys have said to me, I really appreciate all the support. As soon as it's listed for pre-order, I will be sure to let you guys all know! In the meantime, I've got some good news to share on my Hope Valley improv quilt today: I finished the quilt top. Yay! It's officially big enough to fit on my queen-sized bed, and because of that, it's nearly impossible to photograph. But, I love it so far. :) You can read a little more about my work on this quilt right here.

The bad news? Now I have to baste the darned thing! Yikes. My weekend clearly is going to include a heck of a lot of quality time with my 505. And I need to shop for some Aurifil thread to match the yarn-dyed Essex to quilt it with - thankfully my MQG meeting is tomorrow at Inspire Quilting & Sewing, where they stock boatloads of Aurifil! Hope you have a great weekend!

Coming Soon: Becoming a Confident Quilter, the book!

I have started and deleted and started this post over at least five times now, so maybe the sixth time's the charm...I have really something big to tell you guys. I kind of wrote a book.

I really did write a book. Omg, omg, I can hardly believe it. Becoming a Confident Quilter will be out this September and it's chock full of tips, techniques, and exercises to stretch and build your quilting skills. There are fourteen quilt patterns, and I can't wait to show you every last one of them, but I have to keep them under my hat for now.

I can tell you this much - I've wanted to be an author since I was six years old. I still have the very first book I ever wrote, a delightful tale I called Bunnies, about a family of bunnies, so this is a really big deal to me. It nearly makes me cry when I think of the idea of running into a copy of my book in reality at a bookstore someday in the not-too-distant future. I cannot begin to tell you how much this whole experience has meant to me, and I can't wait to share more about it with all of you, including loads of pictures and stories about the quilts over the next several months. Suffice it say, I'm beyond excited. And proud. And joyful. It's a good day :)