2024: New Horizons at the New England Quilt Expo
Let’s start 2024 off right - I’m teaching at the New England Quilt Expo in Manchester NH in April.
Last week’s blog post was a short trip down memory lane through 2023, and so my intention was to spend this week’s blog post talking about my 2024 word of the year, which is authentic. Well, as it turns out - late breaking news has caused me to bump that out a week, so if you come back to the blog next week, I’ll tell you all about how authentic came to be.
Authentic is the next chapter of my words of the year exercise, and it fits me in so many ways! I can’t wait to tell you about it.
For this week, almost at the same time that this blogpost is going live, the 2024 New England Quilt Expo show site is also going live, and I am very pleased to tell you that I’ll be there, teaching two different Sew Kind of Wonderful projects. This has been in the works since last year’s show, and it’s one of the reasons that I have ramped up my teaching profile over the next year or so.
To have been invited to submit a proposal to the show was a very nice surprise, and I’ve enjoyed learning about this part of the quilting industry. The show has picked two of the classes that I submitted, and I’m pleased to share them with you here.
I’ll go back and edit the show details for this post once it’s gone live, but I wanted to get the details committed to paper now.
This is The Giving Tree, a beautiful backdrop to any holiday celebration. This one is easily quilted on a domestic machine.
The Giving Tree will be offered by the show on Wednesday, April 10th, and it’s a full day class of working with Sew Kind of Wonderful’s Mini Curve Ruler, which is very easy to do. There is also a book that accompanies this class called the Mini Wonderful Curves, which offers students a total of 16 different projects arranged throughout the seasons. Of the 16 projects, I’m currently making #4 now. The design team at Sew Kind of Wonderful offers a fresh take at looking at fabrics, and I know you’re going to love this class. If you have any questions about the class, please email either the show or me here so that we can answer them.
When I think of iconic quilt designs, one of those at the top of my list is a clamshell quilt. I’m calling her Shelly.
The second class that I’m teaching at the show is this one, called Chic Shells. This is made with the original Sew Kind of Wonderful pattern, the Quick Curve Ruler, and there’s plenty of negative space to play with in this one. I’ve recently spent a lot of time with this quilt, and I’ve kind of named it Shelly. It’s fun, it’s fresh - and its easy to make. I’m showing the pattern here because it’s not yet back from the longarmer, but this quilt had a lot of things to teach me. It’s a great scrap quilt, or to use with a collection of fat quarters. I am looking forward to showing you what the class sample looks like - but until then, this will do.
Like all Sew Kind of Wonderful patterns, this curves on this quilt are sewn without using pins, and they pieces are cut oversized and then trimmed to the final size. This quilt is large enough to be a great couch quilt for a lake or a beach house. Come and sew with me and let me show you how easy it can be.