Tuesday, May 29, 2012

International Quilt Market Kansas City 2012 in pictures!

It's been a week now since Spring International Quilt Market 2012 wrapped up in Kansas City. It was great to see old friends, and meet new ones!

A few days before set up began, I was able to get out to Greenwood, Missouri to search for a cupboard I was needing for my booth. Greenwood has some terrific antique stores, and sure enough, I found the perfect cupboard!


It has some great cubbies inside of various sizes, and I love the unique sawtooth trim at the top! The color was perfect, too!

I was very fortunate this year to have my niece, Jennifer, helping with the set up, as well as the show. Jennifer is very creative and was indispensable!

Jennifer in the booth!

One of our first visitors was Melissa Towne, owner of Primitive Stitches in Warrensburg, Missouri. Melissa also had some of her patterns displayed in the National Nonwovens booth (maker of wool felt)!

Martha and Melissa

I have been corresponding with Kimber Mitchell through email for the past several years, and it was a thrill to finally meet her in person! Kimber is a creative doll artist, has a beautiful blog http://heirloomsbyashtonhouse.blogspot.com/
and on top of all that, she is an editor for many publications, including Primitive Quilts and Projects Magazine, in which I will have a quilt featured in the upcoming Fall 2012 issue!


Kimber and Martha

While I don't have a lot of time to visit other booths, I can't help taking a little time to visit the booths selling antique quilts! I made a point to stop into Cindy Rennel's booth, Cindy's Antique Quilts, to see some of the wonderful quilts she had to sell - yes, there were some that I really, really, really wanted to walk away with! 


Cindy and Martha
My indecision on the applique quilt in the picture on the left meant that it left the show with another owner!


It was a pleasure to meet for the first time a fellow Kansas City Star author, Anni Downs. Anni has self-published numerous books and patterns, and is the author of Some Kind of Wonderful by Kansas City Star Books. If that's not enough, she and her husband have a shop The Home Patch in Australia!


Anni and Martha
Speaking of Kansas City Star Books, we attended a reception Saturday evening sponsored by Kansas City Star Books, with quilts from some of their publications hanging everywhere! It was great to see my editor, Edie McGinnis, again, and also to see some of her wonderful quilts up close in the exhibit!


Edie, Martha and Jennifer

It was wonderful to see Alex Veronelli from Aurifil again on our last day. Alex stopped by to see some of my new projects from my upcoming new book, Annie's Scrapbag (more about it in a future blog!), many of which are sewn with Aurifil thread.

Alex and Martha

Many thanks to my husband, Thom, who took all of the pictures! Without him, I can guarantee I wouldn't have any to show you!


Until next time,


Martha

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Blog Tour Winners!!


Thanks to all of you for your comments. I enjoyed reading about the wide variety of projects each of you make for the Fall season!

And the winners are:

Congratulations to hueisei! You have won a copy of Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks Volume 5 to be mailed to you directly from Quiltmaker magazine!

Congratulations to JoyceLM! You have won a copy of Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks Volume 5, as well as a copy of my new pattern, "Black Cat Table Rug"!

Winners, please email your addresses to me at info@wagonswestdesigns.com, so that Quiltmaker and I can get your prizes out to you ASAP!

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks Blog Tour

Welcome and thank you for visiting with me on the Day 5 tour of the Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks designers blog tour! And thank you to Quiltmaker for organizing such a fun event that brings all of us together in our shared love of quilting! The block I designed for Volume 5 is Bittersweet Basket #414.




I was thinking of Fall when I designed this block. I had been wanting to design a basket based on antique gathering baskets that are constructed of wooden slats bound with wire. And this block was just perfect for using one of my favorite color combinations - yellow, purple, green and red.

Here are a few quilt layout ideas for Bittersweet Basket:

Blocks set with chain of squares sashing.





Bittersweet Basket blocks combined with pieced star blocks.



Medallion setting



medallion setting



For a very different color scheme, when you get your copy of Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks Vol. 5, be sure to take a look at the quilt made by Joanna Simpson, "Perennial Posies". Wow! You'll find it on page 87 in the Tester's Gallery. Joanna combines Bittersweet Basket with four other blocks from the issue for a very stunning quilt!

In keeping with the Fall theme, I have a new wool applique pattern to show you that is just out ... "Black Cat Table Rug", pictured below!





Please leave a comment below by Sat., May 5 midnight (MST) for a chance to win a free copy of Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks Volume 5 or a free copy of Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks Volume 5 and my "Black Cat Table Rug" wool applique pattern. In the comment section, please let me know what kinds of projects you like to make for the Fall Season!

And for another chance to win a free copy of the magazine and pattern, you can comment on my Facebook page as well!
Scroll back up and hit the Facebook button and it will take you to the Wagons West Designs Facebook page.

Thank you for visiting and have fun on the rest of your Blog Tour!

Until next time,

Martha