QuiltCon 2015: Day 1

I made it to QuiltCon! I really should be sleeping, as I woke up at 3:00am PST to make it to the airport for my 6:00am flight, but I want to record a few things about the day before forget.

1) My new Fernando Volken luggage is awesome and received many compliments. After twenty years with the same suitcase, it was time to move on and I couldn't be happier!

I was one of the first to get one of the coveted Fancy Fox buttons from Elizabeth Hartman!

2) The day was like a snowball of quilting friends that started when Jo-Anne (juicyredbee) joined me on my flight to San Francisco. Then, Magdalena, a former VMQG member, found us in the SFO airport and it turned out she was on our flight to Austin. Elizabeth Hartman was also on our flight and immediately shared her awesome buttons! Check-in at the hotel, QuiltCon registration and the Canadian Meet Up were just more chances to see familiar faces and meet new friends!

Hello, Austin!

I loved the view from my room on the eighth floor! Hello rowers!

3) We arrived in Austin around 4:30pm CST and ran into Kristen, Terry & Janet at the baggage claim! At the hotel, my kind roomie Debra had brought Florida oranges. I also got to finally hug Lee, chair of the Leadership Conference Committee. Pin swapping has begun!

A blurry but happy group of quilters at registration. (Krista, Janet, Krista, Terry, Felicity, and Kristen)

4) Registration was cool, they just took your name and automatically printed your name tag with your schedule conveniently located on the back! Haven't even had a chance to look at my goody bag yet, but I'm excited to read the copy of Uppercase magazine in there (yay for Canadian content!). So many familiar faces at registration! Uber-busy Elizabeth Dackson and Alissa Haight Carlton zipped past. Met friends from Seattle and Portland who I've gotten to know through our PNW MQG meet ups. Ended up going to dinner with Jenn (pinkbrain_here) and Denise (walked out of Crave after 15 minutes with no service, but had a yummy Thai dinner).

5) The Canadian Meet Up! I organized this event along with Jaclyn, Joanne, and Alison. About 40-45 Canadians (and ex-pats, and a few Aussies, and one woman from Colorado who we let in because she had French on her sweater!) met up in the lounge at the Radisson. We had prizes kindly donated from several Canadian shops. Amy (amyscraftyshenanigans) was our mascot in a Canadian flag cape. Unfortunately, some folks had travel delays and weren't able to make it, but we look forward to seeing them soon!

A few pics from the meet up:

The Calgary MQG Contingent

 Paula, Linda, Kristen, Amy, and James

Lots of connections were made! It's fun to meet people who you know online, especially friendly quilters!

Ok, it's time to rest and get ready for the first official day of QuiltCon!

Hello, QuiltCon!

In less than two short weeks, I'll be in Austin for my second QuiltCon. I can't wait! I joined in on the #helloquiltcon hashtag on Instagram, but thought I'd post an introduction here as well. The old blog is pretty quiet these days (I think I just saw a tumbleweed blow by!), so if you want to find me, I'll be on Instagram as @hollybroadland. You can also learn about me on my About page. 

Hi! I'm Holly and I'm the founder and Co-President of the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild. For the past five years, the VMQG has been the main focus of my life outside of family. It has been a wonderful place to find new friends and get inspired to quilt. It's also been a way of defining myself outside of my treasured roles as wife and mother, and I appreciate that to no end! I'm also a keener who volunteers for The MQG on the Leadership Conference Commitee.

Here's my QuiltCon schedule (I'll also be at the Leadership Meet & Greet on Friday night and the Leadership Conference all day Monday):

A few random facts about me:

1) I was born in Campbell River on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada.

2) I'm a chronic procrastinator (case in point, I haven't ordered my #quiltconpinswap buttons yet and I fly out on the 18th!).

3) I was a high school rower for three years and competed twice in the Canadian high school rowing championships in St. Catharines, Ontario. If I'm on your team, I will pull hard and not complain.

4) I'm a wannabe librarian and I love substitute teaching in school libraries. 

5) I'm on the introverted side, but when I'm around my quilty peeps, my extroverted side comes out. I can't wait to connect with lots of online friends while I'm at QuiltCon!

6) I love books. I can't imagine life without a book on the go at all times. I'm currently reading "Wings of Fire: The Dark Secret" by Tui T. Sutherland because my seven year old got me into this series about dragons.

7) I'm a lefty who prints neatly.

8) You know the saying, "Who doesn't love free stuff?"? Well, it's me. I don't love free stuff. I'm an environmentalist who lives in a small space and I already feel overwhelmed by the amount of stuff in our two-bedroom condo. Last night, I ordered pizza and they gave me a free plastic plate and I handed it right back to the delivery guy.

9) If I weren't an elementary school substitute teacher, I could see myself being a copy editor. I just can't help spotting spelling mistakes!

10) I don't wear makeup. I didn't even wear any for my wedding because it would have weirded out my husband. The closest thing I have that resembles makeup is Burt's Bees lip balm with a little pink tint to it.

11) I love my Converse All Stars! I had a green pair in high school and now I have a red pair. I kinda want a whole rainbow of them (I am Rainbow Girl, after all!).

If you see me at QuiltCon, please come up and say hi!

QuiltCon Registration - check!

Vancouver MQG members Paula, Holly (that's me!), Arita, & Paul in front of our fellow member Diane Thompson's quilt, "A Tribute to B.C. Binning" at QuiltCon 2013

Exactly one week ago, my heart was still racing after an exhilirating QuiltCon registration experience. I had done all I could to prepare, including a last-minute strategy session with my QuiltCon roomie Michelle, watching the "How to Register" video numerous times, and creating a text file full of course codes and member discounts so I could easily cut and paste. I know registration was a stressful situation for many and I want those who didn't get into their first choices to know that there is so much at QuiltCon in addition to the workshops! I took 1.5 days of workshops at QuiltCon 2013 and that was plenty for me, as I had people to meet, inspiring lectures to attend, a quilt show to drool over, vendors to visit, dance parties to go to, etc, etc. 

 Me and Lizzy House with the HST mini quilt top I made in her workshop

This time, I was lucky enough to get into my top choices and I will be taking Patchwork City with Elizabeth Hartman and Creative Quilting With Your Walking Foot with Jacquie Gering. Those are two full day workshops on Thursday and Friday respectively, so I'm going to take yoga on Saturday morning to stretch after an intensive period of sewing. I've booked a number of awesome lectures on Saturday and left Sunday mostly free for recovery. I'll also be staying for the leadership conference on Monday because I'm geeky like that.

Registration for the general public opened today and I'd highly recommend the experience if you can make it to Austin, Texas next February!

Oh, and for you QuiltCon newbies, a piece of advice. Expect QuiltCon withdrawal in the weeks after you return home. I had a hard time readjusting to life without QuiltCon, so my eldest (who was nearly six years old at the time) drew me my own quilt show. Love that kid!

Will I see you at QuiltCon in Feburary? What are you most looking forward to? Are you considering entering a quilt in the show?

"Memories of QuiltCon"

Back in July, I wrote up my list of Q3 Finish-a-Long goals, with high hopes that I would complete all three of my works in progress by the deadline. I'm happy to report that I have met my goal! Three finishes in three months would already be some kind of record for me, but it ended up being three finishes in just three weeks because you know I like to cut it close to deadline!

"Memories of QuiltCon"

I sent two of my quilts down to the Northwest Quilting Expo in Portland for the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild's special exhibit at the show. Only three VMQG members made the trip to Portland for the show, so we were lucky to get a report back from Portland MQG member, Bill Volckening. His blog post, titled "Northwest Quilting Expo: Vancouver Modern Steals the Show", shares pictures of a number of the VMQG quilts that were on display.

"Memories of QuiltCon" is one of the two quilts I had in the show. It's a 12"x15" mini quilt that I started at Lizzy House's awesome workshop at QuiltCon.

 Me and Lizzy with my finished quilt top on the design wall full of other students' work

 I had to use some of Lizzy's Pearl Bracelet (bought at QuiltCon!) for the back. I followed Laurraine's corner pockets tutorial from her blog, Patchwork Pottery.

Thanks to my good friend Michelle of Eclectic Gnome for this picture of a happy Holly sharing the completed quilt at the September VMQG meeting. The quilts were due that night and were being driven to Portland the next day. Knowing me, are you surprised that I'd started with a quilt top at 10:00am that morning?

I'm really happy with how this quilt turned out and I'm glad that the deadline finally got me to finish it just seven months after I started it in Austin! I love playing with HSTs and solids and I also enjoyed trying out some matchstick quilting for the first time. I think a mini quilt was the perfect way to experiment with this incredibly dense style of quilting!

Post one of three done. I'll be back with more soon!

2013 Finish-a-Long: Quarter 3 Goals

I've been tempted by the call of the Finish-a-Long for months now, and this time I'm going to finally share some of my goals in public. If you know me, you know I don't get many projects finished each year, but there are a few that I really want to finish in the next couple of months, so it seems like a perfect time to join in with Leanne of She Can Quilt and the Finish-a-Long crew!

Here's my list of projects to finish in Q3:

1) Patchwork baby quilt (started May 10th, 2013)
The baby this is meant for has just turned two months old and I'm optimistic I can get this basted, quilted, and given to him soon! His second cousins can't wait to meet him!

2) Rainbow Girl
I started collecting fabric for this colour wheel quilt in 2010 and I pieced the top last summer. I basted it in November 2012 and just have to quilt it!

3) Memories of QuiltCon
I pieced this mini quilt top at a Lizzy House workshop at QuiltCon in February 2013. My neighbour Courtney, managed to design, piece, quilt, and bind her mini quilt in the same time I took to create this top! It won't take too long to quilt this tiny little quilt, I just need to make it happen! All of the fabrics I used for this quilt were from a bundle I purchased in Seattle at last year's meet up of the Vancouver, Seattle, and Portland Modern Quilt Guilds. Thanks to Keli of Drygoods Design for creating this great palette!

I have many more WIPs that I could list, but I'm going to try to remain grounded in reality and stick with this list of three. I have some late bee blocks and a couple of swaps to do over the summer, so I won't just be focusing on finishing my own quilts. If I can finish just three quilts by the end of September, I'd be delighted!

What are you working on this summer?

Day 3 in Austin - bring on QuiltCon!

Today was simply spectacular and I couldn't possibly capture it in words. It started as I entered the Austin Convention Center for the first day of QuiltCon.

As soon as we entered the quilt show, we posed for a family photo at the Michael Miller photo booth. Thanks for taking this picture, Susan (West Coast Crafty)!

The first quilt we saw at the show was the QuiltCon challenge raffle quilt (pieced and quilted by Elizabeth Hartman with blocks made by MQG members)! Here is Sophia proudly pointing out the block I made.

Other highlights of the day:

- walking the show (amazeballs!)

- free Pearl Bracelet charm pack at the Andover booth

- the Awards ceremony (including TWO honorable mentions for Felicity!)

- learning hand quilting from Anna Maria Horner

- running into all sorts of quilting friends and mentors

- chatting with keeners at the MQG Leaders meet up

- getting kicked out of the atrium for stitching too loudly with a group of rowdy quilters

I can't wait for tomorrow!

Day 2 in Austin (pre-QuiltCon)

Before I head off for the first official day of QuiltCon, I wanted to write up some memories of yesterday. Wednesday was our one full family day in Austin before I go into QuiltCon mode and let Dean take care of the girls on his own, so we took advantage of it!

First, we bussed to the Austin Nature & Science Center because Dean had heard that they had a dinosaur exhibit. In addition to lots of cool raptors, a raven that Eleanor adored, and an acrobatic raccoon, they had a dino pit where junior paleontologists could try their luck. Sophia loved it!

After lunch at Chipotle's, we headed up to the Texas State Capitol Building (did you know that Austin is the capital of Texas? I didn't!). The building was truly impressive and even though our kids didn't have the patience for a tour, stepping into the grand lobby was worth the security check.

At 4:00pm, I was dying to check-in to QuiltCon, so I headed over to the convention center (I'll use American spellings here as a concession to the locals). Since our hotel is offering a discount to QuiltCon attendees, there are quilters all over and I met Maria from NYC on the way to registration. She was kind enough to take this photo of me:

When I got to the desk, who should check me in but Julie (Procrasticraft) from Australia who I'd been chatting with over twitter for over a year in anticipation of this event!

I soon met up with Leanne (She Can Quilt) and Marianne (The Quilting Edge) from Edmonton, and then Rene' (Rene' Creates) popped by and then Kristy (St. Louis Folk Victorian) was running up and introducing herself! It was like the internet had come to life and I loved every minute of it! I quickly said hello to Heather Grant (Modern Day Quilts) who has been working like crazy with her amazing team to make this event come together.

Leanne and Marianne and I were chatting and checking out our swag bags when what did I see but the program with the raffle quilt and MY BLOCK on the cover!

Eventually, I decided I'd better find my family for dinner, so I left the convention center. As I was heading out, I gave directions to fabric designer Laurie Wisbrun (Scarlet Fig) who was headed to the Kaufman booth to drop off her adorable rain coat made from her laminated camper fabric. Once back at the hotel, we headed to Whole Foods and enjoyed pizza and a build your own salad before stocking up on groceries for the week.

Back at the hotel, Eleanor got into my swag bag and especially loved the sunglasses (shown here as a white blur in her hands)!

The quilt show officially opens in less than half an hour and I can't wait to see it! Thinking of all my VMQG friends who would love to be here today and wishing I could transport you all to Austin! I'll do my best to keep you updated! (happy yet, Michelle?)

I'm in Austin, Texas! (day 1, pre-QuiltCon)

After months of anticipation, last-minute frenzied packing, and hours on an airplane with a squirmy toddler (and relatively well-behaved husband and five-year-old), I'm finally in Austin for QuiltCon! We arrived on Tuesday afternoon and met up with my cousin who used to live in Austin (she now lives in London) for a tour of the city.

As soon as we arrived in Austin, the live music capital of the world, we knew there was something special about this place.

After leaving below-freezing temperatures and snow behind in Pennsylvania, warm weather and palm trees were a welcome sight!

Our hotel is very close to the Austin Convention Center and I jumped up and down with glee when I saw this sign for QuiltCon!

We headed over the Congress Bridge for dinner and stopped on the way to see the famous bats. I had read that we were out of luck since it wasn't bat season yet, but apparently some of the bats didn't get the memo. We saw hundreds of bats leaving their homes under the bridge to find their food for the night. If you're in town, you can watch them from a park on the southeast side of the bridge and the bats started their flight at 6:30pm.

Can you see the bats? I know they're blurry, but it was so cool!

Here's a video of our bat viewing. As you can see, Eleanor was impressed!

We enjoyed our first taste of TexMex at Guero's. The novelty of eating outdoors in February did not escape us!

After dinner, our intrepid ice cream lover was determined to try Amy's famous ice cream despite the cooler weather. It was indeed delicious and I hope we get a chance to go back there on one of the warmer days that should be coming soon!

QuiltCon Linky Party!

Hi there and thanks for stopping by my blog! When I saw that the Modern Quilt Guild was doing a QuiltCon linky party, I had to join in right away! I'm so excited to be going to QuiltCon in three short weeks! In case you don't know me already, I'd like to introduce myself. I'm Holly and I live in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. I'm the founder and president of the Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild and I've been quilting for nearly twenty years. 

Holly & Dean, 1994

I started dating my husband in high school and we'll celebrate twenty years as a couple in April. I'm a stay at home mom to two awesome daughters who are nearly six and nearly two (their March birthdays are one day apart!). I occasionally work as a substitute teacher and a few of my recent placements have had me teaching high school phys ed, French Immersion kindergarten, and high school music.

The linky party assignment was to share five facts you might not know about me. Here goes!

1) My first job after graduating from university with a Bachelor of Science was as a naturalist at the Vancouver Aquarium. I got to handle boa constrictors and swim with dolphins.

2) I'm a proud Canadian, born and raised, but also have American heritage. My mom's American, hailing from Upstate New York. I have lots of family in New York, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania and will actually be visiting them before heading to QuiltCon so we can all celebrate my Grandpa's 100th birthday!

3) I love my red All Stars!

4) I'm an Island girl at heart. I grew up on Vancouver Island and have spent many, many hours on the BC Ferries.

5) I was a rower in high school and our team went to the national championships twice. I'm second from the left in this picture.

Now that you know all sorts of random facts about me, we should be able to strike up a conversation with ease when we meet at QuiltCon! See you there! I'll be taking two workshops: Every Last Stitch with Anna Maria Horner and Mini Quilts with Lizzy House. Which workshops are you taking?