Is spring here yet?

There was a snow day on Friday.  Yep, the first day of Spring.  *sigh*  After the long and arduous winter of missed school days, colds, and boots everywhere, I for one could use a little uplifting.  So for National Quilting Day, I did some bright and cheery sewing:

These are all Anna Maria Horner prints that I am sewing together for a mini-quilt swap on Instagram and it is making my day...just going to go stare at it for a little longer.  Hope I can stand to give this one up!!

Quilt Con 2015

Two years ago, I attended the first Quilt Con as a volunteer---I met amazing people, got to know the quilting community better and found great inspiration.  This year, I was in attendance as an employee of Windham Fabrics.  We had a fabulous time and enjoyed meeting so many passionate quilters in our booth. I am especially grateful to the modern quilt guild members that made so many beautiful blocks for our booth!

I can't say enough positive things about my Quilt Con experience---the staff really went above and beyond to create a thoughtful, inspiring and seamless experience.  Since I was literally pushing a skirt project through my machine as my husband was loading my bags in the car and telling me it was time to go,  of course I forgot the list of lectures I had signed up for.  Well, lo and behold, when I arrived and got my badge listed on the back were all the lectures I had signed up for! 

I love this Succulent border pattern by Heather Givans of Crimson Tate, don't you?

I didn't take any classes, but was able to sneak away a little bit for a lecture here and there.  One that really resonated with me was Alexia Abegg's lecture on cultivating your creativity.  She gave some great tips and pointers on shaking up your process and getting into a habit of DOING, instead of thinking about doing.

I, for one, often find myself in the self-defeating habit of thinking I have to have the project perfectly planned before I begin.  But, just messing around and making a small item has its own benefits to your creative process.

We all have piles of scraps from a project that we insist we will go back to someday, right?  But, then we move on to shiny new fabric and those scraps just sit.  So, I decided to use some of Alexia's suggestions to use up these scraps from a recent quilt project and make a quick small quilt.

Boom. Done.  Now I have a small project on which to practice my FMQ skills!!  ;)