Tag: QuiltCon

The Gripe Session

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This is THE GRIPE SESSION.

A quilt I made with my friends, Maggie Schubert and Kat Van Bourgondien. We made it for the Modern Quilt Guild’s Quiltcon fabric challenge.

55” x 55”

The fabric is Artisan Cotton by Windham Fabrics. It wasn’t selected for the show, and I’m sad about that, but we’re exhibiting it at our guild’s show, Make Mine Modern, at Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival, in Newport News, Virginia February 26-March 1, 2026.

Our artist statement:

The Gripe Session began as banter among friends on one of those days when everything seemed to go wrong.  “Bang Head Here” became both instruction and release—stitched again and again. It’s a vent and a Valentine to persistence: proof that when all you can do is bang your head, you might as well make it soft.

Remember 2020?

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I made this quilt in 2020 for The Modern Quilt Guild’s Quiltcon Together Wedge challenge.

I haven’t shared this quilt, Make Wedge Love, before now. Probably because I didn’t think it was that successful, but looking at it now I feel 2020 in it. I see those COVID-19 spiky things in the medical illustrations. Plus the virus curves. There’s a feeling of disjointed fun— how could that be? And, where did I get that purple? It feels like a bad circus poster. That is how I feel about 2020.

I hand quilted in the ditch. I probably did that because of the deadline and a desire to just finish it. It wasn’t selected for the show.

41” x 45

A Cabin in the Sticks

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I made this quilt for the Modern Quilt Guild’s Super Scrappy Challenge, sponsored by American Patchwork and Quilting.

Improvisational work with scraps touches me in a way a planned design does not, but the work also makes me question my intuition. I’m not sure why some things work and others annoy me. In the beginning, I wanted to make lots of small log cabin blocks, but after making about a dozen I stopped because it felt like something I had seen many times before.

I moved onto strips of scraps. I chose them randomly from a large box of solid scraps. I tried not to cut any of the length of the scraps. When I pieced the long strips together, I loved the movement and the color combination.

I used almost exclusively thread from my mother’s sewing cabinet and I felt a connection to the past while creating this piece. I grew up in the mountains of Southwest Virginia, and I’ve often said I grew up “in the sticks.” The wonky sides make it real for me and create that organic feel I wanted.

It was not selected for QuiltCon so I’ll have to find another exhibit.