Bloggers Quilt Festival - So much cheaper than a ticket to Houston

A ticket to Houston, plus hotel, food, and rental car, not to mention the suitcase full of stuff you'll buy to bring home. See? Didn't I just make at least your wallet feel better that you didn't get to go to Market?

I do what I can.

It's Blogger's Quilt Festival time again, that time honored tradition wherein those of us who didn't go to Market and/or Festival gather together for a virtual pity party come together to share our latest creations and maybe even win a prize, although I think I speak for most bloggers when I say the prizes are really not the big reason we love this event. Where else can you discover new blogs, see so many fabulous creations, and get inspired at every turn? (Well, okay, at Market. But we aren't there, and this is truly just as good.) Many thanks to Amy's Creative Side for sponsoring the event yet again.

Realizing that some of you are likely already sick of the quilt I am entering, I promise that if you can just keep reading past my official entry (italicized and in blue so that those of you who might like to skip my diatribe of how much I love this new design can do so easily and be on to bigger (and brighter! So much brighter! /shameless tease) things.

Official Entry: "Ka-Bloom!", designed and quilted by me using Sue Pelland's Leaves Galore templates.

Entry Category: Favorite applique quilts, and crossing fingers that a machine applique and pieced quilt counts. If not, like I said, this isn't about the prizes for me anyway.

Entry Category I am so excited to see as a lover of block swaps but am not entering this year because I want to bore you all with this one AGAIN: Favorite group quilt

Entry Details: Several years ago I took a class with Sue Pelland, who is not only fairly local to my guild but is also just about the nicest person in the entire world. While that may be neither here nor there when it comes to her teaching skills (which happen to be awesome), it made her class a sheer delight from start to finish. Knowing I was a quilt designer, Sue let me know that I was more than welcome to design using her Leaves Galore tm templates and to be sure to show her the results when I did.

Three years later, I finally got out my templates  one day and started playing with them, along with some fabrics I had fallen in love with at Art Gallery's booth at Sample Spree, back one time when I actually did get to go to Market (pause for dramatic pity party effect). It takes very little for me to fall in love with Art Gallery stuff, if we are being totally honest, but aren't they yummy? 

If I were into naming designs for colors, which after one or two forays into that arena I know not to make that mistake again, I might have called it "Summer Sorbet." Instead, while on a bike ride one evening, which should be noted is an excellent time for a mom of three to actually take a moment and think, I started mulling over names for this new design. The thought process started with flowers (too common), went to fireworks (too dangerously close to holiday specific) and ended with a combination of both - "Ka-Bloom!" Exclamation point included for added intensity of course.

Ka-Bloom! by Carrie Hansen

I was so fortunate to employ Carrie Hansen of Gotcha Covered Quilting as a tester. Not only did she prove to be a just plain adorable person (again, I really enjoy working with pleasant people and feel fortunate that the quilting industry is full of them), but she whipped up this Ah-maize-ing sample. You can read all about her adventures in pattern testing for me here at her blog; I'm sure you will find her as delightful as I do. And be sure to read all the comments, too. Suffice it to say Carrie and I could have been knocked over by a feather by one of them, and we are still annoyingly excited about it.

Okay, so to those of you who skipped the details of my entry, welcome back!

Yesterday I attended my guild's monthly Open Sew event, where instead of finishing my daughter's Halloween costume I decided to start two new projects. Because one can never have too many UFOs, you know. However, there was a method to my madness, as I wanted a new fall tablerunner for my dining room, and decided to use this pattern to create one. Plus I really wanted to use some of my batiks as I thought this pattern would look pretty amazing in them.

Like most quilt designers, I love when quilters take my ideas and give them a little spin, and I figure I am allowed to spin my own design by making this quilt a fun new shape. So I give you the "Ka-Bloom!" tablerunner.

I give it to you lying on my front lawn.

I give it to you lying on my front steps because it was so blendy with my mums and pumpkins.

I give you a close up of the machine applique. I used the smocking stitch and thought it looked pretty cool.

I give it to you where it will eventually lie, on the dining room table.

As you can see, the quilt is not finished, and therefore could not be my official entry into the BQF. Being a rules girl (stop laughing, all of you who know me at all), I chose to enter the actual pattern cover photo, as it was finished, but I definitely wanted to show this version off too because it is so pretty. If I do say.

Thank you so much for stopping by! I hope to see you back again soon!