Garden of Quilts

Earlier this year, Tera asked me if I wanted to go with her to the Garden of Quilts weekend in Lehi, Utah. I love traveling with Tera. She is easygoing and has a great sense of adventure. I was also more than ready to get out from under the tomatoes. We made our arrangements, and on Thursday morning, I picked her up a little after 4 am for our 6 am flight to Salt Lake City.

Tera went to college in SLC and knows the area well. As a bonus, her daughter lives only about 20 minutes from Thanksgiving Point, where the event was held, so we didn’t have to get a hotel room. Our flight put us into SLC at 7:30 am. The first order of business was to get the rental car and find some breakfast. Tera belongs to an LDS congregation here in Kalispell, so after breakfast, I asked her if we could drive over to see Temple Square. I listen to the weekly pipe organ concerts on the Tabernacle Choir’s YouTube channel every Wednesday. We couldn’t see the organ because the Conference Center didn’t open until 11 am, but I got to see the Conference Center and the temple from the street. We also went into the Family History Center—Tera was hoping to show me a quilt there but it was no longer on display—and to the Church History Museum, where we saw a few quilts, dresses, and textile pieces from the 1800s and early 1900s.

We headed south toward Tera’s daughter’s house with a stop at Pine Needle Quilts and The Fabric Center. I had brought carry-on luggage with me, so space was at a premium, but I picked up a kit at Pine Needle Quilts and three lengths of knit fabric at The Fabric Center.

After dropping our stuff at the house, we went to Thanksgiving Point for our English Paper Piecing class. EPP is the technique used to make Grandmother’s Flower Garden quilts, but can also be used for other shapes, too. The instructor was Andy Knowlton. When we signed up for the class, we also purchased the kit for the class. As a teacher, I think that’s a great option because it helps to ensure that every student has the necessary supples. As a student, I thought it was a great option because I didn’t have to worry about bringing supplies with me. The kit contained a charm pack, hexie papers, a glue stick, needles, and thread. (We did have to bring a mat and rotary cutter or scissors.)

Andy—she’s a female with a male-sounding name—instructed us to take out our charm packs and pair up coordinating colors, such as two reds, two teals, etc. I started to do that, but then I heard her tell another student that we could also do scrappy if we preferred, so I put all my charm squares back in a pile. I am all about the scrappy. Besides, charm packs frustrate me because they always have too many of one color and not enough of another color.

[The other reason I love to take classes with Tera is because we sometimes have different approaches to quilting. She decided to do coordinating colors.]

In English Paper Piecing, pieces of fabric are wrapped around cardstock shapes, like hexies, half-hexies, triangles, etc. Traditionally, the fabric was secured with thread basting, but a lot of the newer designers prefer glue basting because it’s much faster. When I do EPP at home, I often use my Accuquilt cutter to cut both the cardstock and the fabric. My only quibble with the Accuquilt dies is that they have a 1/4” seam allowance—barely—and it’s not really big enough to glue baste the fabric securely, so I thread baste mine. Andy recommended a 3/8” seam allowance when we were cutting our shapes from the charm squares, and that worked much better. I’d love it if Accuquilt would re-make their dies with bigger seam allowances.

Once each shape is wrapped, it can be sewn to a neighboring piece. usually with a whip stitch:

Mine are scrappy, but Tera did coordinating colors around the white center hexie:. She was getting ready to sew the second piece on:

I like both.

Lots of visiting happens in classes. One of the women sitting behind in class us saw Tera’s little notions pouch and said, “That’s my fabric!”

She turned out to be Rachel Erickson, one of the Riley Blake designers. Tera had used Rachel’s fabric for a quilt for one of her granddaughters and made the pouch out of the leftovers (the navy blue). We had a fun chat with Rachel about what it’s like to be a fabric designer.

[Riley Blake is a relatively new fabric company—only 12 years old—and headquartered in Utah. They were the main sponsor of the Garden of Quilts event.]

Most of us were able to complete one unit during class. And yes, these units do get pressed when completed, so I can get rid of that annoying crease in the white fabric.

I’ll add this kit to my EPP supplies and it will be part of my take-along sewing.

We popped out for quick dinner of soup and salad and then came back to get in line for the Thursday evening presentation featuring The Doan Girls of the Missouri Star Quilt Company:

The story of how Missouri Star Quilt Company came to be is pretty amazing—Jenny and Ron Doan lost their life savings in the crash of 2009. Their kids got together and bought Jenny a longarm quilting machine and set up a small quilting business in their town of Hamilton, Missouri. The business grew and grew until it became a small empire within the quilting industry, employing 450 people and occupying most of the town of Hamilton. The year after YouTube launched, Jenny’s son suggested that she start making quilting videos. Last year, her daughter Natalie and her daughter-in-law Misty joined Jenny in the videos. They do a monthly video called Triple Play, where they choose a quilt block and each of them designs a quilt based on that block.

The three of them came to Garden of Quilts to do a talk and trunk show based on the Triple Play videos. It was amazing. Jenny is funny, sweet, and one of the most humble people on the planet. Tera and I are now scheming to take a trip to Hamilton to visit Missouri Star in person.

The Maker Meet-and-Greet was in the same show barn as the presentation, but the logistics were such that it was really hard to do more than walk through the line and say hi to each maker. Charisma Horton was there, so I waited until after the show to pop over to her table and talk to her. She is the designer who had the embroidery retreat near Moses Lake, WA, that I went to a few years ago. When I told her how much I had enjoyed that retreat, she said that she’s trying to plan another one. I told her that I’d be the first person to sign up.

We headed back to Tera’s daughter’s house and I fell into bed, exhausted. You’ll get to hear about the actual Garden of Quilts in the next post.