Bloggers' Quilt Festival

To those who are new - welcome! To those who are coming back - it's good to see you again. :) I hope you'll take some time to peek around and check out a few of my projects.

Today is the beginning of Bloggers' Quilt Festival, hosted by the lovely Amy at amyscreativeside.com.  Twice a year she holds an online quilt festival to coincide with Quilt Market, a trade show for all things quilty.  It's a great chance to get to see what so many other talented quilters have been working on, and for many of us helps us get through Market week without turning completely green in envy towards those who get to go. :)
Last year I posted about my Halloween table runner. At that time I had yet to finish a normal sized quilt, so this is really my first BQF where I have a real quilt to show off. I'll try to keep the text brief - I know most of ya'll have a lot of posts to get through, and let's be honest, we're all mostly after the pictures anyways! I'd like to start with my most recent quilt, "Behind the Closet Door". This quilt was designed with a very special recipient in mind for her wedding gift.

This quilt is big enough to cover a Full (Double) bed.  I used a Fat Quarter stack of Art Gallery fabrics that I won from the most generous Quilt Dad together with Kona Ash sashing. I backed it with a soft yellow flannel - I find flannel helps keep quilts from sliding off of the bed a wee bit better. :) It actually is oriented the other direction, but I unfortunately was not able to get many pictures before I needed to give it away. It was inspired by Japanese influenced closet doors. This quilt is really special to be both because it's the biggest I've made to date, but more importantly because it's the first quilt where I really feel it fits my aesthetic. I love making gifts, but often compromise my own tastes for the intended recipient, but in this case I really feel I made the quilt I wanted to make.  I can't wait to get to try more modern quilts. (Quilt originally posted here.)

If you don't mind sticking around for something extra, I'd also like to show you my first "real" quilt I finished last December.  I designed this quilt myself for my mother-in-law, who is crazy for lighthouses. Hopefully you can catch that each column forms one lighthouse.  I like that it uses relatively simple and common components to create a more complicated design. (Strip piecing, pinwheels, flying geese, etc.)

It was originally inspired by this amazing panel I found on Etsy:

I still love this fabric. It's not at all modern, which is my usual taste, but feels almost like a painting and invokes some level of nostalgia. It will always be special to me because it was my first real quilt, and the design was completely my own, and fit the recipient so perfectly. (Quilt originally posted here.)

I'm so glad you were able to join along today. I sure hope to see more of you in the future!

<3 Kelsey