QuiltCon 2021: Non-Trip Report

Don't let my photo fool you - those are Photoshopped quilt show photos into a photo from QuiltCon 2020 (quilt credits tagged here)!

It’s taken me a few weeks of QuiltCon recovery to get back into the groove of life, even though there was no travel for this year’s special circumstances of a virtual QuiltCon Together. And while we didn’t travel for QuiltCon Together this year, I was still busy during the event with teaching responsibilities and filling time “running into” people on zoom and interviewing them for episodes of Scant Quarter Hour.

Scant Quarter Hour

Speaking of Scant Quarter Hour (a weekly Instagram video series I film with @southbaybella), you can check out the full QuiltCon recap episode here. And here are all our daily run-ins, which were filmed during QuiltCon:

• Day 1
• Day 2
• Day 3
• Day 4
• Day 5

Isabelle and I really enjoyed chatting and interviewing everyone during QuiltCon!

On Teaching

As a teacher, QuiltCon prep has been going on since last mid-2020, when the decision was made to go virtual. This year, I taught three workshops - one on Procreate, one on foundation paper pieced curves, and one traditional and foundation paper pieced strip piecing workshop. I began recording for all my classes in late August of 2020 and filmed until early October, taking 1-2 hours per day working through recording and step-out sewing.

After that, I took a break from recording workshops and then began putting together my lectures throughout December and January. My lectures were both creativity-centric, based on this blog post. I originally applied for just one lecture based on this blog post, but once we went virtual, it was split into two lectures and I adapted the material into two separate lectures. Once the lectures were prepared, I prerecorded them on Zoom a couple of weeks before QuiltCon Together.

Teaching was a lot of work this year, but overall I was happy with the platform and happy that my students had a positive experience! I have gotten a couple questions on whether I will release class content after the QuiltCon Together license expires (at the end of March). I plan to, but I'm still sorting out the details how that will look.

On The Quilt Show

While a lot of the feedback I heard was of attendees missing out on the in-person viewing of quilts, I thought the virtual quilt show was successful and I enjoyed the audio component for each quilt (up to 2 minutes of artist audio per quilt). I had 5 quilts in the show, including makes from late 2019 and throughout 2020. Those quilts are now viewable in my 2019 and 2020 galleries.

Since I’ve tracked a breakdown of quilt categories in the past, I wanted to include this year’s breakdown compared to two previous years:

I don’t believe there is much actionable data in this year’s QuiltCon show breakdown, except to note consistencies across the years in specific categories. I might point out that minimalism had relatively less quilts this year, because it may not translate as well to a virtual format but I’m only speculating here. I've had a goal for a while to create a minimalism quilt, but then I just want to add all the piecing or all the colors :).

Anyways, I encourage quilters to make what you want and show-shop later if you feel so inclined to participate in quilt shows.

What’s Next?!

I think that's all the new content I have here that I haven't shared on Instagram or as part of Scant Quarter Hour. I believe lots of quilters are looking forward to QuiltCon in Phoenix, 2022. A number of my friends have even booked their hotels already! I can’t wait to escape and have some sense of normalcy. Stay healthy, everyone!