As many of you quilt blog readers are aware, today marks the set-up and preview for this weekend's International Spring Quilt Market 2013, here in Portland, OR. Which of course means that professionals from around the world – designers, distributors, shop owners, fabric manufacturers and teachers – have descended on the Rose City (a.k.a Stumptown, Rip City, PDX) for a full weekend of shopping, ogling, and meet & greets.

Spring Market consists just of the trade show, whereas the Fall Market in Houston is a week long festival with quilt show and classes in addition to the closed trade show. However, apparently if you have the right timing and the right space a local shop can luck out and get some of the visiting teachers to do a class while in town. Modern Domestic did just that, arranging one class with Jacquie Gering and two classes with Carolyn Friedlander, bookending the official Market events.

And pretty much as soon as I was made aware of the fact that Jacquie would be teaching a class here in town, I marched on out to Modern Domestic to sign up! And SO glad I did!!

I was first aware of her work maybe a little over two years ago, seeing some photos online and catching a glimpse or two at her blog, Tallgrass Prairie Studio. At the time she was the president of the Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild, and just before she relocated to Chicago one of our Portland local designers, Susan Beal, made a trip out to KC to promote her then newly published book Modern Log Cabin Quilting. During that trip Susan organized a pot holder swap between the KCMQG and the PMQG. And lucky me, the person who drew my name from the hat was Jacquie!

She did her research and matched the colors of my kitchen to a tee! AND, these are no pot holders... I have one lovely table-topper and two generously sized trivets! And I love them all!

Now to the class. Those of you who periodically read my blog probably know that I am no stranger to improv piecing. But one of my hang-ups is simplifying. I tend to take the same approach I do with more traditional scrappy piecing and pull as many fabrics and prints that I feel work within the palette range and often end up using everything I pull. This class was centered around Jacquie's "Slice and Insert" technique, creating compositions of clean backgrounds broken up by linear strokes in a dynamic, graphic, uncomplicated way. It's that last one that always evades me! So this was a good exercise for me!

A few days ago I posted a photo of my fabric pulls to take to class:

It was good to have so many options to work with, but I definitely learned a little about editing while in the class. I didn't touch most of those oranges, and only used 2 of the navy background fabrics (so far).

my blocks from the first 2/3 of the 6 hour class.

And it was also great to see what the other folks in the class were creating! So helpful and interesting to see how others interpret the same instructions and technique.

Cathy working on her blocks, with Rachel's to the left

Jen's on the left, Jenny's on the right. I LOVE what both of them created!

Jacquie demoing the impact of different backgrounds on Suzanne's project.

Not wanting to over work my project I jumped in on a second set of blocks for the last hour or so of the class.

I have to say that this was such a treat for me! There's nothing better than getting to spend a day learning a new approach to something you love, taught by a truly lovely, easy-going person with an extremely creative vision. Thank you for your time and your insight, Jacquie!

Jacquie will also be tonight's featured guest speaker at the PMQG monthly meeting at PNCA, to which I am very much looking forward. A great start to the upcoming weekend, if you ask me!!

Okay, maybe I'm just revving up for events throughout the next week surrounding Spring Quilt Market which is happening here in Portland this year! A friend who had helped with the set-up 5 years ago when Spring Market was last held here asked if I'd like to join her this time around - which includes a free pass to the trade show. Unfortunately it does not look like we got a shift this time around, but I have generously been granted credentials from Marie, so I'll hopefully be able to sneak a peek at some point next weekend when I am not helping out at Cool Cottons.

But there are really two things in particular that I am very much looking forward to. First off - getting the chance to take a class with Jacquie Gering of Tallgrass Prairie Studio, coauthor of the book Quilting Modern, and I believe one of the founding members of the KCMQG. She will be a guest teacher at Modern Domestic while here in town, teaching her "Slice and Insert" improvisational quilting technique. This is the first quilting class I've signed up for in several years, not including the week long Jane Sassaman workshop I attended with my mom last summer in Greenville, NY. I find her work so inspiring, and am eager to get the chance to spend the day in this class! I've begun pulling some fabrics to use during the class, but may very well change my mind before next Wednesday...

I'm thinking the navy will be background with the oranges and periwinkle as the slices and inserts. Any suggestions?

And part two of the weekend's fun surprises is that I get to meet someone who's become an online friend over the last few years. Jenn, a.k.a. Sunny, an amazingly creative and generous gal who pulled together an online quilting bee for modern quilters several years ago, one which I was SO fortunate to become involved with starting in 2011 and have continued to take part in the follow-up years. Granted, 2 of the 3 quilts I've gotten out of the deal are still in progress, but it's without a doubt been one of the most gratifying experiences I've had in the online quilting community to date.

I still have a way to go for this, but it's still 2013, so I'm not TOO far behind... and this round of F+F is still going on!

Is anyone else out there headed to good ol' Stumptown for Spring Quilt Market? I know there's going to be a Happy Hour meet up at Modern Domestic on Friday evening, and I am sure other social events as well. It would be so cool to meet some other visitors to our fair city, either while I'm behind the counter at Cool Cottons on Friday and Saturday or at other events. Give a shout-out!