Oh, What a NIGHT! Part 1

Wow!   It's not often that I get the chance to spend time with THREE quilting powerhouses and I have to tell you...Oh what a night!

I met Jo Hansen and Kelli Hanken  of Jo's Country Junction and had the opportunity to hear them tell their story and what a great story it is. This down-to-earth, mother-daughter team is such great fun and their story is a testament to their abilities to turn lemons into lemonade and their teamwork and tenacity.





Yesterday, their class was the first of four that are a part of this great retreat and I was rarin' and willing to go! This is their quilt, Thanks to You and it has a great story.   Jo asked readers to send in a bit of their neutral fabric to use for the background of these Maverick Stars and her readers certainly rose to the task!  

Here are my first four blocks of Thanks to You.  Maverick stars are fun because you aren't worrying about matching points or floating intersections ...that's what makes them MAVERICK stars... Hurray!   I am a little worried about contrast. Right now, with just these four blocks done I'm not sure that the stars shine enough.  I really don't have a whole lot of bright fabrics and I'm sticking to stash for all of the quilts I'm starting this week so I may have to rethink but for now they're fine.  

After class, we headed to dinner and then it was time for the trunk show to beat all trunk shows.

The authors of Country Girl Modern, Jo and Kelli shared the quilts that are in their book and a few that didn't make it in.  It was fun to hear how Jo designs the quilts and Kelli does all the pattern work...calculating sizes and yardage and the such as well as working on the samples.  

Here are just a few of the quilts you'll find in Country Girl Modern

Thanks to You

Modalicious

 Rainbow Connection

And all of that was just YESTERDAY!!!  Today, Kelli and Jo spent the day with us teaching May Flowers which is also in their book.  This is really a fabulous quilt because, again, it has no points to worry about matching. 

Here are a few of my May Flowers and Jo and Kelli's book

 After Jo and Kelli, Bonnie Hunter presented her trunk show.  It was really amazing to see her quilts from several of her books, but I think I'll save that for my next post so stay tuned! 

I have to tell you, I'm having such a great time and I love May Flowers so much I wanna share the love so, let's have a give-away! Enter a comment below to enter and if you are the lucky winner, I'll send you this copy of Country Modern Girl that has been autographed by Jo and Kelli! The drawing will happen on August 4th. 

Now, don't forget to come back because I haven't told you about Bonnie Hunter's half of the trunk show yet.  Who knows, we might just have another give away ....

In the meantime,

Piece and Joy

Irene