I thought I’d jump back into blogging by sharing my experience attending the Modern Quilt Guild (MSC)’s annual quilting convention, QuiltCon, for the first time. The convention was held in Phoenix, Arizona in February 2025. (Put the kettle on and get your cuppa ready, this is a long post…)

I’ll also share a couple extracurricular activities we did in Phoenix while there for the convention, which included a trip to the Desert Botanical Garden, the Phoenix Art Museum, and one of the Frank Lloyd Wright workshops Taliesin West.

QuiltCon 2025

I attended QuiltCon for the first time with a quilting friend (who was also a “first timer”) and our partners, and saw some really amazing modern quilts! The quilts were hung from curtained panels and when I first walked into the huge convention space and it looked like there were miles and miles of quilts to see!

So many impressive quilts and here is a tiny sampling of some of my favorites:

The artists/quilt names on these quilts in image order: Jennifer Candon/Chasing Rainbows (who had many fabulous quilts shown at QuiltCon), Steve Moe/Finally They Danced, Jane Rundle/Nurturing the Pod, Irene Roderick/Desperados, Emilie Trahan/Out of the Blue, Jennifer Candon/Modern Dresden, Jenny Hayes/Fokus, Wendy L. Starn/What Did We Do? What Will You Do?, Nikki Woolsey/Wild Geese.

In addition to the endless rows of quilts, there was a large (and seemingly endless) Vendor area:

Look at all those handmade bag samples in the image above! I wanted to buy all the patterns to make the bags (but I did not as I have many bag patterns already that have not been opened!)

Wandering around the Vendor area I got to meet several favorite quilt book authors and fabric designers including Elizabeth Hartman, Anna Marie Horner, Denyse Schmidt, and Blair Stocker. It was fun to meet/chat with the authors of some of my favorite patterns, books and fabric.

During QuiltCon, there were numerous interactive “Make and Take”s at various vendor booths where you could make a project for free (they supplied all the materials). I worked on an embroidered eyeglass case project at one of the “Make and Take” tables, but I’ve not finished it…

The samples in the images below are the talented instructor’s work.

Quiltcon was 4 days long but I only attended Day 1. Next year I will return to Quiltcon (which will be held in Raleigh, North Carolina), this time with a group of quilting friends, and likely attend the full 4 days. There is so much to see and do! (John will stay home this time).

Desert Botanical Garden

We attended 1 day of Quiltcon but we were in Phoenix, Arizona for a total of 5 days. Before QuiltCon we spent time hanging out with my friend’s sister (who we stayed with for a couple days) and visiting various sites of “artistic inspiration” like the botanical garden, the art museum, and Frank Lloyd Wright’s workshop.

My friend, her sister and I spent a day at the Desert Botanical Garden enjoying their collection of cactuses and other desert flora (the guys were golfing at one of the zillion golf courses in Phoenix).

However what really stood out during our visit to the botanical garden was their exhibit Toward 2050.

Here’s an excerpt from the Toward 2050 page linked in the paragraph above:

“According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change, global climate is on track to increase by 1.5° C by 2040, and with that, irreparable damage will likely be done to earth’s ecosystems if our course is not changed decisively and with haste. In the IPCC’s Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report, clear goals and pathways have been defined to reverse our emissions of green house gases – 50% by 2030, and to arrive at net zero emissions by 2050, keeping the global rise in temperature to under 1.5° C in perpetuity. Hence, 2050 marks a very important point in our human history…

Textile work from makers from 45 U.S. states and 9 countries have become important parts of TOWARD 2050, which has culminated in this immersive installation at Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona – February 8th through June 1st of 2025. Makers were called to create environmentally themed, textile panels in the style of “prayer flags”. Our goal was to collect enough double sided flags to define the pathways of ​this interactive labyrinth experience. That goal was met thanks to the generousity and commitment of all the makers participating in this project.” 

The exhibit was breathtaking and I walked the entire labyrinth (which took over a half hour to the center and back) that the handmade flags were arranged in. Photos will not do the my experience justice but here are some of my photos from the experience:

After I attended I found out from a friend that she made a flag for Toward 2050. I wish I’d known early so I could have found it and sent her a photo.

Phoenix Art Museum

We spent a half day at the Phoenix Art Museum and John, the woodworker, fell in love with an amazing piece of wood art we came upon in the exhibits:

I hope John makes a piece like this someday!

Taliesin West

One of the major highlights of our extracurricular activities before we went to Quiltcon, was visiting renown architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s workshop Taliesin West in Scottsdale, Arizona.

A blurb on it from the franklloydwright.org website:

“Wright’s beloved winter home and desert laboratory was established in 1937 and diligently handcrafted over many years. Deeply connected to the desert from which it was forged, Taliesin West possesses an almost prehistoric grandeur. It was built and maintained almost entirely by Wright and his apprentices, making it among the most personal of the architect’s creations.“

The venue ticket included a self guided audio tour that was amazing. It included a primer on basic architectural concepts so you could better appreciate what you were viewing.

I took a ridiculous amount of photos but here is a sampling of my tour experience:

John is a huge fan of Frank Lloyd Wright’s design style and he was very naughty in the gift shop!

One thing I did realize after visiting Taliesin West is that Frank Lloyd Wright was heavily inspired by Japanese aesthetics and design. I appreciate his work but I am thinking he sort of “reinvented the wheel”.

Other Adventures in the Phoenix Area

My friend’s sister has a winter home (she lives in Colorado during the warm months and Arizona during the cold months) in a gorgeous suburb of Phoenix in a horse owner/rider community surrounded by amazing walking trails. Each day we went for a walk on the trails (and I got fresh Meyer lemons from a tree along the trail!) and we visited the horse ranch where my friend’s sister keeps her horses.

The home we stayed in was comfy and well appointed with two fun German Shepherds to play with!

Photo above: One of the pups needed to know where were at all times (the “herding” instinct), and ambushed us while we were in bed!

One day we walked a couple miles on the trail with the dogs to the local outdoor taco stand which had delicious food and “horse parking”!

Nothing like riding your horse to the taco stand!

My visit to Phoenix was pretty memorable and I so appreciated the hospitality of our hosts and my friend for making it happen.

I did make a “hostess gift” for our arrival – a set of horse themed drawstring bags:

And then upon returning home, I made a “thank you” gift primarily focused on her sister’s husband who had taken our partner golfing three days in row – a golf themed drawstring bag filled with a sleeve of his favorite golf balls:

Okay you’ve probably worked through your pot of tea now so I will end this long post.

---

Postscript

I’m working on overhauling my blog and rethinking it. It’s been 12+ years of blogging and I want to freshen it up as well as clean out some old stuff.