Weeks Ringle

The Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild moved their meeting up this month so we could have a guest presenter…WEEKS RINGLE! She happened to be in town for Quilt Market and decided to stay a couple of extra days to present to our meeting. I’ve followed Weeks and Bill for quite awhile, so I was super excited.

Basically, it was awesome.

A few guild friends and I had planned to meet up at Ingredient before the meeting for dinner. A couple of other people showed up including President Shea from Empty Bobbin Sewing Studio and Weeks! It was great being able to talk to Weeks before the presentation.

Even though getting to sit down to dinner with her was pretty cool, it was nothing compared to the presentation. Their quilts are FABULOUS. And she let us touch them! Yes, she passed around the quilts so we could get a closer look. When she asked the crowd if we should just pass them, there was this awkward silence because inside of our heads (at least inside of mine), we were all going “Is she serious? OMG! She’s serious. Is that a rhetorical questions? Do I respond? YES!!!!!!!!!”

So, without further ado, the quilts.

These are in no particular order. I didn’t get a picture of every single quilt.

I think she’s talking about frumpy fabric in this quilt. Somebody asked her to define frumpy fabric and I thought she did a great job. It was a long answer, but the part I liked the most was that she called them muddy. We had a show and tell of quilts guild members had made from Weeks and Bill’s patterns and somebody had made this quilt.

I would HATE that blue fabric if I saw it on the bolt, but it was AWESOME in this quilt.

 I’m a big fan of their transparency quilts. I absolute love that idea.

This quilt drew me in because of the darker colors. You usually see a very contrasting pop of color in dark quilts, but this one was so subtle and beautiful. It reminded me of pieces of tape. It was one of my favorites. I had four that really stood out to me.

I was too busy ogling another quilt to get a picture of this quilt when it was being displayed on stage. This was another one of my favorites. I don’t know if it would’ve been if it had been in another color way, but I love green and aqua together.

Weeks told us that Bill does beautiful hand applique. After seeing it in person, I can tell you that he does amazingly beautiful hand applique.

This is another one of my favorites. Look at all of those little white strips. I would not know where to begin.

Isn’t that awesome? It reminds me of a postage stamp quilt, but BETTER!

And that quilt was my absolute FAVORITE! It’s SOOOO FREAKING COOL! Gah!

OK…moving on before I drool everywhere. They do all of the quilting themselves and it is stunning.

I loved this quilting the most. I really like the water effect in one area and then the tiny stippling in the ovals.

I wasn’t a big fan of the quilt at first, but when I got up close to it, it grew on me. So much of a quilt is the quilting and you miss that a lot of times when it’s far away. Weeks talked a lot about how the quilting was another design layer and it was just as important to them as the piecing.

The piano keys were awesome. I’m definitely going to do this on something.

Look how tiny that is! The thread color is awesome!

Somebody made the comment that from afar, this quilting gave the appearance of wood grain. Closer up, it’s more leaf-like. Either way, it’s awesome.

I had almost passed this quilt along when I noticed the two different colors of thread. The black is basically hidden, but the gray stands out so well. I was amazed at how you could stipple with two colors. I’m going to have to try it.

The meeting went super long, which was totally fine by me. During break, we were able to purchase or order stuff from Weeks. I bought some cards.

The cards show off some of their other quilts that I didn’t get to take pictures of or that Weeks did not bring. I didn’t buy a book, even though I wanted to buy their book on transparency quilts. I think that might be my next Christmas or birthday present.

If you ever get a change to see Week or Bill in person, take it! She does a fabulous job of explaining their methods and processes and inspiration. And if you do, ask her about the tankini quilt…