My Trip to h+h Americas 2026

I spent last week in Chicago for the h+h Americas trade show. It's like Quilt Market, but it's not exclusively for quilting businesses. There were yarn companies, garment pattern designers, embroidery kit makers, and more. There were also A LOT of quilting companies - fabric companies, pattern designers, scissors makers, sewing machine brands, notions companies, and on and on. There were gorgeous quilts everywhere and so many people I recognized from online. 

I arrived in Chicago Monday morning and Laura of Slice of Pi Quilts arrived that afternoon. We've been friends online for almost 10 years, but when she arrived at the hotel to pick me up for supper that was the first time we'd ever met in person. It was so good to finally get to spend time together without a screen between us! Here we are in front of her booth.

Tuesday was set-up day for everyone with booths. I chose not to have a booth for my first time attending, so that was h+h University day for me. There were classes and small group sessions and a tour of the show floor (which was still a work in progress, with booths being put together). When I got my badge that morning, it was a bit surreal to look around at the other people in the room and see so many faces I recognized from social media.

Wednesday-Friday was the actual show and I loved wandering and looking at all the booths. So many beautiful quilts, gorgeous yarn, threads of all kinds, and kits for so many fun things. I don't crochet, but had to take a picture of this kit for making Tairn and Andarna from Fourth Wing. I've always loved dragons and I love Fourth Wing, so this is almost enough to make me want to start crocheting!

Even with the dragons and the amazing quilts, the people were my favourite part of the week. I didn't think to take pictures with everyone I met, but I did remember to get some. Here's Laura in her booth.

And Terri of Lizard Creek Quilting, who was right next to Laura.

I got to meet Brandy from the Quilter on Fire podcast. Did you listen to my conversation with her on the podcast?

Hilary of By Hilary Jordan was just as lovely as I thought she would be! She was also dressed in beautiful handmade clothes every day!

I did demos in the Oliso booth on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, sharing about colouring quilts with crayons. I had my brand new In Full Bloom quilt with me, along with my Grateful table runner, so I could show shop owners examples of quilts coloured with crayons. The technique has been around for a long time, but a lot of the people I talked with had never heard of it, so it was fun to share with them. If you've never tried it, either, I have a tutorial for it here - it's a lot of fun and really easy to do!

I spent time late in the day Thursday and on Friday taking special notice (and notes and pictures) of how different quilt pattern designers had put their booths together. How were they hanging quilts on the walls? How were they displaying quilts not on the walls? What else did they have in the booth? I'm dreaming and scheming for how I can display my own quilts in a booth someday (next year?). Since I have to fly to get to the show, I paid special attention to display ideas that could be packed in a suitcase, like this stand in the Sassafrass Lane booth that was made of PVC pipe and could be disassembled for transport.

I also loved how Kori of Olive and Grace Studios used embroidery hoops to hang some of her quilts.

After years of dreaming about going to Quilt Market, it was so fun to finally make the dream come true (slightly altered to be h+h Americas instead). Now to see if I can make it work to go again next year and maybe have a booth of my own!

In Full Bloom Mini Quilt Pattern

I'm excited to share a new mini quilt pattern with you today for TGIFF! This one was brewing for a long time before all the various elements came together and I really love how it turned out. Meet In Full Bloom!

Ever since I made my Grateful table runner, I've been wanting to design another texty pattern with the words coloured with crayon but I couldn't come up with the phrase I wanted to use. I've also been admiring the various home décor things I've seen with circles or partial circles with flowers and/or leaves along part of the circle. I wanted to translate that style into a quilt, but couldn't get beyond the basic concept.

Then last September we were in St. John's to move Zach back into his dorm for another year of university and the Airbnb we stayed in had a mug with the phrase 'Live life in full bloom' on it. I can't remember anything about what the mug looked like - what the font was, what colour the words were, even if there were flowers on it (though I assume there must have been) - I just remember reading the phrase and thinking, "That would be perfect inside a circle on a quilt!"

I design my quilts in EQ8, but the options for text in the program are really limited. I started playing in Canva instead, where there are a lot more font options and it's so much easier to manipulate the blocks of text. It took a while to settle on the combination of fonts, colours, and the angle of the words, but eventually the wordy part of the design was exactly what I wanted. I created the partial circle as part of the Canva block, too, then I could import that whole piece into EQ8 to add the flower appliqués. 

Actually making the mini quilt involved playing with different techniques. First, I coloured the words with crayons. I have a tutorial for doing that here, on another wordy mini quilt.

I love how colouring the fabric brings out the texture of the threads woven together to make it.

After colouring the letters, I used Aurifil 12 wt thread to embroider their outlines with a simple backstitch. I love how it gives extra definition to the letters. It also gives a little texture to the quilt. A simple tip to make your backstitched lines look neat - make the stitches shorter. Longer stitches tend to look more jagged or uneven, while short stitches make a smooth line.

Fusible appliqué flowers were next. As always, I had fun digging through my stash to find just the right fabrics for each flower.

At this point, Paul saw the quilt top on my design wall and suggested we hang it in our entryway when it was finished. We've struggled to find just the right thing for one small wall in the entryway, and he thought In Full Bloom would be perfect. There's something about having someone else look at what I've made and like it enough to want it displayed that just feels amazing. 

Once the flowers were fused to the background, I embroidered the partial circle with a chain stitch. I did that after the flowers were on because I didn't want any embroidery under the flowers, so this way I could stitch right up to the edge of them.

For the quilting, I used Aurifil 50 wt thread and started by stitching around each flower and leaf with matching thread.

I used white thread for the rest of the quilting. I outlined the letters. I was quite proud of myself for stitching very close to the edge of each letter and only catching the embroidery once! I outlined the edge of the embroidered circle, too. Then I quilted a dense stipple in the background.

I even went in and stitched the tiny gaps between the flowers (seen here from the back).

As usual, I love how all the quilting looks on the back.

I especially love the way the letters pop!

In Full Bloom will be traveling to Chicago with me on Monday, for the H+H Americas trade show. I'll be doing demos in the Oliso booth Wednesday and Thursday, showing how to colour quilt blocks with crayon and remove the wax, and showing off the wordy possibilities of the technique with both In Full Bloom and Grateful. It's my first time attending an industry trade show and I'm crazy excited (and nervous). I'm hoping to get my patterns in front of lots of quilt shop owners while I'm there!

The In Full Bloom mini quilt pattern is in my shop now, so you can make your own version to adorn whatever wall in your home is needing a bit of inspiration. It would make a great gift, too!

That's my finish for this week. What have you finished recently? Link it up below and be sure to visit some of the other links to celebrate their finishes, too!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

How I Make Bonus Half-Square Triangles

While working on the May Stash Artists cover quilt (to be revealed soon!), I made a lot of stitch-and-flip flying geese. Whenever I make stitch-and-flip flying geese, I also make bonus half-square triangles (HSTs), because I hate wasting those corner pieces and I know that if I don't sew them together in the moment, they'll never get done. Aren't they pretty?

After they were all done, I realized I should have taken pictures so I could share how I make my bonus HSTs, but thankfully my current leaders and enders project is also stitch-and-flip flying geese, so I stitched up one of them for pictures instead.

I have to start by acknowledging that I learned this method on Bonnie Hunter's blog years ago, so she's the genius behind what I'm about to share. This method results in bonus HSTs in sizes to fit with the other common size units we make, making them much more useable.

How big will the bonus HST be?

The size of your bonus HST is determined by the cut size of the squares for your flying geese. The unfinished size of the bonus HST will be 1" smaller than the square.

For this tutorial, I'm using 2 ½" squares. That means the largest bonus HST I can make is 1 ½" unfinished (1" finished). The flying geese I made for the May Stash Artists pattern used 3 ½" squares, so I could make 2 ½" unfinished (2" finished) HSTs with them. 

What you need

• your rectangle and squares cut to the sizes needed for your stitch-and-flip flying geese
• a piece of template plastic, cardboard, or paper
• a ruler
• a sharp pencil or a pen
• scissors for cutting the plastic or cardboard
• pins
• rotary cutter

Make your template

I've made my templates for the bonus HSTs a couple of different ways, so I'll share both here. First is the method Bonnie Hunter calls a 'triangle buddy.' If you have template plastic, or any plastic thin enough to cut neatly with scissors, that's the best thing to use. If you don't have a suitable piece of plastic, a piece of cardboard from a cereal box or something similar will also work, but it will need to be replaced more often as the edge softens with use, making it less accurate.

To make your triangle buddy, draw a square the same size your unfinished bonus HST will be. Remember, that's 1" smaller than the cut square for your flying geese. For this tutorial, I'm making 1 ½" unfinished bonus HSTs, so I draw a 1 ½" square. I don't have any template plastic at the moment, so I used cardboard from a cracker box.

Now draw a diagonal line from corner to corner.

Cut out the square, then cut it in half along the diagonal line. You now have two triangle buddies. I usually write 'triangle buddy' on them so I don't throw them out, thinking they're just random bits of cardboard.

The other way I've made a template was to draw a square on a piece of paper the same size as the square for the flying geese. So for this tutorial, that is a 2 ½" square.

Along the top of the square, measure 1 ½" (or the unfinished size of your bonus HST) from the right corner and make a mark. Along the right side of the square, measure 1 ½" (or the unfinished size of your bonus HST) down from the top corner and make a mark. Use a ruler to draw a line connecting the marks, extending the line past the square.

Draw the lines on the squares

Now we're ready to draw the lines on the back of the squares. First, draw the diagonal line from corner to corner. This is the standard line for the stitch-and-flip flying geese.

Next, draw the line for the bonus HST. If you're using a triangle buddy, place it in the corner, lining up the edges of the template with the edges of the square. 

Draw a line along the diagonal edge of the template.

If you're using the square drawn on paper, place your fabric square on top of the template, lining up the edges exactly.

Line up your ruler with the diagonal line and draw the line.

Make the flying geese and bonus HST

Just as you normally do for stitch-and-flip flying geese, align a square with one end of the rectangle, with the drawn line as shown. Make sure the second line drawn for the bonus HST is towards the corner. Pin the square in place.

Stitch directly on both lines. Normally I chain piece these, stitching one line on all the units I'm making and then stitching the second line on all of them.

Cut ¼" away from the seam for the flying geese.

Now trim the seam allowance on the bonus HST to ¼" as well.

Press both units open.

Repeat with a second square on the other end of the rectangle to give you a finished flying geese unit and two bonus HSTs. Trim the dog ears off the bonus HSTs.

That's it! Now you're ready to make bonus HSTs whenever you make stitch-and-flip units like flying geese or snowball corners. 

I've been pondering how to use this batch of HSTs and I think they might show up in a future Stash Artists mini quilt pattern. If you love scrappy and stash-friendly quilt patterns and want sew with virtual friends, come join us in Stash Artists!