Commence the Showing and Telling

I know you're waiting with baited breath to see the stuff I got at the IQA Chicago Show. Wait no more! Here it all is!!
One of the things I like best about the quilt show is the ability to get stuff you can't get in one single quilt store. I especially like shopping for new thread so I can see all of the varieties and weights, and especially the colors. I stuck to 30 and above weight cottons for this trip. Also shown are the smallest yo-yo maker and a new ribbon flower maker I had not yet seen from Clover.

Next up is hand dyed stuff. I always spend a ridiculous amount of money on Cherrywood fabrics, as I find their fabrics to be top notch. I also buy from Artfabrik (Laura Wasilowski), Frieda Anderson, and Wendy Richardson. Wendy dyes in the greatest mottled greens, purples, and browns, and I love her dyed damask napkins. They are a treat to sew on.

If you know me, you know I love things from Japan, and the Maeda Imports booth has lovely fabrics from Japan. These are cotton furoshiki (wrapping) cloths. I especially love the Hina Matsuri (Doll festival or girl's day) and Kodomo no Hi (children's day) with the koi cloths. I also love, love, love the kawaii cats and fishbowls. I also got some Japanese knotting cords for some future project.

One thing you won't have at a quilt show is a lack of patterns, books, and DVDs to inspire you. Kits are popular, because they can be made up as is, and folks like to make what they see on display or in the picture. Here are a couple of pin kits (one of wool and one of shibori silk) because I love pins. I also love this Crabapple Hill pattern of embriodered haunted houses called Hocuspocusville. And I love the Quilting Arts booth, where I picked up a couple of DVDs. One is season 2 of the QA tv show, and one by Melanie Testa.

I am not a huge purchaser of novelty fabrics, but I know a couple of people who would appreciate the motifs on a quilted project from these. Some racecar fabric for a certain father, and some Cicely Mary Barker Flower Fairies for a certain mother in law. Isn't that face striking?

Ah, the odds and sods. The grey looking thing is a kimono sleeve, vintage, with sparkly threads in it. It will become a purse. The round things are strips of hand dyed wool from one of the many wool booths at the show. The sparkly stuff in the middle is Stewart Gill rainbow texturizers. The Fuzzy Nabber is a washable lint roller, which I have one of already and just adore. And the little fruits are the weird kind of thing where I could have bought the book and materials to make them myself, but I know I would never do them, so would rather buy the finished products themselves. They have loops for putting on a keychain or project.

Now for the things I made at the show. At the MIU booth (Quilting Arts/Interweave area) you can take classes on the show floor for $10. These are the 3 classes I took (besides Surviving the Runway). The first made the background fabrics, which were taught by Melanie Testa. The doll class was by Debbie Crane. The little charms were the resin class by the Little Windows company. All were great!

Last but not least is my tiara from the Art Quilt reception, and the pin award I recieved for being runner up.

Hope you enjoyed Show and Tell!

Party like a Rock Star!

I had an amazing weekend at the IQA Chicago quilt festival. Lots of cool things happened, and I enjoyed every minute of it. I spent each day at the show until it ended, so I had little time to "live blog" the show like last year, but here are the highlights! (Pictures from the hallways leaving the show, because I hate posts without pictures.)
Thursday: I spent the day in a full day class with Maggie Wiess on Thermofax screen printing. It was great fun, and I think Thermofax screening is right up my alley. While I love my Gocco, the supplies are getting more and more expensive, and hard to find. Thermofax printing is similar enough, and there are enough services out there to provide me screens without buying the machine that I can make use of it. I can't wait to finish my project from class. After class, the show floor opened, and I walked the floor, spent money, and took a Make It University class on Little Windows resin. When Pokey Bolton called my name, she said "Oh I know her!" and even gave me a little hug. Wow!

Friday: Bright and early I got to the show and took the Embellishment Know How seminar, which was about 8-9 demos on embellishing your work. Afterwards, I had lunch with Steff and Catherine, and did some shopping with Steff. I made it through the whole vendor area, and had some time for some of the quilts. The Art Quilt reception was Friday evening, and Steff and I attended. I made a tiara last year that I didn't wear because I could not stay, but entered the "tiara parade" this time. Now, style counts, so I entered as the "queen of mean" and my skull pendant on my tiara even has a crown on it. Instead of a Miss America wave, I threw up the "heavy metal" horns and rocked down the aisle. Well, I guess this paid off, I was a runner up! Best of all, my co-runner up was none other than Melanie Testa, and we chatted for a bit and really hit it off. We also got a chance to speak with Karey Bresenhan, Bonnie McCaffrey, Laura Krasinski, Maggie Weiss, and many others! Melanie, Bonnie, Steff, Catherine and I went to dinner. Bonnie even taped us doing our "Shopping Show and Tell" for one of her video podcasts!

Saturday: Wow, how could you top yesterday? By hanging out with Melanie Testa for a portion of the day, that's how! I took her MIU class first thing, and we shopped a couple of booths and looked at some of the quilts afterwards. My friend Amanda and her friend were visiting the show from Baltimore, so I went to lunch with them, and then got to hang out with Melanie a bit more. It was really good to get her perspective on art quilting, and her story on how things in the art quilting wold are going. It gave me a lot to think about. At that point, it was time for Surviving the Runway. It's was an 80's Prom theme, and I made my Prom Queen tiara in ridiculous over to top fashion. I am sure You Tube Videos will surface. It was silly, and lots of fun. I didn't win, but had a great time with everyone. Bonnie McCaffery even gave me some sideline help. So fun!

Sunday: I got to sleep in a little bit (one extra hour). Arriving at the show at the opening, I did the last of my shopping, and got a call from Steff, who was there shopping with our friend Pika. We all took the "good girl Doll" class from Debbie Crane at MIU, did some more shopping, and took one last gander at the quilts. I spent literally my last dollar saved for the show, a grand total of almost $700 spent on the show overall. It was an amazing time. I felt like I really was part of the "it crowd", and was a bit of the MIU groupie, but had a fantastic time, and can't wait to see the shak out of the many things I discussed with everyone.

I'll post my "Show and tell" things I bought on the next post!!

This 'n That

I'm glad to be back home, and there's a lot to be done. My back finally feels better, so I have a "back"log of work to do. The house needs to be cleaned, laundry needs to be done, and the yard work is about to start.

My Fiber Art Divas group is going to have a show at the Naperville Art League in May, which I am very excited about! It means I can finally finish "The Road to Home", the "big" quilt I am working on. With a goal in mind, maybe it will get finished.

I bought new slippers, which were desperately needed since if my feet are cold I am cold. I found them in the clearance section for $5! I've wondered how I can salvage the old slipper parts to make new ones or recycled ones, but it's more work than it's worth. It's why I don't make my own clothes.

My Yo Yo Flower class went really well, and I hope to teach it elsewhere if I can.

IQA Chicago is coming up and I'm getting excited. Should be a lot of fun!!!

I plan to finish up my March theme this weekend, and work on some ATCs. I am going to an ATC retreat in Indiana in June, so I have to get a bunch of stuff done before then to have "stock" to trade with.

Walking in Memphis

By the time you read this, I'll be in Memphis TN for the comic book industry job I have. Be there through Sunday. Missing my brother's birthday and my sister's candle party...

My back is not fully recovered so no sewing has happened in the studio. Lots of reading and crocheting, but little sewing. The ideas are building up, and the big IQA show in Chicago is looming with all kinds of ideas and classes to take and money to spend there...

I am teaching my Fiber Art Divas group how to make the Yo Yo Flowers (sorry for those of you still waiting on the pattern). I'll let you know how it goes. This is just coming off of teaching it as a half hour demo at the Riverwalk Quilt Guild's Gathering show.

I have a project to take with me on the plane, but we'll see how much gets done. I may just nap instead.

In the meantime, I submitted one of my sad February quilts for a "ghost for a ghost" project over on Astulabee's Blog and Flickr page. Go check it out!

International Quilt Festival- Chicago 2009

I'm super excited about going to the big IQF show in Chicago this year! I usually take all the days off of work, plan out every minutia of my time there. I take lots and lots and LOTS of classes, at least one class every day of the show. I also spend inordinate amounts of money, usually bringing several hundred dollars of my saved "allowance" of our household budget. I may have friends coming to stay with me who plan to attend the show this year, and my quilt friends locally are all taking classes too.

But... (and you knew something was coming, right?)

I got the show catalog this year, and wow... what a downer. The classes are just not that exciting. I was hoping for a repeat of some of the classes I didn't take last year, no such luck. The dyeing classes, gone. The foiling and tyvek classes, gone. There is ONE class listing for Sunday, and it's one of the "samplers" in which you get to sample a demo from about 10-15 teachers. In fact, I have the Houston 2008 catalog on my desk, and putting the Chicago catalog next to it... it's downright anorexic.

Is this the state of the quilt show in Chicago? Were there not enough people last year? Every class I took was very full. I don't get it. I'm so disappointed that I didn't even fill out my class form online until this week, and I checked the Quilts.com website EVERY DAY until the class list was posted.

What will the show floor look like? Will it also be similarly reduced? Is it the economy?

I did eventually sign up for the Thermofax class and the Embellish it sampler class, but I really didn't have the same giddy feeling I did last year. I'm still looking forward to the show, and buying new supplies, and seeing the lovely quilts.

The Bounty - Show and Tell

I saved for quite a while to take a goodly sum to IQA Chicago, knowing it was the place to find odd tools and such. Here's a look at everything I bought.
I made several trips to the Cherrywood Fabric booth, and spent over $30 each time.

A pattern I coveted from last year's show(!), a jelly roll for a couple of baby quilts I am making, and two fat quarters of dupioni silk from Vogue fabrics.

18 inch batting samples from Hobbs. These were $8 a bundle, and there's 2 different bundles here.

Only at a show like this can you find tools you can't find in stores. These Clover pompom makers and needlefelting molds are exactly that.

Lakehouse fabrics bought at the Tammy Tadd booth. There's about $90 worth of fabric here.
I plan to try some dyeing this summer, so I bought a gradation kit from Pro Chemical and Dye.

Two orphan blocks of embroidery that I bought for $5 a piece. I love the idea of rescuing these poor things. The Kewpie doll is really ugly, and I had to have it!

Another place I can drop some serious money is at the Quilting Arts booth. I bought some cool embellishing kits, and the first season o fthe Quilting Arts program on DVD. The little hearts are from an antique quilt booth, made of a cut up quilt with hand piecing and quilting on them. Not sure what I will use those hearts for, but they were 50 cents each.

Booths selling wool were everywhere. And while i am not looking to get into making quilts or projects with wool, I do have a DVD bu Jane LaFazio who does a little wool applique piece I would like to try. So with access to great hand dyed wools at the show, I indulged a bit. There's $20 worth of wool here.

Lastly, a bit about being Teacher's Pet. In my experience, I have gotten a "gift" from each teacher I was the Pet for. Now, I will say, that I NEVER expect this, and it's a wonderful thing that they do, but I must say that I also EARN my rewards. As Teacher's Pet, you are not paid, and you also paid for your enrollment to the class, so the job should not be so overwhelming that you do not get to enjoy it. You get a pin to collect as your reward, but this is something extra that teachers may do. I always get there very early, ask the teacher throughout the class if they need anything, and also help them pack and clean up IN ADDITION to the duties given by the show organizers. These kits were my reward for the classes I took.

That's it (I know... this is a lot of stuff, but Chicago only comes once a year)! I hope to post some pictures eventually of the stuff I made out of these supplies!

Tomorrow

Tomorrow I will post the items I purchased at the Quilt Festival in Chicago for a very special "show and tell" post! Don't miss it!

Recycling from IQA Chicago

My weekly quilt this week is firmly on the theme of "recycled" for April. As I described on my earlier post about the show, and the "Surviving the Runway" luncheon, I took some of the scraps on the table to use in this week's quilt. I think this makes a perfect memento of the event, and our win for our table team.

Used here are tissue paper, a bingo card, a paper doily, gesso, pink paint to take down the bingo card color, ink from a stamp pad in the prize pack I won, and Wright's hem tape used on our model, that was origianlly grey but I dyed with pomegranate juice. Too bad this is not 5x5 inches (my weekly quilts are 6x6) or I would enter it into Quilting Art's current reader challenge!

International Quilt Festival Chicago- Day 4

Well, it's over.
I got up this morning to SNOW. Isn't it supposed to be Spring?? Ugh. Off I drive to the show.
I get there a bit early, so I look to drop my stuff off in class to find that the teacher needs a "Teacher's Pet". Since I am first to come to the class, I get to be the one to do it if I want. Sure, why not? I am a sucker for volunteer jobs. This class is taught by Barb Broshous and we are making long stem 3-D roses. They are gorgeous on a quilt. She mainly does dimensional flowers so this is right up my alley. I thought this was a hand sewing class, but to my surprise, there are very expensive Huskvarna Viking machines in the room. The class was fun, and small, only 10 of us, which was a nice change of pace. I had a good time, and Barb is a kind and patient teacher.
I could barely bring myself to go to the show floor again, I was so tired. But I made it through the last of the journal quilts.
I was stopped by Pokey Bolton for a few words, as she folded her beutiful fabrics she just bought. (Yes, she stopped me to say hello. OMG!PONIES!!1!) I also stopped by to say hi to Frieda Anderson, who took my photo and said she would put it on her blog, as I am an avid reader of hers. We took Judy Perez's class together a while back, so it was good to see her again. Her work is so nice, and her dyed fabrics are wonderfully bright. I also met a wonderful fiber collage artist named Lynn Krawczyk, who was so nice, and showed me some of her wool purchases, into which she plans to make evil plushies, once she saw my Uglidoll on my bag. She was very cool, and her work is so cool in person.
I met up with two of my "Fiber Divas" guild members, and shopped at a few booths with them. But after stumbling around the last few places, I decided it was time to go.
I'd like to invite anyone I met along the way to comment or email me to stay in touch!!

International Quilt Festival Chicago -Day 3

This morning came bright and early and I was off to the show before you know it. Traffic to the show was much lighter, though it has not stopped raining. I get there and parkin a good spot in the garage. It's 8:20 am.

I head to the Education Office because I am the "Teacher's Pet" for this morning's class on foiling on fabric. Tricia, our instructor, doesn't like the term "teacher's pet" so I was the classrom "cat". Despite the upsetting events at the end of the class (see previous post for the long winded story), I did enjoy the class very much, and Tricia was wonderful and I enjoyed her presence very much. She is a reverend and a spiritual healer, and I think her energy in this area helped me get over what happened and be able to get on with my day. I helped clean up and returned my materials to the education office and recieved my pin for a job well done.

As I walked to the show, I was in shock over how many people seemed to be pouring in. It was amazing. But, there is also a fashion accessory show going on int he same hall as the quilt show, so many of these folks were there for that. I can only imagine what parking was like after 10 am when both shows opened...
Anyway, once I was in, it was not as bad as I had thought. The quilt area was populated about like so:

So, I was able to the entire quilt area in about 2 hours, except for the small journal quilts, which I am saving for tomorrow. I read a lot of the current 2007 journal quilt artist's statements, so that took the longest. While there are amazing works in the show, it seemed like there are fewer than before, and I mean about the larger works, the bed sized quilts, as it were. Could be my perception though.
I ran into a fellow guild member in the bathroom, of all places.

I ate some lunch and walked to floor a bit more too. The floor was not as jam packed as I expected, so either a lot of people were eating lunch, or the busses of tour groups had left. It mainly looked like this:

I ran into Bonnie McCaffery again. I met Beryl Taylor at the Quilting Arts booth. At this point, I resume my aisle walking and complete the circuit. I shop again at a few booths that I wanted to go back to, but for the most part, my shopping excusion is done. In a separate post, I will do Show and Tell of my shopping treasures. The floor was still frustratingly slow paced, especially when the folks in front of you stop abruptly because something caught their eye. I found a seat and people watched for quite a while, but in the end decided to cut out before the floor closed in order to do some errands at home. While I sat there, I came up with new show floor rules:

1. Like driving, walk on the right side of the aisle, and let the people on the left flow in the other direction. You slow everyone down by "swimming upstream".

2. If you see something in a booth that catches your eye, be courteous to the people behind you and step into that booth and out of the flow of traffic.

3. This should be a given, but do not take pictures of the quilts at the booths. Ugh.

4. While some bumping is inevitable, there's no reson to be intentional.

5. Say "excuse me" if you want to get past someone, and acknowlege someone else's plea to be excused in some way that lets them know you heard them.

So those are my rules. There could be so many others, but this would help immensely.

I have to get this off my chest - at IQA and side rant

I will post Day 3 of the IQA show in a bit, but this has bothered me all day.

To start this off right, in my class last night on Tyvek, I sat at the back of the class, and next to me sat a latecomer, and we were the last two that got anything handed out. We were handed our Tyvek, and later in the class I heard her tell the teacher that she did not get the Tyvek since she was at the back. At that point, I didn't think much of it, but I was annoyed- I know full well she got that Tyvek, and just scammed her way into more.

Today's class is on foiling, and I was the "teacher's pet", meaning I volunteered ahead of time to be the helper to take roll call, etc, so the teacher doesn't have to. We had a great time foiling away. This same woman who sat to my right last night is now sitting in the row in front of me. Several people were in the same class from the night before and we were having a great time. I brought a rubber stamp of a pear, and it was a big hit, since my samples using the pear came out so well. At about an hour left, I packed all of my materials up in a plastic bin I use to tote my things to class, but left the lid off. I traded half a sheet of purple foil I had in my sample pack for a half a sheet of pink with another classmate. Since we had so much time left, I decided to mess around with a glue gun and my sheet of copper colored foil. When I returned to my seat about 10 minutes later, I wanted to accent the copper with gold foil. I looked to the top of my box where I left my samples of foil. It was gone. I tore the box apart, to no avail. I asked if anyone near me picked up any foil that fell on the floor? No, everyone says. Some ask what's wrong, and I explain my foil is missing. Several start helping me look. We all turn around and survey the stations I had been in in the room, no luck.

At this point, I'm pissed. I say so all close by seatmates can hear, but not casuing a scene, "that if they wanted it that bad, they could have asked and I would have given it to them" and "I hope when they look at those pears in the foil they think of what they have done". I even say "You know, I paid for this class too. This is wrong on so many levels." and my coup-de-grace "I believe Karma will get whoever did this ten fold." Now this woman has the nerve to say "I believe that too". Everyone is sympathetic. But it was gone, so there was nothing to be done about it now. The class seems somewhat over and my seatmates leave.

As teacher's pet, I begin cleaning up as people are filing out. I unplug one of the irons in the back of the room, and clear off that table except for the cooling iron. I come back to the ironing table a minute later, and I see the woman leaving the room (huh? again?) and on the table near the iron is a stack of foil. My foil. With the pears visible. It was not there before. And after checking the foil, the half sheet of purple I did not trade away is still not there.

Now I know someone will say that I must not have seen it there, and maybe I misplaced it, but I was not the only one looking. And there was another stack of foil that was there that I returned to someone else on that very table witht he cooling iron, so I am certain it was cleared, and we commiserated that it was my classmates' foil and not mine. I know it was that woman. In my heart, I know it.

Now, If I see her again it will take ALL of my strength of will not to cuss her out right there. Someone told me to bless her, because nothing is more a kick in the shin than killing them with kindness when they know they were wrong. I'll tell you my thought in a bit.

But this is the real meat of it. When have you ever heard of a QUILTER who did something like that? I mean, I have met a few curmudgeonly quilters, but NEVER a thief or a liar quilter. How sad must your life be that you steal supplies from other students when taking a QUILTING CLASS?

My husband and many other family members will tell you that I am not as nice as I may seem in person, and no one is more protective of her "things" than me. My stuff is MY STUFF. I am the kind of person who yells at children to get off my lawn, and glares out the window when a car goes by that I don't like the look of. I am very protective of my stuff! I am the Queen of Mean! I even have a tiara now.

In the end, this really, really hurt me. I felt safe in the quilting class enough to not lock up all of my things like I normally would. I was doing everything I could to help other classmates out as teacher's pet. And that was my reward? For a good chunk of time, I was heartbroken, thinking I was some sort of target. I was weak, this was my fault, I should have not been so nice to everyone and hoarded my things in the back of the room where my back is to no one.

But now.... I know it was the action of sad person who has nothing better in life than to steal what was someone else's and lie to good and giving people for more than what everyone else got.

I hope it tortures her everyday to know that I know what she did. And by writing this I am releasing this negative energy out and I am going to move on. Thanks for "listening".

International Quilt Festival Chicago -Day 2

Driving in to the show this morning was tough, because last night seemed so very very late.

My first class of the day was about making Quilting a business, which I took as an exploration, possibly to sell my quilts eventually, but aslo to explore some ideas on reaching quilters on the internet, and some web tools our industry is missing that I know of from the comic book industry (like show floor blogging and interviews... maybe next year). Morna Golletz was our teacher in this class and I learned a great deal.

Next, the show floor... again a glutton for punishment. However, the vendors area was PACKED. On Friday. And just at about noon! So about 10 steps into the show I meet up with new friends from my Riverwalk Guild. We decide to eat lunch. Yum!

Fueled for the afternoon, I spend a good bit of time in the vendors area again as best as I can manage, often getting bumped and pushed and elbowed. While I love the vendors area, I also hate it. Tomorrow will be a good example of why, and I will take photos.

I stopped at the Quilting Arts booth area to see the artists in "residence" doing on floor demos of various techniques. I spoke again with Judy Coates Perez, whos is so very nice, and chatted a bit about her painted works. I also spoke with Kelli Perkins, who was so kind to explain her work and was so inspiring also. I also chatted with Pokey Bolton again about the embellishing machine she was demo-ing. And I saw a paint on fabric technique by Julaine Lofquist-Birch which used dried on shaving cream.

I shopped the next couple of hours and No, I still haven't walked the whole vendor area yet. I started at lane 900, and ended at lane 1400. Tomorrow and Sunday I will do the rest. Tomorrow will be mostly quilts, after my show. At this point, I am being bumped so often, I cannot stand it any more. I buy those thirsty towels on an impulse. I walk past Alex Anderson, whose line has died down. I briefly consider going back to tell her how much I love her podcasts.

Now, I scheduled classes back in January as soon as the classes opened. I did not know that the Friday night class I took would interfere with the Tiara Parade and QuiltArt Reception. Oh noes! Class starts at 6pm, reception at 5pm.

So I decide to go to the reception for an hour. I even made a tiara. In the food line, I finally MEET Bonnie McCaffery, tell her how I missed her yesterday, and she is a lovely person. I also meet Virginia Spiegel! She is also lovely. I met lots of QuiltArt list "readers" and "contributors" and I am so sorry if I can't remember all of your names right now. But the one I enjoy immensely is speaking with Karey Bresenhan. I told her how much fun I was having at the show and thanked her so very much for holding the reception. I saw so many other quilters I would have loved to say hello to. Sadly, before the tiara parade, I had to leave for my class, as I did not want to upset my teacher by barging in late. So I left, but before I did, I had one quick photo taken of me as proof.

My class was by Tricia Spitzmueller on Tyvek manipulation. This was a fun class, and it was again very good to sit down. Here are my class projects!

Thus the long rainy drive back home and looking forward to another class and more show on Day 3!!

International Quilt Festival Chicago- Day 1

I should have thought of this sooner, I don't know why no one is "blogging" the show. I will do a much better job on this next time, maybe even wi-fi it from the show floor.

Anyways, Day one:

I participated in the Thursday Luncheon "Surviving the Runway", in which I met a lovely group of ladies, of whose names I am poor at remembering, but who all have this blog and website address and should feel free to email me. The challenge was to design an outfit for our model, who could potentially win a BabyLock Embellisher machine! Well, we danced, we laughed, we designed, and we crafted, and the lone picture of our design is this:

Ok, you had to be there. The mask had a beak on it that flapped up and down when our lovely model Lea shook her head. Yes, we used the tablecloth to wrap her in. Yes, it was ridiculous. Well, WE WON! We all got bags of paint, trims, batting, and a rubbing plate, and our model won the Embellisher! It was a thrill to start off the entire show. I took ephemera scraps for a "recycled" weekly quilt...

Afterwards, I was chilling out to some vidcasts on my iPod before the show floor opened. Well, as I am watching Bonnie McCaffery on the iPod, I look up to see her walking RIGHT TOWARDS ME. I did a doubletake to her face on the screen...it was like out of a movie. I opened my mouth to say something... . Nothing. I couldn't bring myself to squawk her name out. Darn! I missed a great chance!

Next, the vendors on the show floor, and nothing I can say will do it justice. I will take pictures tomorrow. While I hear Houston is larger, this show tired my 35 year old butt out.

After about an hour and a half, I'm very tired, so I check to see if I can get into a Quilting Arts Make It University class. The deal is this: you put your name into a fishbowl. Only 25 can get in. If you put your name in twice and get caught, BUSTED! You can't be in it. Once in, the class costs a whopping $10. It's a great deal, and you have a good chance of being in the class on Preview night. I put my name in, and was called by the effervescent Patricia "Pokey" Bolton. As she calls my name, get this! She says, "I know your name from my blog". OMG!! PONIES! She knows my NAME??? Besides being called for the class, I could die just from that and be a happy woman. I am able to bring myself to sit, and I am so glad to be off my feet. I make this:

Not wanting to miss another opportunity to meet someone, and after blowing my chance with Bonnie McCaffery, I stop to say hello to Pokey and tell her how she made my day. We chatted ever so briefly per these rules, and off I stumble home.

I'm on vacation!!

A much needed respite before my workload takes off in comic book land.
I am happy to be on vacation, at home, not going anywhere, and just relaxing and making art. The IQA Chicago show is also this week, so I am ready to immerse myself in the artworks and fantastic classes I'm going to be taking at the show. I may make a "tiara" for the tiara parade at the Quilt Artists reception I am attending too. I have a couple of days to figure one out....

Last night my husband and I relaxed in front of the TV with the most midless drvel on so we could paint and quilt repectively. I am still hand quilting the beast of a quilt that is my very first quilt top. I have to admit, my hand is cramped up after hours of hand quilting, of which I am still not any good at. This quilt is hideous too. Points don't match, I knew nothing about ironing seams to any particular side, and the fact that it's mostly flat without puckers is amazing. I don't know if I can work on it tonight or not, my poor fingers need a break.

IQA-Chicago Schedule!

I registered VERY early and got all of the classes I wanted.

4/10/08- Surviving the Runway
4/11/08- Turn your Quilting Passion into a Business
4/11/08- Tyvek Techniques for Artwear
4/12/08- Foiling Around
4/13/08- Long Stem Roses

Since I will see Robbi Joy Ecklow next month at my quilt guild, and Judy Coates Perez in a class in February, I opted not to take those classes at the show.

Last year there was a get-together for those on the Quilt-Art mailing list that I went to and sat with the nicest bunch of quilters. It was great! Karey Bresenhan, the festival organizer, hosted the party and she is the loveliest woman you will ever meet. This year, I will bring my tiara for the tiara parade.

If you will be at the Chicago Quilt Festival, say Hi!