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Okay it’s time for the quilts! The quilts are already hung by Market so I took Sunday to primarily look at quilts. I knew I didn’t have much time and there was A LOT of quilts! I roamed the aisles rather briskly and snapped photos of anything that struck me. I knew I would end up chatting with friends and visitors so I kept up a good pace to see all the quilts. Of course there were a good number of photos that were just lousy. As always, if I have previously published a quilt or if it has been…
Houston 2019 is a wrap! This year was my smoothest ever and I didn’t forget anything major – that’s a win right there. It is hard to convey in words the excitement of being at Market and Festival. It’s the world’s stage of quilting and there is a lovely feeling of unity that pervades both events. We are united by a love of quilts and what divides us fades for just a bit. I was thrilled that my energy did not flag. It is a brutal physical experience and stressful at times. I didn’t sleep but an hour or two…
NOTE: I won’t be publishing a blog post next week and I will not publish my newsletter for 2 weeks – I just ran out of time. I’ll be having fun and working hard in Houston! The Pacific International Quilt Show was a whirlwind for me this year! I worked the Studio Art Quilt Associates booth for the first 2 hours and then blasted through the show at warp speed. I had some people I wanted to connect with and saw many others there that I was delighted to chat with. As a result I probably missed some entire areas.…
I got good news yesterday: my classes at Houston filled so well that I was invited to teach next year, my seventh year! Yippee! I’ve been preparing for Houston and that makes for a dull Jenny. I do lists, lots of lists. And I practically empty my closet to put together comfortable teaching outfits. I create an Excel spreadsheet of each day’s choices because if I don’t, I forget what I slated to go with what. It seems silly but it makes getting dressed effortless. I haven’t put together all my outfits yet, that takes much of a day. I…
My class last Saturday at the Quilt and Fabric Art Festival was a blast! The class was full and we filled our day with quilting, discovery, laughs and learning. I was so pleased with the outcome – I must show off the work of my students! Keep in mind, I did not count exactly, but around 5 students were brand-spanking new to free motion quilting, another 6 – 8 were fairly new and the rest had quilted a few projects. I was blown away by what was accomplished in class. I do wish we’d had more time together as it’s…
The River City Quilters’ Guild decided to take a risk and opened their show up to entries outside of their guild, making it a regional show. It was retitled to the Quilt and Fabric Art Festival and relocated to a cavernous space at the McClellan Conference Center. Additional vendors were added as well as a roster of 9 teachers offering workshops over a 4-day period. Sandra Mollon was the Featured Quilter and it was a fantastic show! This had to be a significant financial risk to the guild and I hope they hit it out of the park. They…
Oh a lot has happened since my last post on my Houston Auction donation quilt. After I left you last week, I blocked my quilt and set it in the sun to dry, a mere 2 hours in the sun. And the baby blue silk faded into a putrid color, ugh. Also, I apparently did not wash out my blue wash out pen well enough – there were blue stains on the quilt! I showed the debacle on Facebook and the overwhelming response was it was not as bad as I made it out to be and they would be…
I was running behind on making a donation quilt for the International Quilt Association, the non-profit umbrella organization behind the Houston Int’l Quilt Festival. IQA asks teachers to volunteer a piece of their work for a fundraising silent auction held at Festival. I’ve donated each of the previous 5 years I’ve taught there and did not want to break the chain. My thought was to go with trapunto and silk, how could I go wrong? After a good bit of auditioning I selected this combination of silk Radiance and silk dupioni. I sprayed a layer of Terial Magic on all…
The trip to teach at AQS Grand Rapids gave me an opportunity to visit friends and family after the show. It left me (kinda sorta) in the vicinity of my hometown about 90 mi southwest of Chicago. I rented a mini-van and put in 1400 miles in four states in 3 days. I was thrilled to be traveling in August when the crops were more mature and the weather warm. As luck would have it, the temps were mild and the humidity low during my stay. I almost made me want to move back, but not quite! I still remember…
NOTE: I posted last week on Saturday. You may have missed this post. This was one of my best teaching trips yet! I love to clean up before I leave so that I walk back into a clean slate. Jealous? Getting there had some adventure involved. I haven’t flown out of O’Hare in decades – this was a huge improvement since the last time I was there. Um yeah, I was not in Sacramento! Growing up we had tornado drills regularly and seeing them was not particularly unusual. I forgot about that. There was an entire section of the…