Show Recap

The first quarter of 2015 has been a bunch of fun to date.  I went to my first quilt show and participated in my first expo, too!  I've been super-busy, so I'm only just now getting to write about the events I attended several weeks ago.

First off, the Highlands County Quilt Show: Quilting in the Highlands.  I'll apologize in advance: while I didn't take very many photos of the quilts, I totally forgot to note their numbers so I could give the quilt makers credit for their creations!  That being the case, I've opted not to post photos of the quilts without proper credit to their makers. 

One cool thing I did at the show was shopping: The HCQG had a huge sale booth with old magazine bundles and handmade items.  Here's what I picked up:

It's a cute little luggage tag!  They look fairly simple to construct, so I'll have to keep these in mind for a quick little gift or gift tag.  What do y'all think?  Some double-side fusible Peltex, perhaps? 

This is one is for my mother, so I embroidered her first name on it by hand.  Hey, remember when Mom didn't have a name?  It's still slightly strange for me to use her Christian name. 

 

I used a Frixion pen to write her name, and just backstitched over the writing.  As you can see from the picture, I knotted the end of my thread (Sulky Blendables 12 wt) and ran it underneath an area I knew I'd stitch over.  When you get close to the knot, you simply trim it off as close to the fabric as you can. 

 

Here's her finished tag!

 

 

I used the Blendables thread in an attempt to catch all of the colors in the background.  I think it was an okay choice. 

I also picked up a tag for myself (in purple, of course!).  Check it out:

Overall, the Highlands County Quilt Guild puts on a good show for how small of a place Sebring is.  I think it was the perfect way for me to get my feet wet, so to speak.  Next up was the Original Sewing and Quilt Expo in Lakeland.  Lucky for me, I only live ten minutes away from the Lakeland Center. 

As y'all probably know, I'm a member of the Lakeland Modern Quilt Guild, and we were blessed to have a booth at the show. 

Check out the little photo booth we had going:

While the primary focus of our booth was to gain exposure and new members, we also had some opportunity quilts/items we were giving away:

These were quilted by yours truly!

Our two quilt winners!

Our super awesome basket jam packed with goodies!

We had a really great time, but it wore us out!


My personal experience at the Expo was super.  I took classes all three days.  The first day I took a quilting class sponsored by Juki and I learned quite a bit.  No pics, 'cause I'm still working on my skills, y'all!  Friday morning I got to see Nancy Zieman and got some really good ideas for quilts.  I've already purchased everything I need to make one of them, but I'm not sharing it here because it's for one of my favorite people in the world, and I want to surprise her.

Friday night I took Christy Fincher's Paperless Piecing class.  What a technique!

 

She was super cool and a great teacher to boot.  Check out what I made:

 

 

I think I'll be turning these into mug rugs for next month's guild swap with Italy.  Saturday's class was a total bomb, though.  I took a bag-making class.  The machines weren't great, the class was full of quilting and machine "snobs," and it just wasn't taught well.  I thought I was going to learn some new bag making techniques, but we simply made the same zipper pouch three times.  After paying for the materials, they felt very cheap and the colors didn't match.  I was thoroughly disappointed with that class.  I guess you can't like them all, huh?

Overall, I still had a great time.  Oh, and did I mention I was a winner??  I won not one, but two, of the prize drawings!  Check out my haul:

Haha!  Yes! 

 

This wasn't so much my style, but I'm definitely grateful.  Maybe next time you'll come with me?