Mary and I went with friends on a road trip to see the Crystal Coast quilt show last weekend. 
We saw many beautiful quilts and were inspired to try some new ideas. Also got some ideas for quilt challenges. 
And of course there was some shopping involved too. We also stopped at a couple of quilt shops on the way home. 
It was a fun day for all. 
We are already planning our next adventure. Keep having fun sewing and quilting. See a quilt show and be inspired. Donna
Here is a selection of the quilts from the quilt festival. 
It is a fun show to attend since there are lots of special exhibits from guilds and quilting artists. Of course, the vendors are fun too. 
Cathy Wiggins had an exhibit with her leather quilts. It was amazing to see what she was able to do with quilting on leather. (Horse quilt is a leather quilt.) I am always inspired by the quilts at the show and get motivated to finish up some of my projects too. Keep having fun sewing and quilting. Donna
We had a GREAT time at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival. Donna and I took in the show, spent way too much money at the vendor booths and we both took two workshops.
I first took a 1/2 day workshop with Joyce Teng on Fabric Inking 101.
Tsukineko inks
We used Tsukineko inks played with various methods of applying them on fabric. This included using dabbers, brushes, spray bottles and TSC stencils.
Here is the stenciled tree that I did with the inks.
I was a fun class but it was only 1/2 day and we all wanted more time.
I then took and All day workshop with Ashley Nickels: Watercolor Quilting: Colorful Explorations in Free motion Quilting. Ashley Nickels is Sue Nickels daughter (some of you may know her work).
In Ashley’s class we spent the morning painting on fabric squares with Dye-na-Flow fabric paint to make watercolor like images.
It was a blast!
My painted pieces. Two of them in this pic have been thread sketched (free motion) with black thread.
After lunch we got out our machines and used black thread to free motion sketch our painted image.
My free form painted flower after it was thread sketched with black ink.
Close-up of my flower.
I’ve always loved watercolors and thread sketching. This technique gave me both.
It was a GREAT class and we’ll definitely do more fabric painting.
Happy Stitchin’
Mary
We had a great time at the quilt festival last month in Hampton, Virginia. Last year we had snow that weekend but no winter weather this year besides wind and cold. Another great quilt show with lots of beautiful quilts and fun vendors to explore. 
There were many guild challenge quilts at the show: alphabet soup, Vogue magazine ads as inspiration, color challenges, and wind chines made with skinny quilts. A great place to go to be inspired for your next quilt. Mary and I met up with 2 quilter friends from Raleigh. We took a fusible applique class with Laura Wasilowski which was lots of fun. Hope you will get a chance to go a quilt show and get inspired. Keep having fun sewing and quilting. Donna 
Mary and I went up the the Mid-Atlantic quilt festival last week. We were lucky with the weather. We drove up there on Wednesday and had clear roads. Then Wednesday night through Thursday the snow storm hit – about 8 – 10 inches of snow. 
Fortunately Mary had selected the hotel next to the convention center so we were able to get to our classes and see the show. We enjoyed the many special exhibits at the quilt show. Enjoy some of the pictures from the show. Donna
I went to the Houston quilt market at the end of October with the quilt shop owner who I work for. We took an early morning flight (5:15 am) and arrived at the Houston quilt market around 10 am. Hit the floor running! This year we had our rolling totes to fill with all the samples and brochures – no more backpacks. We started at the center of the convention center and worked one direction before stopping for lunch. Our goal for the first day was to see every booth – take pictures and pick up brochures. We met our goal but the last few aisles were a blur – fortunately we had pictures and brochures. On Saturday night, Moda fabrics (United Notions) hosted a buffet dinner as customer appreciation at the Houston Astros stadium. Great Texas BBQ. 
Then back to the hotel room to sort through our pictures and brochures and decide which booths to go back to on Sunday to order fabric, patterns, etc. Saw some demos of new products at the Clover booth. Met some fun new designers of fabric and bought some of their fabric and patterns. Every booth at market is like a quilt show with lots of finished quilts. It is great to see the patterns made into quilts. On Monday morning before our flight we did a little more booth shopping and then back home.
On Sunday afternoon, we did spend some time looking at the quilts in the quilt show. We are fortunate that the quilt show is open during market so we get to see the amazing quilts. I tried to take as many pictures as I could to get inspired with my own quilts. There was a fun exhibit of quilts based on the Beatles songs. While I was looking at this exhibit, I started to hear a Beatles song. When I walked around the corner, there were 3 women who were listening to a song on a cell phone. They were trying to figure out if they knew the song that the quilt was based on. Too funny! I have posted a few of the amazing quilts. Maybe next year Mary an I will be able to go to the quilt show later in the week and actually spend a whole day looking at the quilts. Keep having fun sewing and quilting. Donna
Mary and I went to the AGS show in Charlotte at the end of July. There was a special display of hand appliqued quilts made by the tentmakers of Cairo. Two of the tentmakers were working on the hand applique during the show. They worked very fast to stitch down the applique. Beautiful workmanship.
There were many beautiful quilts to see at the show. Lots of inspiration. Keep having fun sewing and quilting. Donna
