Recovery Day

Just like the employees of Quilts Inc. who travel and work at our Quilt Festival and Market shows, I take a "recovery day" the day after I get home.  It's the day to do laundry, check and process mail, pay bills, read all the newspapers that piled up, sleep in, watch a TV show or 2 I missed, and generally come back to real life after 6 days in a hotel and convention center.

This morning I slept in until 6:15--all the things I wanted to do were calling me.  Here's a little recap of International Quilt Festival Chicago.  The photos aren't mine as I took hardly any, these came from our Facebook page and a few friends:

Merch

Almost Amish by Tamara Watts McPhail quilted by Linda McGhee

This is a kit quilt that I've always liked.  This one was very well done and I enjoyed looking at it.

Elaborate Quilts:

Out of Africa by Barbara McCraw

Artistic Quilts:

LOTUS by Koh Jaesook

Modern Quilts:

Quilt for our Bed by Laura Hartrich

Many Special Exhibits:

Magna Carta Special Exhibit

Vendors:

One of my Favorite vendors of antique quilts:  Pique'

My other top Favorite vendor of antique quilts:  Cindy's Antique Quilts

Fun Events:  Iron Quilter Challenge

Catherine and her Team and their quilt

Catherine Redford celebrating her win of the Iron Quilter Challenge

A Touching Ceremony was held to present Quilts of Valor to two Veterans:

Those photos give you just a hint of all the great quilts, special exhibits and vendors you will find at Festival.

I know it was April but this is Chicago and we did have snow a few days--nothing that stuck around but the Texans sure had fun seeing it come down.  The locals just laughed:

 In addition to my regular duties in the Education Office, I was asked to present four Open Studio sessions on the show floor.  We have four "Studios" set up:  Quilt, Stitch, Embellish, and Paint. Throughout the entire show, each of these has a presenter demonstrating a technique, method or project in these areas--these are two hour sessions. Folks can move from one to the other or stay for all 2 hours with only one.  It is located at a prominent place on the show floor and, best of all, it's FREE.  I love doing this and must say I was thrilled with the response to my presentations.  

Here I am discussing Artist's Trading Cards--we did an Education Office swap in 2004 and I had 47 great cards to show--frrom simple to elaborate, artistic or quilty, each is a small piece of art that is a reminder of the maker--each is signed and dated and most were 2.5" x 3.5", the usual size.  

This fun shot was posted on the International Quilt Festival Facebook page and is from my session on Hexie Stars--either by hand or by English Paper Piecing--I demoed both methods.  There were lots of people interested in this, at least 20 and as many as 30 at one point.  The free pattern is available at Nellie's Niceties.

I wish I had a shot of the two sessions I did on String Pieced Stars--Use Your Stash.  I presented this one twice and each time it was mobbed--there were 40 people there most of the time.  I found out I have "groupies"--one lovely lady told me she was so happy to see my name back on the schedule as she wanted to see string piecing again.  Many of them thanked me personally for all the tips and info and I got a round of applause when  it was done--what a pleasant surprise!  We do have fun in class. I'm already working on ideas for String Piecing projects for next year:  last year it was blocks, this year stars, come back next year for new and exciting projects.

12" String Pieced Lemoyne Star

I promise to do a Tutorial here soon on this String Pieced Star--for now, the Template Set I used is  Marti Michell's Perfect Patchwork Templates, Set E, The Eight-Pointed Star Set. One woman came back to tell me she had found them at a vendor on the show floor--I wish I had known which one because they would have sold out for sure.

Let's Quilt!

Barbara