What A Great Weekend!

This past weekend I went to Quiltfest in Johnson City, Tn. This is an event that is held each year with classes from national and regional teachers. I'll have to admit that I have been disppointed with most of the classes that I've taken in recent years, but I absolutely was not diasppointed at Quiltfest. I took two classes--Quilting Feathers with Sue Nickels and Hot Piping with Susan Cleveland. I had never heard of Susan Cleveland before but she is a real hoot! And you come out of that class with many new tips about using piping in your quilts and doing it properly. (Unfortunately, my pictures of that class were not good). This picture on the left is of the Feathers Class. Sue Nickels is in the center. We had a wonderful classroom space and there weren't many of us in the class so we all received plenty of feedback on our progress. And she had a camera that she kept aimed at her quilting demos and the picture would be projected on the screen so we could easily see what she was doing without crowding around the desk. This small quilt on the right is the class project that I finished yesterday. It's not the clearest picture in the the world, but I think you can see that I got a pretty good relief effect with the feathers. She gave us all kinds of tips about this kind of quilting--position of hands, type of thread, etc-- and it was just what I needed to hear. You might be able to also see the piping that I put in along the borders--thanks to the techniques that I learned in Susan Cleveland's class. I got the label on it this morning and turned it in for the Small Quilt Auction at the Asheville Quilt Show in a couple of weeks.
So, put Quiltfest on your calendars for next year if you can. You won't be disappointed. (And come to the Asheville Quilt Show this year! It's August 7th-9th at the North Carolina Arboretum. I was there today and the flowers were incredible.