My First Quilt Expo

Now that I have dedicated some time to quilting, I thought I'd go to my first quilt expo.  My opinion was: "These quilts will either motivate and inspire me or make me stop quilting all together because I will never measure up".  Both situations were true.

All done by hand!

The 2nd place quilt stopped me in my tracks.  This picture was taken with my iPod and doesn't do the quilt justice.  It's all hand appliquéd and hand quilted.  And it's huge - large enough for a king size bed; as if you would ever put it on a bed.   And the colors are bright and gorgeous!  After seeing this quilt, I shouldn't honestly call what I do quilting.

But, let's get back to reality.  This is the yellow ribbon quilt.  It's a paper pieced pineapple quilt.  I love it for it's simple elegance.  I can actually see myself making a pineapple quilt one day.  This is an achievable goal, whereas the Baltimore Album quilt above is a fantasy.  I'll never be that good. (Notice how I just throw quilting jargon around!!)

The blue ribbon quilt didn't interest me.  The highlight of that quilt was the actual quilting, which in my opinion, requires a whole different skill set than piecing or appliqué.  I'm working on being a passable piecer – I don't think I'll live long enough to become good at quilting.  Besides, without my camera, it would have been too difficult to photograph the subtleties of the quilting.

Of course, I did some shopping.  I want to make a small Underground Railroad sampler and I bought some 1860s reproduction fabrics.  1860s era fabrics are not as easy to find as one might think.  Apparently, the trend for making civil war era quilts has passed, just when I decide I want to make one.  Lucky me.  Also, a representative was demonstrating Oliso Pro Irons.  I had a horrible experience with this iron, so what did I do?  I bought another one.  File this in the "some-folks-never-learn" folder.  In my defense, I really enjoyed using the iron.  The 30-minute shut-off feature was great!  And the "show price" was considerably less than the sale + coupon price I paid when I bought the iron  in June.  If Oliso can lower the price for a show, why can't they lower the price permanently?  I told the sales person about my experience and he said I could have sent it back for a replacement.  Turns out, my iron wasn't the only one with problems.  The Oliso management changed manufacturers and  I was assured the problems have the eliminated.  Time will tell.

I saw a wide variety of quilts and quilters at the expo. There is more to quilting than just the traditional pieced blocks.  There were more "art quilts" on display than anything else.  I expected to see  the stereotypical  gray-haired, quilting grannies, but that was not the case.  I saw many different types of women there.   Except for the granny part, I have all of the qualifications to be a gray haired, quilting granny.  With all the quilting styles and quilters I think there is enough room in the quilting-sphere for me and what I do.