Quilt Festival

I don't know where to begin. I can tell you that I am exhausted from lugging my supplies back and forth. It is a hike from the convention center to the parking lot with all my stuff. Not complaining though because I am having so much fun! This show is bigger than CHA. There were tons of people both days. When coming to the convention center, there were busloads of quilters getting off. I mean literally busloads! It was impossible to get into the parking lot. Traffic on 294 was not a problem. As soon as I exited and paid the toll, it literally took me 20-35 minutes to go two city blocks to the parking lot.

Name dropping: I saw the wonderful Art Girlz sisters. I bought a black wool purse from them that I will get around to decorating. It is so adorable. Yes, I used the word adorable. They come out with such fun things. Yeah, you could probably make it yourself, but why bother since they have already done it? I also saw Bernie Berlin and chatted with her. She was using Luminarte's polished pigments. I will have to get some, play with it, and share with you my results. She has just as much energy as I do. I met Judy Coates Perez. I also saw Kelli Perkins again. She had her stuff with her from the CPS magazine. It looks better in person. I loved her blonde hair with purple highlights. Leilani Pierson did some really fun things with boxes. She is pregnant with her fourth child - girl! I took her make 'n take class. It was a lot of fun. She is very, very nice. Congrats on little, little, baby! I met Beryl Taylor today. Her stuff is fantastic. She had some pieces from her book. They looked even better in real life. I will be taking her workshop in June. I've seen a lot of Pokey Bolton (Patricia Bolton), editor of CPS and Quilting Arts. I met her briefly last year at the Quilt Festival. I had a chance to speak with her some more these couple of days. She is a dynamo! Lots of energy. They did a lot of filming this weekend where we were doing the demos - Open Studios. Met her dh-John again. Very cool dh - he "gets" it. You women out their with dhs that don't "get" our art will understand what I am talking about. I met Barbara and Helen, who are also with Quilting Arts (editors). They were running around keeping things going this weekend. I had the chance to chat with Helen over lunch yesterday. She is very interesting. I would love to have a job like hers.

One of the best things about doing this is meeting new people. I was surprised at how many people were interested in mixed media art at this Quilt Festival. I had a lot of people come and watch my demo. They were amazed at what I could do with a Viva paper towel. What was really cool was that 3 of my pieces were hung on the wall in the Open Studio area. People kept coming up to it, looking at it, touching it, and wanting to take pictures. I met a lot of people who knew me at Crazy Art Girl. I got to meet some people from various Yahoo groups. One particular person was LouAnn (not sure if that is her correct spelling). She lives in Glenview and she is a hoot! I can tell that we will be great friends. To all my new friends, thanks for stopping by and giving such positive feedback! Maybe, I will see you in the summer at the Calligraphy Conference mini-workshops.

On Friday, I met up with Sandy, her dh's cousin, and some of the cousin's friends. They were such fun people. I could sit with them all day long and just listen to them. They gave me some mini-lessons on quilting terminology. I learn something new every day.

On Friday, I did the Dyeing with Color Wash in the morning. I dyed muslin, paper, and Viva towels. That was wildly popular. Thank you, Sandy, for taking all that home! I had so much to lug that I did not want another thing to carry. I actually wore disposable gloves so my hands would not be purple for the rest of the weekend. I ended up doing more with the Viva towels than anything else. People loved that! For the people who liked this technique, the Color Wash is Adirondack Color Wash by Ranger Ink. The shiny, mica spray is by Luminarte - Radiant Rain misters. I buy my Color Wash from heartsintouch.com and franticstamper.com. I buy my Radiant Rain from franticstamper.com, too. You can buy them both locally at More Than Memories in Schaumburg on Golf and Roselle Road.

I ate lunch with Sandy and her crew before walking around. In the afternoon, I did the mah jong pendants. People really liked that. I gave most of them away that I made. What am I going to do with all of those pendants? It would not pay to sell them since mailing would cost almost as much as the pendant itself. I can always crank out more. I went home and promptly fell asleep on the couch.

I made the mistake of leaving a little later yesterday. There were throngs of people trying to get into the parking lot. I wanted to do the make 'n take with the metal weaving pendant but was too late. I did the Color Wash again in the early afternoon, walked around, ate lunch, and did the layering with acrylics in the late afternoon. The late afternoon one died down around 5:30 pm. I think that people were too pooped. I did make friends with the booth across from us. They have some great stencils and some great ideas. More will come later about that.

I bought some little lizard and cat pins for my kids. I got some absorbent clothes for drying. I saw Stewart Gill there. There were a ton of booths with machines, fabric, and patterns. I can't do the pattern thing so I skipped that. I looked at accessories, tools, and non-quilting related booths. There were some great fabrics to be bought. I will do a little of that today. You can't walk the whole thing in a day. It was huge and there seemed to be more booths this year than last.

I will have more to share later and will upload picts to the blog. Later days!