Sew Happy Saturday A Day Early – QUILTCON!

 

This is not Saturday, but for any readers who might be interested in quilts and quilting who couldn’t be at Quiltcon in Austin this week, I decided to post a day in advance. :-)

My generous husband took me to Quiltcon yesterday!  I had a very interesting time.  He had a somewhat interesting time. :-)  I was most interested in the quilts.  He was most interested in --- the long arm quilting machines!  No surprise there, really, though I didn’t see it coming.  Big computer operated machines are right up his alley. :-)  He was so impressed that I think if I ever really got into quilting the way some folks do he might try to figure out a way to get me, er, us one. :-D

Anyway, to start off we had to drive to downtown Austin – about an hour’s drive for us.  Being a committed country girl, I have to admit that the downtown area fascinates me – probably in a way that city folks wouldn’t understand. :-)  Some day I want to go downtown and just take pictures of buildings. (lol)

I really dislike parking garages, but once we were parked I was fine.  We had a brisk walk to the convention center.  The building is big, and we ended up walking down two whole sides of it to get to the exhibit room where Quiltcon is.  I didn’t take pictures of it, but I thought it was a very appropriate building for a modern quilt convention because the décor was quite fitting. :-)

I/We took lots of pictures.  I won’t post them all here so as not to bore my non-quilting readers, but for those who are interested, I am posting quite a few here:  Mary’s Quiltcon photos.

Last year I took Craftsy’s block of the month course (though I didn’t make the quilt yet), which was being taught by Amy Gibson from Sitchery Dickory Dock.  I’ve visited her blog and followed her on Facebook since then, so when I learned she planned to be at Quiltcon I went with my eyes open to see if I could meet her in person.  Very shortly after we arrived I saw a lady who I thought was Amy.  Hmmmm….  Check the name tag – “Amy”.  Yeah, it’s gotta be.  “Excuse me.  Are you Amy Gibson?”  Yes!  It was.  So we met and chatted for a few minutes – and for once in my life I remembered to have a picture taken! ha.  (Sorry about my cheesy grin. lol)

It was nice that this happened right at the start because after that I could focus on the quilts and vendors and not keep an eye out for her too. :-)

Peter and I spent about 2 hours or more there because it was the only day I planned to be there.  Still, we didn’t see the whole thing.  A little disappointing perhaps, but when you’ve lived with limitations for awhile you try to learn to be thankful for what you can do and not lament what you can’t.  Doesn’t always work, but it’s a good goal to have.  I’m so thankful that I can even enjoy an event like this now!

Here are a few quilts to look at.  The rest are at the link above. :-)

This was a rather amazing quilt done especially for Quiltcon.

I think my favorites were the rainbow colored quilts. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I especially like the butterfly quilt above.

This one was a demo quilt in one of the vendor booths.  It’s made with batiks.  I think it’s beautiful.

Since I mix traditional and modern myself, I was a little disappointed not to see more quilts that distinctly mixed traditional and modern among those entered and displayed in the actual show.  Admittedly, though, I didn’t see all the quilts.  These two did have some of that aspect, I think.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, with all those vendors there someone is probably wondering what great loot I came home with.  Well, as some of you know I’ve been working on shopping my own stuff and not spending money for awhile.  Also, I tend to be a tightwad sometimes, which is maybe why my husband is OK with taking me to an event like this in the first place. :-)  Anyway, I didn’t buy a thing!  Nope. Not one thing!  The prices were so high on the few things I was interested in that I couldn’t bring myself to do it.  I kept thinking how much cheaper I could get fabric online.  And, then too, I have so much fabric here at home….and I have more projects in hand now than I really need!

I did come away with a few brochures, a package of Moda “candy” (2 1/2 inch squares) that I was blessed to get as a free sample, and a free water bottle from Michael Miller fabric (which was really just trash, but cute for this photo).  I ate the real candy, so that isn’t pictured. ;-)  I kept thinking I *should* buy something at an event like that, but…no, my money was worth more to me right where it’s at. :-)

This is kind of a long post, but hopefully my quilty friends enjoy it. :-)  I was “sew” happy for the chance to go.  It was only the second quilt show I’ve been to.  (Unfortunately, the pictures from the first show didn’t make it onto the blog – yet.)