Flying the New Zealand flag in Paducah

How lucky I am that I am able to take advantage of my brother living near Nashville....last week my sister-in-law and I headed up to Paducah, 2 hours away, to the AQS quilt show.
Sandie and I went 3 years ago - and I was totally overawed at the shear size of everything and the amount of people there.  This time I wasn't quite as gobsmacked (I'm an old hand now!) but was still majorly impressed.
Naturally, there were quilts everywhere! In the convention centre, in the Pavillion, in the Quilt Museum, in shop windows, on the street. I could have spent twice as long there and still seen something new every day. The whole town gets behind quilt week and there is a real party atmosphere everywhere.

I really don't know which quilt photos to share, I started out taking photos of everything, marvelling at the design, the colours, the quilting, the embellishments, the ideas... but of course there were so many I gave up! So I'll just show a selection where the photos turned out ok..... (and ones that I enjoyed for a variety of reasons)...

Best of Show - Arandano by Marilyn Badger.

Incredible detail

I adored this one.
Kalocsa by Chieko Shiraishi.
First in Hand Quilted quilts.

Those who know me will know I love these colours...but look at
 the crochet flowers and edging!!!

Why Not? By Angela Petrocelli
Second in Large Wall Quilts, Home Machine Quilted.

This is taking small blocks to a whole new level; an entire quilt
made out of them.

The farm girl in me loved this too,
One Fine Day by Laurie Britt.
Third In Large Wall Quilts, Pictorial.

Happy Halloween 2 by Aki Sakai.
Best Wall Hand Workmanship.

So much fun, so much detail!

The Japanese quilters had an incredible array of quilts in the show. I think their variety of styles is getting broader but the same attention to detail and beautiful handmanship is a common theme across them all. The hand quilting on them was amazing.

Celestial Orbs by Sylvia Schaefer
Honorable Mention, Modern Quilts.

A King on his Throne by Nancy Sterett Martin.

Christmas Colours? by Sharon Hendrix and
My Applique Addiction Continues by Diane LaCombe.

Autmn Baskets by Kathleen Littin and
Eternal by Kazuko Noto

Red Chairs by Mary Ann Van Soest.
This quilt really drew me in, I was ready to sit on those chairs!

Shadows by Carol Perkins.
The 3-D effect/shadowing was very real looking.

Vintage Blocks - Tossed But Not Forgotten by Jane V. Cole and Quilters.
Third in Group Quilts.
Another clever quilt, the centre of the blocks are all vintage.

Ok so I could go on forever but will stop here!! I also took lots of photos of 'bits' of quilts, a bit of quilting here, a bit of applique there and so on.  

The Quilt Show has a slideshow of some the quilts *here* if you want to see more.

I took 4 classes while I was there. Two were with Kathy McNeil, the designer of the beautiful Audubon quilt (and more of course). Those classes were lecture/discussion style on different aspects of design and I enjoyed them a lot.
I took a class with Carolyn Konig, an Australian designer (ironic isn't it, going all the way to America to be tutored by an Australian!). The class was titled Fussy Cutting but really covered paper piecing technique...still enjoyable though. Below is a quilt Carolyn shared with us, it is her reproduction of The Sundial Quilt which is in the V and A Museum, and toured Australia a few years ago. There were numerous tiny pieces and it was hand pieced. Very beautiful.

 The other class I took was an all day one with Pat Sloan, Wild and Free Backgrounds. It is an applique wallhanging with a pieced background..... I decided it would be a good one to stretch me!  I had ideas of breaking out and using fabrics that were completely different to those I would normally choose, but in the end used "Raewyn fabrics" (as my sil describes them). They were a little different to those chosen by most of the gals in the class so it was fun when Pat chose my pile as one of the ones to play with in her demonstration. And then I challenged myself to use a totally different selection when it was my turn to play.

Pat and I with my background. The large floral I brought from
home and used as my guide for collecting fabrics.

At the end of the class Pat shared with us her Splendid Sampler blocks; it was great to see them and to see her enthusiasm for the whole project. She is excited by the quilting community that is being created by it. (If you don't know about it, *here* is a link to the Splendid Sampler project ... I've been collecting the patterns and hope to start them when I get back home).

There is an evening performance every year; Ricky Timms (from The Quilt Show) kept us entertained and in stitches (the laughter sort) with his music, tales and quilts. A lot of fun.

Ricky with some of his quilts.

Well this is pushing it a bit, fitting all these into one post but that's how it is. I'm still getting used to using my tablet for stuff like this and was on a roll today so didn't stop :-)

See you next time, from somewhere in the US,

~Catch up after the Show~

It's hard to believe that this time last week I was down in Auckland at the Festival of the Quilts and run off my feet at The Country Yard's booth. It was a new experience working at such a big show, a lot of fun and I really enjoyed soaking up the buzz that happens when you're at a quiltshow.

Setting up the day before was a big job!

But it finally all came together.

A bird's eye view - the netball centre was a spacious venue.

I was just working on Friday so on Saturday I treated myself to a 'play day', and spent my time having a good look around. There were lots of gorgeous inspiring quilts and lots of gorgeous inspiring booths :-) so it took me quite a while!
I had read that any photos of the quilts could not be posted online so didn't take photos for my blog... instead my photos tended to focus on a clever bit of quilting, great block, colour and so on...however there was no signage or notices about this so there are a lot of blogs showing pictures so if you're interested in seeing some of the variety there was, have a browse through the Kiwi blogs listed on my sidebar. Hopefully the Auckland Guild will have some photos on their website sometime soon.
I can say that Best of Show went to a Dear Jane quilt. I thought it was beautiful and a well deserved win - such a lot of work goes into a quilt like this... who knows maybe I'll have to pull out my DJ book one of these days!
I was delighted to meet some bloggy/online friends while at the show. One of them, Linda of Koka Quilts, has introduced me to a new hobby... a while ago she offered me her mother-in-law's loom. She'd seen that I was learnng to spin and thought I might like to give weaving a try as well!! The show was a good place to meet up so that I could collect it. Once I have mastered the spinning I will play with the loom. Thank you Linda, it was lovely to meet you :-)

Another plus for me during my few days away was that I got to spend time with YD and her hubby. They live only 5 minutes away from the venue so that was great :-)

And isn't it nice to see things we do rubbing off on our children? I felt very welcome when I saw this small bear sitting on my bed waiting for me ♥ YD made this wee fellow a few years ago.

Since the show I haven't had a chance to turn my sewing machine on - apart from giving both machines a good clean, needle change and oil at the start of the week. I have squeezed in some evening handwork though —

Another one of my Country at Heart stitcheries, isn't she a sweetie?!

And I've been hexing a bit lately [not related to Halloween or Guy Fawkes :-)] 

Some of these may or may not be part of a new project.
Some of these may or may not be part of my Chooky-blue SSCS gift.

Rounding the week off nicely, we had a skype session with our wee family the other night. Our son has bought a new web-cam - wow what a difference that made.

Finally, last post I mentioned the super-dooper Ganma cotsheets I've been making. Below is a picture (an old one apparently) showing the sheets in action. A noodle fits in the flap and keeps the girls close but with no roll-together :-)

hehe a good excuse to show a baby photo!

Till next time, 

happy stitching,