HMQS--Home Machine Quilting Show 2014

Hi!

I had a great day at HMQS in Sandy, UT, USA today. It's great that I have a big show just about an hour away from me. I think it's starting to get quite a bit of national attention!

My best friend and I had a great time chatting and hanging out as we soaked in all the gorgeous quilts. I mentioned all sorts of things about styles and techniques as we wandered around.

Baby was a sweetheart and a trooper, and I had one of the "To The Rescue" quilts tucked around him in the stroller. He got quite a bit of attention, paired with the quilt ! (He's smart--he grabs fabric in his little fists and stuffs them in his mouth already!)

Some of the surprised and awed comments came while I was standing and shopping at the Superior Threads booth. 

"he's so cute!" 

"Dressed like a firefighter" (Daddy is a firefighter.) 

"are those fire trucks? How did you do that?" (They're paper pieced and it's a Quiltmaker Magazine pattern)

 "Did you quilt it yourself? (yup, using Superior threads here!) 

"Do you have a long arm?" (Nope--I do everything from piecing to quilting on my little Bernina domestic!) "Wow!"

Sometimes I felt a bit overwhelmed. Sometimes, I looked at a quilt and thought "I can do that" or "I want to do that". Sometimes I was caught between feeling envious of their time and experience and fabric and $ for other materials, and wondering if I could ever get time and skills and a bigger machine to do all the intricate quilting.

I visited the APQS machine booth to practice. I sat down to "play with George", their 20" sit-down model, as I put it to Marilyn, the rep and teacher. I had really hoped to chat with Dawn Cavanaugh, like I had last year, but Marilyn said she'd already left for home. I love Dawn's teaching and her articles. Last year, I wanted to test drive a bunch if different machines, and sat with Dawn as I tried George. She was so kind and personable, and willing to answer my questions and help me improve my techniques. I was so thrilled that when we were done, she said that after she'd seen what I'd done, she thought I was well on my way and past being a "beginner" FMQ. Wow!

Now I gotta share some of my favorites.

Talk about taking the quilting beyond the block...this time the quilting made wedding rings around the pieced flowers and tied everything together. That's why it won a ribbon!

I love this Triple Irish Chain. I'd like to do a double chain in the family colors--dark green and gold--and quilt more Celtic motifs inside the open spaces.

This pine burr was stunning in Christmas red and green with touches of metallic gold. We saw the same quilt but in purple and green in a vendor's booth. She said it could be done in jelly roll strips. Cool!

Oh I love the barn-raising layout of this log cabin...a whole log cabin quilt is on my bucket list.

 And just "wow" at this Viking quilt.

and two-color quilts are stunners! This quilt had lots of different tiny blender patterns in the same tones of green with the cream. Wow! More inspiration for an Irish Chain. Look at layer upon layer of quilting!

This Celtic spiral is amazing! Blue and brown quilts catch my eye. The info paper says those half Mariners Compasses in the corners are not paper-pieced! The compass arms are probably  at least 12" long; talk about long, tricky bias edges without the paper to stabilize!

and I just love the cream, aqua and purple color scheme together!

Here are my goodies: monofilament polyester thread, and color cards for King Tut cotton and So Fine! 50 threads from Superior. No shops in my county carry Superior threads, and only a few in Utah, so I'd need to order online. (Which is weird, because Superior's headquarters are in my state of Utah.) I want to match thread before I order. Thread is an expensive but necessary notion. These cards are wrapped with real threads in all the colors manufactured. Perfect! He tossed in the Thread Therapy DVD for free!

And I couldn't help but grab the stackers and Rolie Polie of Pieces of Hope..they were a great price and they almost can't be found now.

Whee! What a fun day.