More on QuiltCon! I had a really full schedule - I'd signed up for two workshops, plus there were lectures going on every day! The lecture schedule was awesome - a keynote speech by Denyse Schmidt, plus talks by Amy Butler, David Butler, Heather Ross, and panels on fabric design and publishing and more. I've also heard that a lot of these lectures were filmed and are now available on Craftsy so if you weren't able to go to QuiltCon, check them out! And if you haven't looked at Craftsy, do that too - it's really cool.
ANYWAY. Where to start? I guess I'll start with Thursday - I was super excited for Thursday because I had signed up to take Machine Quilting with Elizabeth Hartman! I have both of Elizabeth's completely awesome books, and I've made a few of her quilts too. I could never figure out how she does her cool machine quilting all on her own home machine - she does not do the longarm thing. Some of her quilts are pretty big and that can be difficult on a regular sewing machine so I was eager to learn her tips. I think the big takeaway was that Elizabeth recommends putting your sewing table against a wall or better yet, in a corner. That way when the quilt is behind the sewing machine it will stay on the table and not fall off the back, which drags the quilt down. I am still trying to figure out how to reorganize my sewing room to make this happen because I think it will help!
Here's Elizabeth:
During the morning session of our class, we practiced some different free-motion quilting designs on a big piece of muslin. Elizabeth would demonstrate a few different designs and then we would practice, and she also talked about the importance of making a good quilt sandwich (shout-out!). We learned some really cute designs - besides the usual meander, we did some square designs, pointy star-like designs, a super-cute clamshell design and my favorite, a dogwood flower. In the afternoon we worked on making small samples of each pattern to keep in our sewing rooms. I really enjoyed Elizabeth's class - she was really friendly, fun and helpful. I'm excited to work on my quilting now!
On Friday, I went to a lecture by Heather Ross, and later got to meet her:
Isn't she adorable?! Her lecture was absolutely delightful! I loved it all. She read an essay from an upcoming book she has coming out, and it had some details about her childhood. She has had quite a life! Example: she lived for a year with her family in a geodesic dome! She also talked a bit about her career and how she got to where she is now. I was so impressed by her - she was in her mid-20's and pretty broke when she connected with a lady who screenprinted her artwork onto fabric, so she made up a few clothing samples and took them to a tradeshow. She ended up selling tons of the clothes and everything grew from there. Another thing that I found very inspiring is that Heather believes that anyone can draw. She said if you want to improve, just spend 20 minutes every other day drawing and in a few months, you will see a difference. When I met Heather later at her book signing, I told her how I wanted do do that, so she wrote "20 minutes every other day!" in my book. I'm afraid that so far I've let her down, but I am gonna do it, Heather!
Here's another one of my favorite people:
Jay McCarroll! Did you watch Project Runway when it came out? I was a little late the the party, but once I started watching it, I quickly became obsessed with Jay. As far as I'm concerned, he's the only winner that matters. I love his fabric too, so I was excited to meet him. He was super nice, and I love that he did this cheesy pose with me! Jay was teaching a workshop at QuiltCon, but I didn't end up taking it. I heard it was a lot of fun, though.
Well, this is getting long so I'll talk more about some of the other lectures later. Believe me when I tell you that there was A LOT of information, so it was kind of overwhelming! But in a really awesome way.
Becca
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