I attended Quiltcon with my sister, we had a great time. However, I didn't really have the chance to make any new friends- I think it was because I went with a "friend" already, I didn't really talk and socialize as much as I should have. I am making a note already to try to meet more people there in the future!
We took two classes, the first one was 9-12 on Wednesday- "Textural Quilting" with Angela Walters. This class was taught on a shared HandiQuilter Sweet Sixteen machine (2 people per machine).
Here is some of my work from that class:
On Wednesday night from 6-9, we took "Free Motion Favorites for the Modern Quilter" from Christa Watson. This class was taught on a Janome Horizon.
Here is some of my work from that class:
Both of these classes were so much fun!! We signed up for these classes because it is very hard to find "modern" quilting classes at our local quilt stores. We thought that both Angela and Christa were great teachers and I would gladly take a class with either one of them again. The part that I thought was the best was that they were both so encouraging and positive about everyone trying free motion quilting. Both of them just encouraged everyone to just "go for it" and not be afraid. Angela's motto was "finished is better than perfect" which is a good line to use. Both Angela and Christa encouraged people to just keep going and keep practicing. I loved the positive vibe in both of these classes- it made me energized to go home and quilt!
I also wanted to talk a little bit about trends in the quilts juried into Quiltcon. Since I live in Houston, I went to both of the Quiltcons in Austin so I have been able to see the changes over the years. Here are things that I noticed that were new this year: (sorry no pics, they are on my sister's camera!)
- "Facing" instead of binding- there were several quilts with this and I had never seen it before!
- Muted fabrics (fabrics were brighter in past years)
- More noticeable longarm quilting (could see the pantograph repeat)
- Almost no matchstick quilting (thank goodness! last year almost every quilt had matchstick quilting)
- More graffiti type quilting (I definitely want to try this in the future)
- Still lots of straight line quilting but like every 1/2" - 1" and directions varied throughout the quilts
- More fabrics with prints (but still lots of solids)
- Lots of variations on Drunkard's path block
- Several log cabins with neutral backgrounds
- Quilts were larger than in the past (last year quilts were all very small, they were much more "lap sized" this year)
We went to several lectures, but we didn't really enjoy these. 2 of them were panel discussions but I just didn't feel like I learned a lot of new things.
Then we started attending the "demonstrations" on the festival floor and we learned so much there! We sat for "Scrappy Bits Applique" which was so neat that we ended up buying the book to try it ourselves and we also attended a demo with Violet Craft talking about paper piecing tips, which was very informative as well.
In conclusion, we had a great time! I would take classes with Christa and Angela again and would love to try some of the longer classes in the future too. I would probably take less lectures and attend more demonstrations as well. If I attend another Quiltcon, I think I might try to volunteer and I would also try to make more quilty friends!
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