Quilt Festival

I went up to Chicago for the day on Friday to the International Quilt Festival. The bus left at 7 a.m., which as you know is waaaay too early for me! But it was a fun trip - doughnuts and games help pass the time. And I won a bundle of beautiful blue hand-dyed fabric!

We got to Chicago about 10 and then had to sit on the bus for about half an hour - they really control the bus traffic to the convention center. So it was after 10:30 before we got in.

My first stop is always the Cloth,Paper,Scissors area. In fact, I spent most of the day hanging around there! I watched a bit of Pokey Bolton's fabric book class (wish I could have got into that!), wandered around looking at the vendors, swapped some ATCs, and took a couple of Make It U classes. Here are the ATCs I took to swap:



In the first one, taught by Jane Davila, we made tiny collages and put them into frames to make a pendant:



The second one was Melanie Testa's, and we learned how to use freezer paper resists. I've read about that and have been meaning to try it, but, well, you know how that goes - never did get around to it! So it was nice to have the class. I really enjoyed the classes and meeting the CPS/QA gang and some of the artists. They're all so nice! Pokey, Barbara Delaney, and Helen Gregory were great - they're so busy at the quilt show, but were so friendly; they made me feel like a friend!

After I took the 2nd class, I realized it was nearly time to leave and I still hadn't looked at the quilts! So off I ran to see as much as I could in half an hour (after a quick stop to treat myself to a bundle of Kaffe Fassett fabric. It was hard to choose - all the colours are so beautiful!). This is the one I ended up with:



The quilts were all gorgeous. Needless to say, I particularly liked the True North exhibit - quilts from Canada! It's so nice to see our flag featured on a quilt.

All in all a great day, although I could have used another couple of hours there! Not sure if I'll try to go up for 2 days next year or stick with the one-day jaunt.

The trip home seemed endless - traffic getting out of Chicago was really heavy; then we hit some lengthy delays for construction, so it was midnight before I got home. A very long day,but worth it!


And finally, a few more ATC backgrounds, waiting for the next swap!