AQS Grand Rapids Quilt Show

Last weekend when we were slaving away in GR I go 2 hours to myself to go to the BIG quilt show.  It was fabulous!  

I only had 2 hours and there were a lot of quilts and even more vendors! 

 I only made it to a few of the vendors but did a little damage.  

I will share a few of my favorite quilts but 

if you want to see them all I will be uploading them to my Flickr account.

This quilt was simply stunning!!

Loved this birdie

This one looked like a painting.

 Seriously!

I really loved the use of value in this quilt

Totally awesome!

I enjoyed the playfulness of this one.

There were a LOT of beautiful quilts at this show. 

 See more on my Flickr account.

I also scored in that I got to meet up with my friend Jacquie, as she was teaching at the show.  

She had some of her amazing work in her class. 

 I didn't have much time but promises were made to get together "real soon". 

 LOL  

With her crazy schedule it might only be via facetime! 

 Miss her, but here is some of what she had with her.

This was her flip and turn class I think.

Love this one.

Who am I kidding?  I love them all

Hey look...kites!

So after I was forced to leave done at the show, 

we went to my sister's and built IKEA furniture for 2 and a half hours.  

Then over to take my dad out for dinner. 

 Notice those holes in his shorts?

You can see the one on his inner right leg really well here.

Why you may ask, am I showing you the holy shorts?  

We call them the shotgun shorts. 

 One day not too long ago, he was putting his shotgun away and

 was not sure if he had gotten all the shells out of the gun. 

 Now normal people would just check inside, or perhaps count the number of shells you loaded. 

 Not my dad, no sir, wayyy too easy to do it that way.  

Instead he saw a HUGE pile of jeans on the floor and thought, 

 "hey those are pretty dense I'll just shoot into those and 

if there is a shell in the gun no harm no foul, right? "

 And BANG!!!  

There was a shell.  

It went through ALL the jeans, through the floor and out the basement window!!!  

I refuse to buy him new pants.  

This way he remembers what he did.  

Oh and I case you were wondering, I took all the ammo in the house too = )  

Can't have him shooting up the neighborhood!!

Crazy old man!!

~XOP~

AQS Quilt Show In Grand Rapids

I went to Grand Rapids to see my dad last weekend and managed to do a few fun things as well. 

 I arrived on Thursday afternoon and did a lot of cleaning! 

 Then a blog friend and I met for dinner. 

 Brenda from Ladybug Dreams.  

We had the nicest time and our poor server didn't quite know what to do with the 2 of us!!  

Thanks for a wonderful night, Brenda. 

 I am looking forward to seeing you again real soon.

Friday morning I went to the lawyer and dropped off some papers and

 then headed out to the AQS quilt show.  

There were several exhibits within the larger show. 

 There were guild challenges, and the Altzheimer's quilts and an Japanese exhibit but

 the two I was the most excited about 

were some of the works of Gwen Marston and the Egyptian tent makers quilts.  

It was the first time the tent makers had shown their quilts in the US.  

Their quilts are actually the inside of the tents and they are

FABULOUS!!!

I have almost 100 pics from the show so I am just going to show a few from the show in this post. 

 If you want to see them all please go to my Flickr and view them.  

I think you will enjoy the virtual show! 

 Ok so here goes

Two of my favorites from the Tent Maker exhibit

All the bird quilts were stunning!!

Although the tile looking ones were impressive too!  

All 4 of these quilts were HUGE!

One of the artists was there working away.  

Notice his tools, and the backing cloth.

There were some beautiful Japanese quilts but these two were my favorites. 

 Check out the quilting on the dragon quilt.

Then there was the Gwen Marston exhibit.  

Some of the quilts were made by her and some inspired by her.

The quilt called the Loading Dock was there and it was stunning!!!

I loved these robins

I could not even believe how many pieces were in this quilt! Fantastic!

I thought this one was so original and FUN!!!

It's funny but as I have been doing a lot driving lately I saw a scene very similar to this one and thought how it would have made a great quilt.  

I guess she beat me to it!

This flag quilt gave me goosebumps!  

So amazing!!

You know how I feel about Halloween, this quilt was hysterical!!

Another very impressive quilt was this street scene, almost like a photo.

I bet you want to know if I bought anything right?  

There were a TON of vendors there.  

I did buy a few things.  

On the trip to GR I stopped at Keans in Mason and guess what they had in the clearance bin?  

You are seeing that correctly, just over 2 yards of this print!!!  

I was sooooo excited!

I picked up a copy of these 2 books at a very good price! 

 I have taken couple of classes with Suzanne Marshall and her applique technique is so good!  

She was a wonderful teacher too.  

This is a great book.  

I aspire to take a class from Gwen someday too.  

See that little tool in the bottom left?  

My friend Brenda told me about that.

  It is a seam ripper with an eraser type end that works to get the loose threads off your fabric after you break the threads with the seam ripper. 

 I am hoping it works!!

I HATE picking out those threads, don't you?

Of course I can't resist black cats and Halloween but I did try not to go overboard.  

Love these both!!  

Just look at that cheeky grin!

That wraps up the virtual quilt show.  

I have a LOT more photos on Flickr so hop on over there and take a look.  

I have to share my Saturday too as I was at a work day with Amanda Jean and 

some other amazing women!! 

 I promise to share that soon.  

~XOP~

My Creative Voice or How Miss J Rocked My World

Who knew a quick trip to Indiana would result in such angst? 

 Certainly not me! 

 I drove to Ft. Wayne Indiana to take a class from the famous Jacquie Gering.  

We met at quilt market last year and just clicked.  

When I arrived in FW, I gave her a call and she left the quilt show and came back to her hotel room.  We stayed up quite late and laughed and talked and caught up on life. 

 I got a personal showing of every single quilt she had brought with her. 

This alone was worth the trip!

 It was so much fun!  

All of them were so cool, but the best part was the stories behind each of them.  

Bridges...what can I say. 

 STUNNING. 

 I do regret that I didn't take many pictures of her quilts though, just in our class.

Friday morning she was teaching a class called "Not your grandmother's log cabin".  

I was so excited to take a class from her! 

Here we are going into the show.  

That cart was amazing!!  

We were able to get her entire class stuff and all my stuff into the cart and one suitcase!

We arrived at class and set up our work stations. 

 I met a lot of really nice people including a blogging friend, Kris, a Flickr friend, 

Jenny (who I now know has a blog) and another friend, Erica.  

It was all very exciting! 

 Jacquie talked a lot about "process" and showed some of her quilts. 

 It started me thinking in a way I had not before.  

It was kind of a revelation, actually.

Jacquie was amazing (her favorite word by the way = )

She walked around the room and spoke with everyone, helped everyone, rejoiced with us as we made discoveries and it was so joyful. 

 What a truly eye opening experience for me. 

 I began to see things in a way I had not before. 

 I was actually creating in a new way.  

One of the most interesting things I observed was that even though we all took the same class,

 no two quilts looked at all like any of the rest of the quilts! 

 Everyone's blocks were such an expression of who they are. 

 It really was remarkable!

Here is what I ended up with at the end of the 6 hours of sewing (with time off for lunch)

I love where this is going! 

 Anyone who knows me would not be surprised by the color choices,

 but the style is totally different from the usual things I have done. 

 I love this so much!!!!

I do have plans for a finished top from this too.  

My DH has been bugging and bugging me for a log cabin for YEARS.  

He will finally get one, this one!  

Completely designed by me, totally my personality with all my heart poured into creating for him.

When class ended Jacquie, Jenny Erica and I walked around the quilt show. 

 My friend Joanne had a quilt in the show and she even won a ribbon! (Photos in Flickr)

This is an overview of the show:

Jenny had 3 quilts in the show.  

WTG Jenny!!  

Jacquie and I left and headed out for some dinner.  

We were both exhausted!  

We found our way to a place and had a fantastic dinner.  

Miss J had Walleye and I had Salmon.  

The food was really, really good!!

We went back to her hotel room and just collapsed.  

I dug around in her scrap bins (I should have such amazing scraps!!) 

and managed to snap this picture of all her quilts rolled up at the foot of her bed.

The next morning was the trunk show and brunch. 

 I was helping hold up quilts so didn't get a chance to take but one photo and it was a horrible picture ( the background of the quilt looks yellow and it really is aqua!!) so no pictures of those for you. 

 This is some of the quilts waiting for the talk.

Jacquie did a fabulous job and everyone was entertained and amazed. 

 The cutest part of the whole thing was when she was talking about Proposal Moon

 and got a little teary eyed.  

Nice to see that after 29 years you still love your husband!!!  

Mine will be 29 years this year too.  

I can't believe how much we actually have in common.  

After her class we went to a quilt shop with Kris, Jenny and Erica.  

That was so much fun!! 

 I managed to snap a photo of the group (minus me of course) 

Jenny, Kris, Jacquie and Erica

I did buy some things and will post about that later.  

I need to get some photos first = )

Kris drove us back to the quilt show and Jacquie and I got in her car and she drove me to my car.  

It was kind of sad to see this time come to an end. 

 I felt like I was leaving my sister. 

 I hope we get to spend some more time together really soon.

We did manage to hammer out the quilting on two of the quilt tops I made for her

 so that was good too.

I have to say that I had a lot of time to think about the time spent with Jacquie on the trip home. 

 I came to the realization that maybe I need to work a little harder at finding my own voice.  

I feel like I am straddling a line with feet in 2 camps. 

 I have been having fun but maybe it is time to decide what I want to do with my quilting life. 

 I don't think Jacquie knows how much my time spent with her shook up the way I am looking at my future, but for this I will be forever grateful to her. 

 Thanks for your support and encouragement!    

I am looking forward to breaking free and going BOLD!!

 ~XOP~