Thursday at the Quilt Show in Milwaukee

It's already Thursday and I've been in Milwaukee since Monday. I've taken 3 classes so far with 2 more for Friday. I've met new and old friends, chatted with great quilters and teachers, and watched as the Best of Show for the first year at this show was unveiled. The winner is "Bali Hai" by Marilyn Badger. I've seen this award winning quilt at other shows, and it is a stunner and consistant winner.

I had the opportunity to spend a little time with Mindy Wylie Casperson and Linda Theilfoldt, both are quilters that are of a caliber that we aspire to be.

Mindy is very witty and has a very fast paced teaching style full of lots of information. You leave her class feeling ready to take on the quilting world.

Linda is full of fun stories, entertaining, and comes to class with a teaching style that is relaxed which makes her students comfortabe and ready to learn.

I've thoroughly enjoyed both. So if they read this blog...stranger things have happened...I'm not sucking up, just sharing how I feel. Loved you both.

There have been the usual rock stars of the quilt world at the show, Pam Clark, Cathy Franks, Karen McTavish, Jamie Whallen, Dustin Farrell, etc. There are great quilts to see, and the classes are what machine quilters are after. Personally, I wish there were more challenging classes for the advanced quilter. Most of the classes this year are geared to the beginning and intermediate quilter.

I've bought lots of fun goodies such as, YLI glow threads, Superior So-Fine in some pastels that I didn't have, plastic templates for my longarm in stacking diamonds, ovals, leaves, and a nested circle set that can be used to do a faux spiral graph type design. This was shown to us by Dustin Farrell, and it became a must have item. I did by a great book by Irena Bluhm. If you don't know about Irena...google her and take a peek at her over the top awesome quilts. The woman is unbelievable.

I also got new thread from Fil-Tech that has a high sheen like gold metallic thread, which I'm anxious to try. We also got a wine glass given to us from the quilt show. There are Tsukineko inks that I needed to round out my collection. I picked up a ceramic mechanical pencil that Marilyn Badger recommends, and I thought I had to have. There are the swag templates that I know I will use alot, and get this...I bought sticker tattoos for my longarm!!!! They are a triple flower medley, victorian quilting feather plume, and quilt or die. Can't wait to apply them.

That should hold you until I post again. Wish you were here.

My roommates have also taken a slew of classes and bought their little hearts out to support the vendors and our habits.