Quilt Show!

Last week I had the pleasure of finally attending the Sewing and Quilt Expo in Lakeland, Florida-- about a 40 minute drive from my home.

This show has been coming to Lakeland for quite a few years but it's always been scheduled during a busy work week for me so I've never had the time to go.

This year my Spring Break occurred during the same week as the show so HURRAY!  I finally got to go!

There are loads of really fun classes offered at the Expo but when I saw this one it seemed like a wonderful opportunity to get some technical skills to use on my HQ Sweet 16.  Plus, the class was actually taught on the Sweet 16 --there was a whole classroom of them!

Here's a quick shot from the class.  We worked with handouts breaking down the basic shapes like straight lines, S curves, loops, and hooks (shown in the picture.)


Some of the students were new to the machine, others were like me and had owned them for awhile.  (I've had mine for about 3 years.)

This was a technique class, not a project class, so I just had this sampler at the end. But I learned a lot!

Some skills were brand new, like this attempt at pebble quilting.

Looks more like a bunch of grapes to me!

I LOVE THIS.  It's feathers done as "l's" and "e's".  Make your spine, then work your way down with the l's and e's done as figure 8's.  Really easy and I love the modern look.

This fern design was one of my favorites too, working all with "S" shapes.  And I like how it looks really good if the 2 sides of leaves don't match.

As usual at an event like this there were lots of vendors plus some beautiful quilts on display.

I loved this one from the Tampa Modern Quilt Guild.  That's some really adventurous quilting in the white spaces.

Now THAT'S what pebble quilting is supposed to look like!