My Bags are Packed

John Denver is on my list of all time favorite singers.  Although the only part of his song that applies is the first part, "All my bags are packed.  I'm ready to go. . . ."  I'm getting excited to travel this weekend to the great state of Iowa! 

Why Iowa?  Well, I will be teaching three quilt classes in Sioux City and giving a trunk show at their quilt show.  If you happen to live near there, you can email the president of the Siouxland Samplers Quilt Guild, June DeVries, at augjunebug {at} aol.com for more information. 

Here's a little piece of trivia about Iowa that you may or may not not know.  Sometimes people get it mixed up with Idaho.  During high school I moved from Idaho to Maryland and many of my friends couldn't remember if I was from Idaho or Iowa.  Now take me, for example, I would get Iowa mixed up with Ohio.  They are closer in proximity and closer in size and their names both have 4 letters.  It seems much more logical to confuse Iowa and Ohio than to confuse Iowa and Idaho. 

But I am not confused as to my destination because we drove through Sioux City on our way home from Paducah, Kentucky this year and stop at a gorgeous Louis and Clark monument that overlooked the city.  I am looking forward to heading their again. 

Oh, one correction to my original statement.  All my bags are not packed, but my quilts are packed, and that is really what is important here.

If you are in the area, come on by.  I would love to say hello!

HMQS Update

After sleeping in on Sunday, I think I am recovered from HMQS. It was so much fun! Quilters are just great people. I love talking to all of you. I shared a booth with some other pattern designers, Crazy Old Ladies, who are friends of mine. What a riot. I want to say that it was their fault that I became as crazy as they are, but I don't think it was their fault. That kind of just happens after spending three days in a 10' x 10' space.

I spent half of my earnings across the aisle at the Rusty Crow Quilt Shop, a vendor from California. Good thing we weren't there another day or two. I might have just handed her everything just for the pleasure of taking home some of her fabric treasures that I just couldn't live without. She just had tubs and tubs of fat quarters and precut yards that asked if they could come home with me.

The quilts, of course, were to die for. I cannot even imagine all the hours that go into making them. I don't make show quilts at this stage of my life. I do love making quilts that aren't going to give me a heart attack if one of my kids curls up with on the couch.

One of my favorites was David Taylor. His award winning goat was there as well as other amazing quilts. But the best part was that on Saturday, David Taylor was there quilting his latest creation, an amazing owl. Very cool!

I collected four quilts for Quilts of Valor. That was more than I expected. I find people don't usually bring quilts to a quilt show. But many were interested and over 500 flyers were handed out. And the "Pajama Quilter's" sister won the drawing of one of my books, Simply Charming Seasons, two 1 1/2 yards of fabric and two coordinating charm packs. Yeah!

As fun as HMQS was, there was one downside. I did not get a single picture. Sigh. No excuse. Sorry.

Home Machine Quilting Show

Going to be somewhere near Utah this weekend? Come to the Home Machine Quilting Show at the Sandy South Towne Expo Center. The website is http://www.hmqs.org/ for more info. It's a great show with lots of vendors and a WOW quilt show and national teachers offering some fun classes. It's worth a visit if you are anywhere nearby.

AND if you come to HMQS, be sure to come visit my booth. It is way in the back left corner near the quilt show. Not only will I have books and fabric you may want to buy, but I will also have information about Quilts of Valor, http://www.qofv.org/.

To help the Quilts of Valor organization, I have decided to offer a drawing for quilting prizes worth over $50! To get your name in this drawing, bring a quilt to donate to Quilts of Valor. There are some guidelines like the minimum size in 50" x 60," and it does need to be machine pieced and machine quilted and labeled. You will get your name in the drawing, and I will take care of the shipping cost. QOV quilts are given to Chaplains at VA Hospitals who present the quilts to wounded soldiers. Take a look at the website for more info.

One last thing -- the vendor hours are:

Thursday, May 7th - 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Friday, May 8th - 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Saturday, May 9th - 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Stop by and say hi!

HMQS Challenge

For anyone in the vicinity of the state of Utah May 7-9 should really mark their calendars and make it a point to get to the Sandy Expo Center. For more information see http://www.hmqs.org/.

I am having a booth there this year. I am excited for the show, but it is exhausting. One fun thing they do at the show is have a quilt challenge. You are given a specific set of fabric to work with, size requirements, etc. It is a "challenge." Oh -- and it's a group project. This year's fabric is from Quilting Treasures: Ellie Fun by Karen Neuburger. This is my favorite piece of the yardage we received.

I didn't think I would get to participate this year, but today some of my quilting friends mentioned they were doing it so I get to help them. They picked a pattern, but I can never make a pattern exactly how it is written, so we made some alterations and I am excited! We will be putting the top together next week.

I love how a "challenge" gets your brain working.