This has been quite a week! My hubs and I flew to Raleigh on the 19th and the next day John (one of Handi Quilter’s truck drivers) set up the machines in the classroom and I started loading fabric and batting on them. We didn’t have enough so we ended up working again on Wednesday. My classroom was absolutely beautiful with 2 walls of windows overlooking the front courtyard and street. It was fun to have a view of the big Raleigh letter sign.

Thursday was the first day of the show. The lines out the door at 10:00 were CRAZY. It was a LOT of people. There were some registration issues that had nothing to do with the MQG: AT&T had some kind of break down that shut down lots of people’s phones.

We took the chance to walk around and see the vendors. There were so many people that it was hard to get close to anything. I can only handle that level of “peopleyness” for an hour or two before I went back to the quiet of my classroom.

On Thursday afternoon I taught “Avoiding Gridlock with Grids”. It is a tricky class because we really need four hours and only had three- but the students did a great job on their panels. it felt good to start teaching and work out the nerves.

On Friday the crowds were just as intense but things seemed to run smoothly because people knew what to do and their phones were working again. I taught a “Rulers for Modern Fills and Borders” class in the morning and “Combining Designs for a Stunning Quilt” in the evening. Both classes went well but that evening class was a LOT of fun!!!

Saturday I taught the Gridwork class again in the afternoon and the Rulers class in the evening. Then we had to pack up all the machine parts and accessories and pack up all of my considerable “stuff” (2 suitcases worth). We were absolutely EXHAUSTED by the time we left around 10pm. My feet and knees were killing me!!! And then we couldn’t find any food except McDonald’s, so we just ate CheeseIts in the hotel room.

Sunday morning I got up and headed back to the Conference Center to TAKE a class called “Say YES to Y Seams by Bobbi Gentili of The Geeky Bobbin. I didn’t get nearly as much done in a three hour class as I thought I would but I have a project to finish up at home. I had never tried piecing with scissor cut pieces so we will see how it goes.

Overall it was a great experience. It was so fun to see the community that has built up around QuiltCon. I very much felt like an outsider… I know there were people I knew but I only saw a few of them. I did have several friends from the SLMQG at the convention which was fun.

One really amazing thing to see was the Make and Takes that several of the booths were offering to the participants. It was fun to see all the generations of quilters participating side by side creating easy projects. I even got to make a hair scrunchie at the String and Story booth. Did I mention that HollyAnne Knight was the other teacher in the longarm room? Well, she was!

I did not apply to teach at QuiltCon next year because it is a LOT of work and I figured that they like to have different teachers each year, but I do have some ideas for upcoming virtual events, so stay tuned and make sure you are subscribed to my newsletter. Here is a link to join my list.

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