MQX Highlights

MQX was amazing! If you've never been to this show, you should try to make it to MQX West this Fall or come to Providence next Spring. The quality of the machine quilting on display is higher than I could have imagined. And if you're in the market for a long arm quilting machine, this is the place to go. Every manufacturer had a booth so you could try them all out and see which one suits you the best.

I probably won't post much about other people's quilts that were on display. Copyright issues, you know. So I'll show you the highlights of my experience there, starting with Wednesday.

I drove up with Karen bright and early to beat the rush hour traffic. We volunteered in the morning to help set up the show and met some incredible people. That's Karen in the white blouse and our new friend, Diane from Massachusetts in the green sweater. (Hi, Diane!)


Here is the pike of Charity Challenge quilts. Mine is the one with the blue binding.

After lunch at the Cheesecake Factory with our new friends Diane and Linda, we took a terrific class with Pam Clarke. Her technique for marking guidelines for quilting is fascinating and I'll be giving it a try later today.

Friday...
Karen and I were back for the show with another friend, Sarah.
I was happy to have my quilt hanging among so many amazing pieces. It was the first quilt I've ever had judged, and I was grateful for the constructive comments. The scoring made sense and now I have a "grade" to beat the next time out.

Sunday...
I went back again, but brought Julia and my mother this time.
Julia delivered 2 Quilts of Valor from her Silver Award project. She presented them to Angie, a QOV ambassador from Dover, Deleaware. She works in the mortuary at Dover Air Force Base.
The women in the QOV booth treated Julia like a rock star! They were so happy that a teenage girl would be involved with the project that they gave her a bunch of goodies- tote bag, pin, and lanyard. She'll be using the tote bag at school every day.

We both sat down to make pillow cases to be used as QOV presentation cases. We both loved sewing on the Featherweights. There may be a FW purchase in our future! We will be seeing our local FW dealer at a show next weekend. This could be trouble.

They were also collecting donations for the 1 Million Pillowcase Challenge.

This is the Lost Heroes Art Quilt.
It is just incredible. Please visit the quilt's website to learn more about it and find out when it will be on exhibit near you. The artist, Julie Feingold, was at MQX with the quilt and was happy to meet people and talk about the process and hidden messages in the quilt.

It was definitely a quilt-filled week! I'm excited to get back to sewing and creating.