MQX – What a week!!!

Well, my first National Show is now over and I can say that it went as smooth as it possibly could.  Six weeks of preparation and 1 day to unpack….lol!!!

It all started with the drive up there, which went fairly smoothly, although the car was packed to the brim!!  We arrived and two cart loads later, had all of our luggage and class supplies up into our room.

Day 1 of classes started with a Beginner’s Free Motion Class on the HandiQuilter Sweet 16 Sit Down Long arm.  Now, I have taught this class as well as the others, numerous times, but I was feeling a little intimidated as I knew that a HandiQuilter Educator was going to be in the room with me the entire time to handle any machine issues.  Not only that, but as you can see from the picture below, we were in a kind of fishbowl type classroom where we often had a row of onlookers checking out the classes….lol!!

The Beginner’s Class went well, and everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves.  Only one class that first day, but the second day was three classes back to back.  We started with Advanced Free Motion for four hours, then moved to a different class and I did the “How Should I Quilt This?” lecture, which was sold out!!  Then on to a Beginner’s Class Lecture/Demo on the HandiQuilter Avante stand up longarm.  Phew……it was a long day, but it just flew by!!  The last day was the Intermediate Class on the Sweet 16, which was also a success.  After that, we had time to browse the show….and of course shop a little….before heading home. Here is a picture from one of my classrooms:

The awards ceremony on Wednesday evening was very nice and Ellen’s Quilt won Third Place in the Bed Quilt Category.

Here are all the quilts hanging at the show between mine and my customers:

These are both Nancy’s quilts, and Nancy quilted this first one herself.

This quilt is Ellen’s and it was awarded a Teacher Award from Judi Madsen.  The other cool thing about this was that they left the back open so people could look at the back also.

This is Ellen’s also.  There were always people stopping and admiring this as it was so unique!!

 

This is the back of Ellen’s 3rd place quilt!

Here are my two that were hanging at the show, plus my Alfred Shaheen panel.

My friend, Jamie, also had an Alfred Shaheen panel hanging.  It looked beautiful!!

 

It was a whirlwind week and I wouldn’t change anything about it!!  I want to thank Cissy for going with me and helping me get from class to class and manning the sales table.  I couldn’t have done it without her!!

On another note……I wanted to let everyone know that AQS has hired me to teach at Syracuse this July.

I will have another big announcement in the next few days too……………so stay tuned!!!

Happy Quilting!!