Quilt Show Featured Speaker

This last weekend I had the pleasure of sharing my quilts and thoughts with our local community at the Pajaro Valley Quilt Association's 46th Annual Quilt Show held at the Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds.

 

As the Featured Speaker, I brought 25 additional quilts for a trunk show on Saturday afternoon and spoke for about an hour to an enthusiastic audience.  Although my expression is serious in this candid, the experience was more fun and lighthearted than it looks.  

Beforehand, volunteers helped with setup of the 14 quilts in my special exhibit and 4 on the stage. I was able to rest up before returning Friday night with hubby for the members only preview party.  This picture taken at sunset really shows the prime location of my display.

Not surprising, my BeeSewcial quilt Eyes caught the attention of many as they entered and it was the perfect chance to chat about the group, credit beemates for the collaboration and my sister for her incredible quilting.   Contraption was runner up on comments made. Many said they were reminded of art deco and Frank Lloyd Wright.  I featured many of my Aurifil Artisan challenges so that attendees could get up close to see how I used various weights in the hand-stitching, domestic machine and longarm.

Another frequent topic was QDAD, Quilt Design a Day and responding to challenges like the three minis for Curated Quilts publication and several for QuiltCon .  There were lots of familiar faces, blasts from the past, members from other guilds who took a road-trip to attend, quilters and non-quilters I hadn't met before. Having my friends and family attend meant the world to me.  

As part of promoting the event, I was interviewed by phone and provided a few pictures so I was glad to have taken some quilts in the wild shots to offer up (partial cut and paste from the online version below).   I hadn't expected to be on the front page as the cover story, so that was a nice surprise. 

The second interview was in person with a reporter and photographer and I was able to invite a couple of friends to share the spotlight which was great. 

 

Digital media is great but there is something nostalgic about an old school newspaper to hold in your hands.  The entire show was wonderful and I feel very fortunate to have been able to help bring attention to it.