QuiltCon 2017 Report

I really wasn’t expecting Savannah to be so drop dead gorgeous is it turned out to be. These few snap shots do not do it justice, round every corner lay more beautiful streets or gorgeous houses with wonderful architectural details.

After a delicious lunch at the Bohemian Hotel with Pam and three lovely Danish quilters Helene, Suzanne and Maria, in which I tried Fried Green Tomatoes for the first time (a wonderful revelation!) we were off for more wandering.

I spotted this lovely woolly fellow in a delightful yarn shop (which was also full of quilters – of course all of Savannah was full of quilters for a few days!!)

… they made almost 1800 quilts!!! They were able to give quilts to EVERYONE who was involved in the tragedy, including all the first responders (police, fire, ambulance), hospital workers, legal aid, city council workers…

The stand was one of the most moving things I have seen and I am tearing up again while I type this. I spoke a couple of times with the Orlando MQG members who were at the stand and every time we all ended up crying. Huge congratulations to the Orlando guild, the work involved in doing this was IMMENSE!

They had a photo of every quilt on the stand all collaged into heart shapes. Our guild made blocks and then Lesley turned it into the most amazing quilt after attending Sarah Fielke’s wonky letters workshop. Lesley made ‘love is all you need’ and surrounded it with the heart blocks. I was therefore able to find and photograph our quilt amongst the others as it is the only one that says this. Thank you so much for doing this on our behalf Lesley.

I attended three lectures which were all excellent (and more about one of them in my next post). One of them, by Shruti Dandekar, was about traditional Indian quilts including those made by the Siddi people in Southern India like the example above. The way they are made and the story about their history (they were Africans brought to India as slaves by the Portugese and then left there) was absolutely fascinating and very inspiring.

And then there were the amazing quilts!! Oh my goodness, so much beauty! My eyes were hurting after 10 minutes! Here are some of my favourites (but this is the tip of the iceberg for that category).

Above is View of the City from the Suburbs by Kim Soper. Below is Fireworks by Jeannie Jenkins.

Here is a detail from Hills and Valleys by Cassandra Beaver.

This is 21 Blocks by Katie Clark Blakesley.

Round Peg, Square Hole by my pal Krista Hennebury (read on to see what Krista’s Mum gave me when I met her at the show!).

This one below I think may be my absolute favourite this year – Big Island Blossom by Sheri Cifaldi-Morrill.

I love this little guy below by Stephanie Ruyle, in the small quilt category.

On Thursday night we went on a ghost tour! Not Karen as she is a big scaredy-cat ?

It was so much fun and actually quite scary at the end when we were all in the depths of an old chandlery and there were some quite clever special effects (certainly Pam got a bit more of a cuddle then she was anticipating!). Plus we also got a tour of another lovely old house, the Andrew Low House (not haunted at all though!).

I also took a couple of classes, but those are for the next post.

Meanwhile, in this chronological photo journey, it appears we are up to the last evening of my stay, and Karen and I managed to meet up for drinks with lovely Karin (Leigh Laurel Studio) at our hotel.

We had a bit of a laugh at our Thread House partner Lynne’s expense after it occurred to us how much Karin looked like a ‘Lynne stand in’ here! Of  course in reality Lynne Goldsworthy is completely irreplaceable ?

So it was goodbye to beautiful Savannah! Even the airport is beautiful! Pam and I sat in those rocking chairs for a bit before going through security (while chatting to Missouri Quilt Star’s Jenny Doan, don’t you know!)

 And speaking of the vendor hall… I may just have spent a few (ahem) dollars on this awesome stash of fabric below!!

Oh and did I mention all the FREE STUFF! Yes I got one of the goody bags (for the first 1000 people that registered to attend)!! Plus the fabric companies that were there were SO GENEROUS and gave away so much fabric!! Especially Cotton and Steel, AGF, Ink and Arrow, Andover, Northcott and Paintbox studio – thank you all so much!

I have shared a lot of this booty with my Craft Club members already, but have kept a little for myself.

There wasn’t really an organised pin (badge) swap this year but I knew some people would still have them to swap (as it is so much fun!), so I got Thread House badges printed up (I did myBearpaw two years ago).

These are all the badges I collected in Savannah. And below is the bag I made when I went to Austin with all the ones I got there plus some from our Stitch Gathering badge swap last year. I think I’ll have to make a new bag now!

And so what about Nashville in 2019??!!! I am definitely going to be there – I wouldn’t miss it for the world!

Who’s with me???!!