Quilt Canada - Day Two

First day of Quilt Canada!  I'm amazed at how many people I saw from back home. It was great to see so many people. I'm sure there's going to be loads more over the next three days.  I have a funny story to tell about this one person I met. A while back, I got an e-mail from someone who said they had made a bicycle quilt and it was on display at the Living Arts Center in Mississauga. I should check it out. I found out later that they had found me because of the name of my blog. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make the show.

As I was leaving the floor on the night of set-up, I noticed a bicycle quilt hanging in the show. Never thought more about it. After the awards ceremony, I saw a man with a very fuzzy, long beard hugging someone that I knew. Maggie called him Fuzzy and I tucked that fact in the back of my head and never thought anything about it.

When Paul and I were recapping the show when we got back to his house, Fuzzy came up in the conversation and I realized that it might be him who had contacted myself. One thing led to another and I ran into him yesterday morning. We had a grand discussion about his AMAZING pieces of art and yes - in fact he was the one that had contacted me. It's just a small, small world. Here's a link to his website. He's one very creative person and completely self-taught!!!  If you search on his website, you can find information about his work in a show in Oakville that opens this weekend. 

That's one of the reasons that I love these shows is to get to see the people. Yes, the quilts are important, but for me, it's the people!

We were fairly busy yesterday demoing machines to attendees. I learned a few things. I hate it when someone asks me a question and while I know part of the answer, I may not know the entire answer. So I dug out the manual and learned how to do Design Positioning on one of the models we have in the booth. It gets me every time. I know how, but then I miss one step and it doesn't make sense. So today, I'm going to make sure that I know how on all the machines.

Thank goodness I went in early yesterday because it took forever to get all the machines up and running. Where's the fabric, where's the stabilizer, where's the hoops and then find a design on the four embroidery machines and set them in slow motion to work. 

Most of the machines were already threaded so that was a good thing. I'm going in early again today, but this time, I get to walk around and see the quilts.

I did pop out for a bit later in the afternoon yesterday and saw some amazing quilts in the concurrent shows. And we had a lively discussion in the area of the modern quilts that were on display from one of the Canadian modern guilds. There's been a lot of chat about modern quilts and I think one day I'm going to do a post about it. It's confusing and yet it isn't when you think about the logic to it. I need to wait until my books are unpacked for that.

Speaking of packing, I don't have a start date yet, as they are trying to get the last minute details in place and oh boy - I'm so not looking forward to this. But at the same time, I want to get this done and be able to get back into Studio B and back to hosting the Sit n Sew days. I might even think about installing a new light or two and trying to see how I can reconfigure the space. Do I move my nice heavy sewing table up to Studio U???  That's a tough one, but it would make life easier in Studio B and more flexibility. I'd better come up with a plan real quick because when those movers come, they are the ones that are going to be moving it! Decisions!

I also hope to conceal ALL the excess in that storage room which by the time I get through with it, I hope it'll be empty of all the extra stuff that was stored there. Yikes - I need to be home and evaluating the situation!!! But I'll just evaluate in my mind!

I also hope to use the space in Studio B to much better advantage by rearranging some stuff and the layout because I want to do a lot more there than I've done in the past. Not only with the Sit n Sew days, but maybe some classes and definitely some events where we're working on some community project quilts. I NEED to get those five buckets of fabric that is earmarked for that used up. That is my goal - I want that studio to be a useable, friendly place to work and not have to keep clearing stuff up in order to make that happen. I'm determined to make that happen and it will!

I did eat much better yesterday. My dinner plans fell through or let's say they got juggled around and so it ended up that Paul and I went out to dinner. My secret plan worked. I've been wanting to chat to him about what we do as industry professionals and now I've got a captive audience. We've been able to bounce ideas off each other and it's been great.

What is my picture of the day? This is from a pillowcase class that I taught a couple of weeks ago. The gentleman was too shy to be in the picture. He had never sewn anything before or used a rotary cutter. He had never ironed before either. But his pillowcase was finished by the end of the class and he did an outstanding job. I was totally impressed. This was at Oh Look Fabric! Some days, teaching newbies how to sew and make a project at the same time can be a bit challenging, but when you see the smile on their face when the project is completed, it's worth the effort.

Pillowcase 

I forgot to bring the charger for my Fitbit and it's going to die today. Not sure that I'm going to find a charger for that while I'm here that I could borrow, but I'll ask around today to see what I come up with.

I was in bed fairly early last night which was good. I was very tired and needed my sleep. I'm pretty much back to normal this morning. Although I didn't pop out of bed when the alarm went off as I don't really have anything to do. But it's such a luxury to lie in bed and think and plan stuff and not have anything urgent on the plate.

On that note, I'm out of here.

Have a super day and if you're around Quilt Canada - I'm in the Husqvarna booth!!!

Ciao!!!