Quilters Unlimited Aftermath

I had so much fun yesterday, and I certainly spent too much money. I met all sorts of nice vendors, and even ran into some I met at the previous quilting Expo in October.

My favorite demonstration was the first one of the day, "How to be a Charming Stripper" by Colleen Casey of Some Art Fabric. I am recently enamored with charm packs and jelly rolls, and this demonstration was all about helpful ways to be creative with these precut fabrics.

She utilized a special triangle template that I loved so much I had to buy one. Essentially, you sew your jelly roll strips together, let's say 4. You sew them together all around together to make a tube. Yes, a tube. Trust me, it's almost like magic when it's done. You line up the sewing line with the line on the template and cut a triangle. Then you flip it 180 degrees and cut again, repeating for the rest of the tube. The sewing line at the triangle's top point falls open because you cut most of the stitches away when you made the triangle. When you open them all up and put them together, you have a gorgeous square ready to be sewn together. Magic.



I happen to have a lovely set of jelly rolls just waiting to be used, so I will probably get around to putting up a tutorial of this technique soon. There are also all sorts of other ways I could use this template, I just have to sit down and get started.

Now that I've got you thinking about jelly rolls, back to the expo! All the vendors were lined up around the perimeter of the building, and in the center were the quilts on display. All of the quilts were made by members of the QU group, and they certainly have some very talented people. I took a lot of photographs (which hasn't been allowed at a lot of other shows) to keep for ideas later. There were some especially fantastic takes on the traditional Mariner's Compass design. I haven't posted any images because I didn't get the express permission of the creators, and I don't want to infringe on anyone's creative right.

If you haven't been to an expo like this, you should definitely check one out the next time there's an event near you. The people you'll meet are fantastic and it will undoubtedly get your creative juices flowing if you're stuck in a crafting rut. I picked up a cute mini quilt pattern to give myself a quick little project to break up the monotony of the lengthy projects.