QuiltCon 2019

Whew! I flew to Nashville last Thursday morning, spent 3+ days immersed in all quilting, all the time, and flew home Sunday night. Less than 12 hours after getting home, I was back at work and I’ve been working my way though a QuiltCon hangover ever since. My brain does not want to focus on technical issues or budget problems. It just wants to think about quilts, quilts, QUILTS.

The first thing I did was find my quilt, of course, hanging with the other Michael Miller fabric challenge entries. It didn’t win any awards, but I was still really excited to have it simply hanging in the show! I’m 2-for-2 in getting juried into this category. No pressure for next year, right? Ha.

Right after finding my quilt, I set off in search of our Gulf Coast MQG charity quilt. The charity quilts were hanging outside in the lobby area and then all around the perimeter of the hall — I think I walked past every single charity quilt before finally finding ours. (It was hanging right next to one of the entry doors, but I had come in the entry door at the other end of the hall!) It was really exciting to see our guild’s work on display, and we were able to meet up on Friday for the group photo you see above.

I can’t wait to find out what the charity challenge for next year will be, and look forward to another fun project with our group.

I swapped mini quilts with my partner Elizabeth on Saturday as part of the MQG mini quilt swap. She really hit a home run with the blue striped mini she made for me — I totally love it! I made the rainbow colored jewel for her using a Libs Elliott pattern.

I also enjoyed meeting a TON of other quilters, including quite a few that I’ve “known” for a while but never gotten to meet in person like Sarah, Andrea, Kitty, and Steph. (I will definitely forget someone if I try to list any more.)

I got to spend a lot of time with my guildmates Ani and Anna. We were all on the same flight from Houston to Nashville, and Anna and I were on the same flight home, so our schedules lined up well! Even though we were each at different hotels, QuiltCon was in the middle so we enjoyed several good meals together. Nashville has a ton of great food! We had the city’s signature hot chicken, sampled a ton of different things with pimento cheese (who knew that was such a thing in Nashville), gobbled down tater tots fried in duck fat, ate some great bbq, and more.

On Sunday, Anna and I had milkshakes for lunch. Yes, you read that right. I didn’t take photos of most of my food even it was all delicious, but I HAD to take a picture of that Thin Mint shake. YUM.

My full QuiltCon schedule didn’t leave a lot of room for other activities, but I did squeeze in a tour of Hatch Show Print on Friday. I’ve been aware of their work for several years, but didn’t realize that they were literally across the street from the convention center. How serendipitous! At the end of the tour we got to ink the plates and run the letterpress over our own souvenir print. They also made a “Measure Twice Cut Once” poster specifically for QuiltCon that will be hanging in my sewing room as soon as I can get a frame.

So despite all the chaos and last minute changes, I had a really great trip and can’t wait for Austin in 2020 — and Atlanta in 2021! I’ll do another post with my favorite quilts from the show in a few days (hopefully) once I’ve had a chance to go through all my photos!