MQX Midwest 2018

Last week I went to MQX Midwest and took five classes.  I took a hands-on class with Julia Quiltoff. The classroom we were in had small Gammill machines.  It's funny how different every machine is. I did like the large screen it had, but I felt like I had to work really hard to push the machine, and I found the buttons on the handles a bit confusing.  I would think the machine was off and it would just keep stitching!  I also felt like I could see better with my machine than this one.  Anyway, Julia does beautiful work.  You can follow her on Facebook to see all her beautiful work, or she just started a Patreon page too. She uses a Juki just like me.  Here's my little sample piece.  It looks a lot better in this picture than it does in real life! 😆  I was glad I had this little "quilt" for my bed in the hotel room.  Brr.

The next day I took two classes with Natalia Bonner, feathers (my nemesis, along with swirls) and then a more modern one about seeing beyond the seams.  If you've ever watched any of Natalia's videos or Craftsy classes, you know she's a good teacher and makes everything seem so easy and attainable.  Natalia quilts on a Gammill.

Later in the day I took a class with Clem Buzick.  She had her daughter, who owns a quilt shop, with her.  They both quilt on A1s.  In this class we talked about different ways to quilt tops.  Some of us had brought tops to consider.  I brought my 365 Challenge top.  They suggested some ways of quilting my top that I would have never thought of.  It was fun.
Clem demonstrating various densities of quilting on different battings.
Someone brought this really cute dog top.  The ears are all loose and floppy.
Various quilting suggestions for my 365 quilt.  I MUST learn how to do those loose feathers!
Friday morning I took a class with Dorie Hruska of Forever Quilting.  The topic was making connections (just like her book).  It was nice to see the visual demonstrations of the concepts in the book.  Dorie currently quilts on an APQS.  I have learned so much from Dorie's videos on both Facebook and YouTube and I highly recommend following her.
Dorie showing how she quilted one of her quilts.


The majority of my teachers use Superior threads and Quilters Dream batting, especially So Fine thread and wool batting.

 I walked around the vendor floor several times.  I bought one ruler from Gina Perkes, a few different weights of Superior Thread to try out, refills for my chalk pencil, and Dorie's stencil set.  I also tried out a few different longarms.  I tried out one of the newer HandiQuilters (still adversely reacts with me--I feel like I'm being shocked), the Bernina (I found that it vibrated much more than I expected and I was disappointed by that), and an A1 (really super smooth; I'd like to try that one again sometime).

 We'll finish up today with some of the quilts that were on display.
I think this was quilted by Dorie Hruska, but there was no label on it.


 


Best of Show winner.  There was a lot of sparkle to this quilt that my camera didn't pick up.



 

 



This is the back.






By Clem Buzick 
Quilted by Clem Buzick
 

 Oh, we picked apples Saturday and yesterday I made four quarts of applesauce from half of them, which was 30 Jonagold and Golden Delicious apples.  It took me over three hours.  Every time I can something I think about how difficult life must have been for women when they were reliant upon canning for survival.  I'm hoping to get the other half processed today or tomorrow.

Next week I'll share what I made for the Woppet swap.

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