When I went to the Rocky Mountain Quilt Show a few weekends ago, I attended two lecture/demonstrations by Linda Taylor, the author of The Ultimate Guide to Longarm Machine Quilting and the genius behind The Quilting School - online video classes for longarm quilting. The first class was an overview of basic use of pantographs and loading a quilt top. She loaded hers with pins and used all the bars but other than that I was a bit surprised to see that I had learned all this info by renting time at Jukebox Quilts. Fortunately I did learn a lot of new things in the second class. Right now I think that I'd benefit from just more rental time than another class, at least until I get more machine time under my belt. Yes, I was a geek and had Linda sign my copy of the book. She was a lot of fun to listen to, especially when she was telling stories of different quilts she had quilted for clients over the years. She and her quilters have over 15000 quilts made. Wow! So she's seen just about everything and has figured out efficient ways to get them done. She's definitely earned her "Longarmed and Dangerous" apron that she wears at classes.
Then just this past weekend my local quilt guild, the Cheyenne Heritage Quilters, had a quilt show. Sadly I didn't have anything to hang in the show but I will next year. Since I'm still very new to town and don't know a lot of people I volunteered to help set up the show on Wednesday. I brought our trusty stepladder and a willing hand. After setting up vendor tables, quilt stands and half of the quilts, I enjoyed lunch with a few of the other volunteers. That's when it was discovered that I've been renting time on the Gammill. Well it turns out that Kelly at Jukebox Quilts was going to be at the show demonstrating her machines and needed helpers. On Saturday I spent half the day helping out, telling people about her rental program and taking turns with the smaller hand-guided machine. It was lots of fun and every time I helped out it reinforced what I had already learned. It also was an opportunity for Steve to come and see what I've been working on. He thought it was a pretty industrial and heavy duty machine. At the same time a local quilting couple were there so Steve spent some time speaking with the husband about the machine. I don't think that Steve will want to quilt but it was good for him to speak with another gadget guy about it.
For a smaller area I've been to quite a few quilty events recently. I do miss dolls sometimes but I think that I found an outlet for that too. On Friday I found out about a small quilt shop in the town of Berthould, CO called the Laughing Ladies. They had quite a few dolls made up in displays. Turns out that a local lady teaches doll-making and was there working on her Treasures of the Gypsy doll. She said that there's a doll club in Denver that meets once a month and that I should check it out. I was also invited to come any Friday to the quilt shop for sewing time to work on my dolls. I tell you, quilters and dollmakers are just the friendliest people. Slowly I'll make friends. It just won't be an overnight thing.
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