Vermont Quilt Festival, Part 3

I took two classes at the Vermont Quilt Festival this year. The first class was an all-day machine applique class with Pat Sloan. I must confess that I had never heard of Pat Sloan before I took the class, but apparently she is quite famous in the quilting world. http://patsloan.com/ Here is a link to her website. She designs quilt patterns and writes quilt books, has a quilting radio show and teaches all over the world. When I went to get her web link, she had posted that she just left for a quilt show in South Africa. Oh my!

This is one of Pat's new patterns.

She has designed the blocks in the quilt, at left, so they work individually and together.

I took the class with Joannie and Marion. I bought Pat's book and she autographed it.

I also confess that I wasn't too excited about taking the class, but Bonnie Hunter's class was sold out on Saturday. I've done machine applique and I do like it, but I thought that the sample quilt that we would be making was kind of ugly. Fortunately, the class was great. Pat was a wonderful instructor, full of tips and tricks to make your machine applique even better. She brought a trunk show's worth of samples and made sure that every person in the class room got individual attention. We spent the morning doing sample techniques. In the afternoon, we got to work on the actual class project. I decided that I wasn't going to start it because I probably wouldn't finish it in class, and I didn't like it to begin with. So I had plenty of time to oogle Pat's samples and look through her books.

This quilt is in the book that I bought from Pat.

And it's one of the reasons that I bought the book. Love the Nancy colors! See the zebra print and the hot pink?

I also admired Pat's fashion sense and openly coveted her hand-made sweater vest and very large silver hoop earrings.















After Pat's class, we went back to the quilt show and admired a few more quilts!

Pat M., I took this photo especially for you!

Here's a close-up. It is all Amy Butler fabrics.

Marion was thrilled to find one of the elusive Kate Spain fabrics that she had been searching for! All shopping totals remain a secret. What happens in Vermont, stays in Vermont!

I'm bummed that this photo didn't come out. This poor vendor actually is wearing a sign that says, "Line forms behind me." It was too funny! He had a lot of good fabrics in his booth!

Saturday night we went into Burlington for dinner and ate crepes at the Skinny Pancake. We walked around Church Street afterwards, which is a pedestrian mall.

Marion spotted a long lost relative on Church Street!

On Sunday morning, I finally got to take my class with Bonnie Hunter! This was one of my main reasons for going to the VQF this year! She is one of my quilting idols! A very, very talented quilter, Bonnie writes for quilt magazines, has an amazing website http://quiltville.com/ and blogs daily (even multiple times). Her class was even better than I could have imagined. She was sweet and gracious and made sure that everyone had a good time and understood her techniques. Her new book had just come out and I got to buy it on the spot and have Bonnie autograph it. We even did a Facebook shout out to my friend Janet who is also a major Bonnie groupie.

Joannie, Sue and I with my idol, Bonnie Hunter. I am clutching Bonnie's new book!

Here we are with some of the blocks that we made in class! Joannie is working in all purple and I am using all batiks. Sue is modelling one of my blocks.

This is just a random selection of some of the students' finished blocks put up on the wall.
Don't they all look wonderful together?

This was a Show and Tell from one of the other women in our class.

This is a Four-Patch Posy pattern. Marion and I took a class from Terri on this same quilt. Marion's quilt, of course, is finished. I have 65 blocks in a box. But I do like this wide sashing, so maybe it was a good idea that I waited!

The same student also made this lovely Scrappy Bargello quilt (a Bonnie Hunter free pattern on her website). Both Marion and I have made this quilt before. Mine is in pastels, and Marion has made hers in Reproduction Fabrics (I think that Marion has made at least 3 of them) We also made one for my friend Linda who designed our first 2Pugs Design website. I love this one in shades of blue, teal, green and purple. Looks kind of like a Monet painting.

 

 

Alas, after Bonnie Hunter's class, it was time to pack up the car again and start the journey home. I wish I had taken a photo of us on the way back. We had the car piled up high with purchases in the back seat and the front seat!

But we had to stop at just one more quilt store...

This is Mad River Quilting!

This store used to be located in an old church, but moved about a mile down the street to a bigger location. They had a very nice selection and were having a 20% off sale on batik! Did I mention that batik is one of my favorites?

We also had a wonderful brunch, complete with jazz trio, at the nearby Big Picture cafe, which is adjacent to the local movie theater.

Nancy and Ginny had eaten here a few days ago at the recommendation of the Quilt Shop owner. They, in turn, recommended it to us! It was DELICIOUS! Mad River Quilts is near the Mad River ski area, so if Mike wants to go skiing, I'd have a place to shop!

We had a great time in Vermont! In August, hopefully we will visit the Bayberry Quilt Show in Cape Cod http://www.bayberryquiltersofcapecod.com/ as well as the Mancuso Quilt Show in Manchester, New Hampshire http://www.quiltfest.com/activities.asp?id=18. By that time, perhaps we will have all paid off our VISA bills!

Pugs and kisses,

Nancy