NQA Quilt Show Columbus, OH

I've been busy! Last week, I had the pleasure of working at Betty Blais' booth "Embellishment Village" at the National Quilting Association show in Columbus, OH on Thursday and Saturday.

Betty is a charm! For those who aren't familiar with her, she specializes in patterns and embellishments for quilts. Her website is:

http://www.embellishmentvillage.com/

On Thursday, I worked with Bobbie Vance and on Saturday, I worked with Brenda Jennings. We demonstrated the use of various products.

One of the cool things I had never done was to use glitter on quilts. Betty has this really neat glue pen which leaves a fine line and does not have to be heat set. It can be used for foiling (shiny metallic stuff which comes on a sheet of Mylar which is rubbed onto glue or transferred with adhesive or fusible such as Steam-a-seam, Heat-n-bond or whatever). It is fully washable.

Here's Brenda at the "foiling/Shiva paintstick/glitter" station. That foil is the shiny stuff in the packages on her right.

If you worked at this station, you did get fine glitter on your face...

The other thing which I explored on Saturday was the use of Angelina film, in addition to the fiber. Angelina film is basically the uncut sheets of Angelina fibers. It bonds to itself and has only been on the market for a couple of years.


I admit, I purchased some a year ago, and hadn't used it. I thought all day on Friday of some inventive ways to use it because it is so new and there isn't a lot out there. Betty had done some samples of McKenna Ryan's "Sea Breeze" patterns and used the foil to great effect as well as Angelina. http://www.pineneedles.com/ I liked Betty's embellishments much better than the standard pattern.

I did take quick walks to look at the show. I was impressed by several quilts. For you traditional lovers out there, this great quilt is called "It Takes Time" and was done by Karen Kielmeyer of Bella Vista, AR. In the booklet, she said "Some of the pieces hung on my design wall for about a year. . . I attended a Marsha McCloskey feathered star workshop and the center was born."

Karen's quilting technique and her peicing was top notch. I'm very fond of the feathered star so this HAD to be in my selection of photos.



This little piece is "Mola Mia" by Susan T. Van Voorhees of Columbia, MD. The three top pieces are original Cuna Indian molas, and below the center are four original ones which Susan did. It didn't win anything, (and certainly this photo doesn't either!) but I did enjoy it and wanted to share it.

I'm sorry to say that I didn't get advance permission to show these quilts here. I did search to find the quilters, but I don't have emails for them. I also apologize for the photography, I was moving very quickly and trying to shoot without getting in the way of or including other people.

Ohio is certainly a wonderful place to live if you are interested in quilting. I'm only 5 hours from Paducah, KY (home of the big AQS show), an hour and a half from Columbus which hosts the NQA show. In addition Quilt National is held every other year in Athens, Ohio and Sacred Threads Quilt show is held the same year in Reynoldsburg! And that doesn't count the other smaller shows.

The economy did take it's toll however. Visitation seemed to be down, and certainly purchases were down. Hopefully, it will mend soon.