Busy week in AL and TN

This week was my last teaching job of the year and it was such fun to be with the Birmingham Quilters Guild in Alabama. I saw some old friends and met many new ones too. We started off with my Getting It Straight lecture on Monday morning, and then had a 3-hour class in Bindings - What's Old and What's New. The Windmill - Twisted Log Cabin workshops on Tuesday and Wednesday were a big hit. They had so many who wanted that class that we scheduled a second day of it. It's always such fun to see how these blocks turn out depending on the color choices...and they all work. It even works with one fabric instead of using the gradations. Thanks for having me in Birmingham!

In the photo above, taken during Show and Tell, you'll notice the Stardust quilts some of the guild members made for one of their charity projects. This is such a great pattern to use for beginning or intermediate quiltmakers, and looks great using one light, one medium, and one dark fabric. It's a free pattern that I did for the AQS Teach America 2 Quilt program; just send me an e-mail (bbquilter@gmail.com) and I'll e-mail the pattern to you, and I always love to receive photos of the quilts you make with this pattern.

From Birmingham, Wayne and I drove to Knoxville, TN, on Wednesday evening for a planning meeting for the 2011 AQS Quilt Show in Knoxville. We are starting to work on the registration materials for the Knoxville show. Wayne and I joined Mary Miltenberger and Kelli Gibson (from the Knoxville Tourism and Sports Commission) on the Star of Knoxville lunch cruise to check out the cruise, the boat, and the food. We're planning to have an Elvis Mystery Dinner Cruise during the show in July. Doesn't that sound like fun?

Note: You can click on any of the photos to make them larger.

We cruised to the area where the Tennessee River begins. There were still some pretty leaves to see along the way.

Here I am as the Guest Captain as he narrates during the cruise down river. And I didn't even run into any of the fisherman who were taking advantage of this beautiful November day to catch a few fish...and they were catching them too.

We passed by the Ijams Nature Center that has a really nice walking path along the river. There was a cave just past this walkway too.

We were on our best behavior and not one person had to walk the gang plank!

The Star of Knoxville has a nice indoor area where we ate our buffet lunch, but you could go upstairs and be outside to enjoy the nice sunny day we had for the cruise.

As we turned the curve headed back to port,

we had a great view of the downtown Knoxville sky line.

This was a fun cruise and the Elvis Mystery Dinner Cruise will be a blast in July.

Don't miss this event in Knoxville.

Knoxville, TN is site chosen for 2009 AQS Quilt Expo

Here I am in Knoxville, Tennessee, signing the contract for AQS to hold its summer show in Knoxville, starting in July 2009. To spread out our shows, we needed to move the summer show that we've been holding in Nashville in August to a July date. Gaylord Opryland did not have July dates for us in either 2009 or 2010. We found a great facility in Knoxville. The convention center is really beautiful - it has excellent exhibit hall space, and wait until you see the classrooms! The lobby areas are full of artwork of all kinds - sculptures, mosaics that cover an entire wall, paintings and wallhangings of all kinds, including a few quilts. Artwork was included in their budget for building the convention center, and it certainly makes this facility unique and shows their appreciation for the arts. Now I know you are all excited and want more information, but we are really just in the planning stages for this show. The registration materials will be ready in January 2009. Hotels will not take reservations until July 2008. This is a great spot for you to plan a family holiday in July - the Smoky Mountains are very close - I'll have to figure out how many minutes away they are.