Back from Paducah!

I am back from an amazing, "once in a lifetime" trip to Paducah, Kentucky! It was everything I thought it would be...and more! There were over 400 vendors at the Convention Centre... can you even imagine how much fun and fabric shopping that is??!? It was absolutely mind boggling the amount of shopping that you could do, if you were so inclined! I will show you my fabric purchases another day (when I can take them out of hiding and photograph them!).

Today I will show you a few of the trip highlights, since I know my quilting friends will be checking in on their computers on Monday morning and if there is no blog report, I will hear about it for sure!

We saw beautiful scenery! Everything here in Ontario, Canada is pretty much still in winter hibernation...not much green to be seen. But in Kentucky, everything was green and it was lovely spring weather, which we enjoyed every sunny minute we were there.

There were fascinating people to see everywhere we went...and here is one of them, happy to pose for a photo for the tourists. I saw very creative outfits, quilted clothing of every description,

 funny hats, groups of women with matching t-shirts, etc. I wish I had taken more photos of the people to show you.

Then there was the fantastic entertainment...we had "tea" with Nancy Zieman, enjoyed an evening show with Eleanor Burns, and heard a fantastic concert from Ricky Tims. 

Who knew that this man was such an incredibly gifted musician as well as being an award winning quilter?!??! He has CD's of his original compositions for sale and I will be asking for one from Santa at Christmas time.

And, of course, I enjoyed the entertaining company of quilting friends! Here we are with a group of quilters that we know from home, which we just happened to meet up with, and we  enjoyed a laughter-filled meal together.

What a great trip we had! 

Oh yah, did I mention the incredible, breathtaking quilts we saw?

The AQS show was unlike anything I have ever seen. Exquisitely created quilts, both hand and machine quilted, that are so beautiful that your jaw just hangs open in awe! But I can't show you the quilts of course, because the rules explicitly state that photos of the quilts cannot be posted on the internet, without permission from the AQS and the quilt artist. However, I was just happy that we were able to take photos of these quilts for our own purposes, since the Canadian Juried Quilt Show in Newfoundland last June did not allow any photographs of any of the quilts, which was very disappointing for me. At this show I was able to take photos of my favorite quilts, and close ups of the techniques for me to study and enjoy in the future.

I now have my own little quilt show on my computer, so come on over if you want to see it!!