Perhaps it’s because I’ve spent the last year and a half or two years being horribly busy all.the.time., with never enough time to do all the stuff that had to be done, much less all the stuff I wanted to do. So even though I now have some breathing room, I can’t for the life of me figure out what to do with it.

Maybe it’s because I know that there are still so many things I need to be doing right now that I just can’t even figure out which one I should start on. And that’s not taking Christmas or the impending house move into account either.(...)
Read the rest of Motivational Difficulties (399 words)

© Nadine for DreamWeaver's Quilts Quilt Epiphany Blog, 2009. | Permalink | One comment
Post categories: Featured, Life, Musings, Quilting, Shows & Contests
Tags: AQS, creative spirit, Des Moines, Houston, quilt shows

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I headed toward Des Moines, Iowa for the AQS Quilt Expo on Monday, 26 October after visiting with family in Nevada and Utah since leaving Quilt Festival in Houston. I say “headed toward” since of course, American Airlines couldn’t quite get it together and get me where I needed to go on time and with luggage in hand (for the second time in 10 days, no less)! Those turkeys stranded me in Dallas overnight after flight delays caused me to miss my connecting flight by 10 minutes, and then they wouldn’t give me my stinkin’ luggage! Perhaps they didn’t understand that I’m not the wash’n'wear girl, and never have been. So off I went to some not-so-great hotel near the DFW airport without anything to wear and not even a toothbrush. Yeah, I used to carry all that “what if I get stranded” stuff when I flew, but after 9-11 it all got too painful and I never needed it anyway, so now I don’t. Lesson learned.

I did finally make it to Des Moines a day late, but still in plenty of time for the show. I met so many interesting and FUN people at the show, students, vendors and other quilting professionals alike, that it would be hard to share it all without spending days at it! There were happy students in my classes and they left good evaluations of the classes with AQS, so I think the workshops were pretty successful. Shame on me though: I had my camera with me, but never had time to take any pictures during my classes! Too busy teaching, I guess!(...)
Read the rest of AQS Quilt Expo wrap up (365 words)

© Nadine for DreamWeaver's Quilts Quilt Epiphany Blog, 2009. | Permalink | 3 comments
Post categories: Featured, Quilting, Shows & Contests
Tags: AQS, Des Moines, Inchie Quilts, Inchies, quilt shows, workshops

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Just a quick note to let you know that I’ll be teaching Machine Quilting—Master the Basics at Quilt Campus starting this Saturday! This is a great beginning machine quilting workshop that you can take online from your own sewing studio. The workshop is presented in four lessons over four weeks, with plenty of opportunities for discussion and feedback with your fellow students and me in the online forum! See more about the workshop on the Workshops page, and then visit the registration page at Quilt Campus to sign up now!

Stay tuned for a post filled with info and FUN about the Des Moines AQS Quilt Expo!

© Nadine for DreamWeaver's Quilts Quilt Epiphany Blog, 2009. | Permalink | No comment
Post categories: Featured, Quilting
Tags: machine quilting, workshops

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Will you be at the AQS Quilt Expo in Des Moines? I’d love to meet you!

I’ll be teaching workshops, presenting a couple of lectures, signing books, showing Inchie quilts and just having FUN! And I just might have some yummy German chocolate stashed in my suitcase too! I’m just sayin’!(...)
Read the rest of See you at the AQS Quilt Expo Des Moines! (285 words)

© Nadine for DreamWeaver's Quilts Quilt Epiphany Blog, 2009. | Permalink | No comment
Post categories: Featured, Quilting, Shows & Contests
Tags: AQS, Des Moines, Inchie Quilts, Inchies, InchieSee InchieDo

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More book signings and demos at the AQS booth and also at Petersen-Arne (a large quilting supplies distributor). Again, lots of excited quilt shop owners and managers took home free copies of Inchie Quilts, and placed orders for the book and the InchieSee & InchieDo Viewer Tool & Ruler Set, so don’t be surprised if you see Inchie Quilts at a local quilt shop near you very soon!

I chatted with Doug Kreinik of Kreinik Manufacturing Co. about creating some custom sampler packages of beautiful metallic textured threads for embellishment purposes. I use Kreinik threads and cords when I embellish Inchies (search for Kreinik at InchieQuilts.com to see Inchies embellished with Kreinik threads). It would be great to have some packages with a variety of different weights or textures in coordinating colors on hand for Inchies. I’ll be working with Kreinik on these sampler packages this winter, so watch for these coming soon to the DWQ Studio.(...)
Read the rest of The Business End of Quilt Market (241 words)

© Nadine for DreamWeaver's Quilts Quilt Epiphany Blog, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments
Post categories: Featured, Quilting, Shows & Contests
Tags: AQS, embellishments, Houston, Inchie Quilts, Inchies, InchieSee InchieDo, Quilt Market

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AQS had scheduled me for another lovely book signing and demo at the E.E. Schenck booth (E.E. Schenck is a large quilting supplies distributor) later in the day on Saturday, where I met another whole group of nice quilt shop owners and managers. The E.E. Schenck Company was a wonderful host, and even made these cool “tickets” for my presentation (photo at right)! What fun! Again, AQS generously provided numerous copies of Inchie Quilts to be signed and given away to Quilt Market attendees.(...)
Read the rest of Quilt Market Report: Book Signings and Dinner with Moda (297 words)

© Nadine for DreamWeaver's Quilts Quilt Epiphany Blog, 2009. | Permalink | 13 comments
Post categories: Featured, Quilting, Shows & Contests
Tags: AQS, Houston, Inchie Quilts, InchieSee InchieDo, Quilt Market

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I wouldn’t say we’ve kept in touch over the years, but we’ve had some contact now and then. Bonnie prepared a presentation about quilting podcasts for Quilt Festival a few years ago and wrote me to ask about my Driven To Quilt podcast. We met again last year on the show floor here at Quilt Market and chatted a bit and she gave me a few tips about A/V equipment I might like to use for my classes. On Friday, she was kind enough to give me some last minute encouragement about my Schoolhouse presentation, and said she had planned to be there since she was curious about Inchie Quilts. We agreed to meet for lunch later in the day after my presentation.

Setting up for Schoolhouse was crazy as the presenters before me were running late, so I was rushed and pretty nervous about the whole thing. The presentation went well enough I suppose, but was a bit shorter than it was supposed to be. I do talk fast when I get nervous, and I thought we’d be short on time since the other folks were running late, so I didn’t show every single quilt from the book. A number of the attendees came up to visit after the drawing (AQS gave away two of my books at the end!), and enthused about the book and the quilts, and were very excited about the ideas and techniques. Even though the response seemed good, I still left feeling a bit down about it all, so I headed back to the room to rest a bit before lunch.

When I met Bonnie for lunch though, she told me that she thought the presentation was great, and not to worry about it being short. She was also very excited about Inchie Quilts, and asked if I wanted to do a vidcast with her! Bonnie films and produces free vidcasts for her website featuring art and techniques from such quilting luminaries as Paula Nadelstern, Sue Nickels, Ricky Tims, Caryl Bryer Fallert and Alex Anderson, among others.

I’m sure I had that “deer in the headlights” look about me at that moment, since I don’t like cameras much (especially video cameras!) and the last time I tried to do anything on video wasn’t easy and might even be termed a total disaster. And wow, just to be asked to do it was such an honor that it made me nervous right there! Bonnie convinced me that it would all turn out okay, that we’d just chat about Inchie Quilts casually, and her “magic editors” would make it all work! After lunch, we found a quiet sitting area between the rooms in the Hotel, and went to work.

Now how cool is it that Bonnie and I spent an hour and a half filming a vidcast about Inchie Quilts? The filming went really well. It really was just casual conversation and she made it totally easy, just like she promised. I’ve no idea when it will be shown on her website, but you can be sure that as soon as I know, you’ll know. I can’t thank Bonnie enough for the boost she gave me during lunch on Friday, and while we filmed the vidcast. I felt so much better and more confident, and able to face the coming Quilt Market weekend. So despite the jet lag, Quilt Market started out great after all, and more exciting things were yet to come!

© Nadine for DreamWeaver's Quilts Quilt Epiphany Blog, 2009. | Permalink | 4 comments
Post categories: Featured, Quilting, Shows & Contests
Tags: Houston, Quilt Market, vidcast

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So let’s go backward in time just a bit, and I’ll tell you a bit about how the Journey to Fall Quilt Market 2009 began. I started packing pretty early in hopes to be all organized and not running around like a crazy woman on Wednesday night before my travel day on Thursday, which meant that the suitcases were out on Monday. Here’s what Patches thought of that:(...)
Read the rest of Patchwork Times: Suitcases, stress and sleeping (469 words)

© Nadine for DreamWeaver's Quilts Quilt Epiphany Blog, 2009. | Permalink | 4 comments
Post categories: Cats, Featured, Life, Quilting, Shows & Contests
Tags: Houston, Quilt Market

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Will you be at Quilt Market or Festival in Houston? I’d love to meet you! I’ll be signing books, doing some Inchie demos, showing Inchie Quilts and just having FUN! And I just might have some yummy German chocolate stashed in my suitcase too! I’m just sayin’!(...)
Read the rest of Inchie Quilts at Houston Quilt Market and Festival! (287 words)

© Nadine for DreamWeaver's Quilts Quilt Epiphany Blog, 2009. | Permalink | 9 comments
Post categories: Creativity, Featured, Quilting, Shows & Contests
Tags: Houston, Inchie Quilts, InchieSee InchieDo, Quilt Festival, Quilt Market

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I listened to this fabric speaking to me for a couple of weeks before I finally had some time to play. Here’s texture piece number one:(...)
Read the rest of Embellishments are a girl’s best friends (351 words)

© Nadine for DreamWeaver's Quilts Quilt Epiphany Blog, 2009. | Permalink | 12 comments
Post categories: Creativity, Featured, Inspiration, Quilting
Tags: creative spirit, design, embellishments, fabric, texture, workshops

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