Cabarrus Quilt Show 2011

The Cabarrus Quilt Show this year was awesome! So many beautiful quilts, great vendors, and I loved my booth, I had such nice neighbors and was conveniently located near everything I needed - always a help when you're doing a show by yourself. I didn't have time to see everything, we were so busy (lol a good thing!) but here are a few photos of some of my favorite quilts. I was so blessed to win 4 ribbons at this show - 3 of them blue ribbons, I love getting rewarded for something I have a passion for, creating! I guess I was the most thrilled with my "Felted Garden" quilt, I put so much time into this one, between the design, sewing and lots of wet-felting, there are so many different techniques on this quilt. I hope to be able to teach some of these at some quilt shows in 2012. And my friend Rebecca Verrier-Watt won a ribbon for Best Longarm Quilting in the show, go Rebecca! No surprise there, she did a phenomenal job! All in all, a very good show.

Asheville Quilt Show 2011

I was thrilled to be included as a vendor at the Asheville Quilt Show this year! I've been wanting to do this show for years, and when they changed the venue to the new building at the WNC Ag Center, it opened up the show to have more room to exhibit quilts and also, more vendors. We were busy all weekend, but I had a chance Sunday morning to zip around and see just a few of the beautiful quilts, here are a few that caught my eye, along with a quick pic of my booth.

PA National Quilt Extravaganza

It was so great to visit the Oaks, PA again and re-connect with creative souls I met last year! Lots of exciting things happened at the show; my friend Karen from Quiltricks and I were on either side of an vendor who was unable to attend the show, and so we were privileged to have a bit of additional wall space to display our quilts. I had brought a special "Felted Garden" quilt I've been working on with lots of felted embellishments, it was for my "Walk on the Wool Side" demo, but I took the opportunity to display it for the attendee's enjoyment. I had a wonderful response, and am hoping to be invited to teach some of the felting techniques shown in my quilt, will definitely keep all posted on that.

Meanwhile, I did teach my Wild Wooly Flower class at the show, we are garnering quite an interest in felting I must say. The girls in the class created some amazing flowers, here are a few photos of some of their beauties. I even had one high-achiever, Janeke, who made 2 flowers in the class, then slipped them together to make a double-layer flower, gorgeous! Another gal Lois brought in some absolutely magical needle-felted animals she had made from wool from her very own sheep, we were all so impressed: lambs, flying pigs, a dog from a photo, rabbits...the cutest were the "hunting foxes" with their little red jackets, hats and bugles, adorable. I'm looking forward to returning next year, what felting fun we will have then!

Tranqwool Nuno Scarf Class

What gorgeous scarves the girls made at Tranqwool Knitting Provisions in Salisbury today! Each piece turned out so unique and different; Elizabeth's beautiful autumn colored scarf reminded one of fall leaves scattered on a forest floor. Ann's blue scarf was in colors of Monet with lots of bling, and she even added some glow-in-the-dark yarn for a fun night surprise! And Karen did something totally different with her scarf, embellishing the ends with a little mini-flower garden scene, it was just spectacular! All of them works of art...and something else different happened today, too: a family shopping in the store pitched in and helped do some of the felting, giving the girls a nice long break, wow! Life's full of surprises, and this was a very nice welcome one. All in all a fun day, so proud of my students for their beautiful creations.

Summer classes

I had so much fun teaching this summer, here's a few pics from some of my recent classes. We had a blast at Dawn's Sewing & Embroidery shop in Albemarle making flower brooches out of zippers, and the girls did a great job! I also got to see a couple of the Needle-felt Tree Cloaks the girls finished after the class, they got a great start during the time we had and did a fantastic job completing their gorgeous cloaks, so proud of all their awesome creativity!

20-Year Anniversary Contest Winner!

Above: Congratulations Donna! Her prize for winning our Pincushion Contest (Below:) Donna's winning Sunflower Pincushion, so cute!

A HUGE Congratulations to Donna Phillips, winner of our 20-Year Anniversary Pincushion Contest! Donna made this adorable Sunflower pincushion from our #139 "Make-do Medley" pattern and was the lucky winner of our drawing, winning a $50.00 gift certificate to her choice of Annie's Keepsakes merchandise. She chose some beautiful colors of Woolfelt along with a variety pack of bright 'n vibrant colors of wool fibers and our "Needle-felt Blues" pattern to make them up in! We are so thankful to all our customers for making it possible for us to continue to serve you and share our love of creating with you all these years, I hope to do this for many more years to come! A big thanks to all who entered our contest, hoping to do another one soon...who knows, maybe next year!

Summer Retreat in Asheville

My roomie Suzanne and I on our way to Bellagio in Biltmore Village, 2 tired but happy campers.
Awesomely beautiful posies from my Wild Wooly Flowers class!
These sisters were so much fun to have in class!


Love this ring 'n earring set, she did a fantastic job...and they matched her wild wooly flower too!
The gals in my Nuno-felted Scarf Class worked hard and it really paid off, beautiful scarves, each one a work of art!



These Needle-felt Cloaks were well on their way to beautiful wearable artworks, can't wait to see the finished products!




Above: having dinner with Suzanne 'n friends my last evening in Asheville, see ya this fall! (Below:) Taking a little break with Anne Marie of Smoky Mountain Fibers on my way to my fave java spot in the mall.
We had such a good time at Summer Retreat in Asheville! It was so good to see familiar faces from Winter Retreat, and also made some new friends too. I had the privilege of rooming with Suzanne M. again, a fellow felter, always enjoy the little bit of time we get to spend together. As usual, the weekend went by much too fast! I look forward to seeing everyone again at Winter Retreat in January, in the meantime, here's a few photos from our felting fun in Asheville!