2007 International Quilt Festival; Chicago

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Reported by Donna Lannerd

The 2007 International Quilt Festival/Chicago was held this past weekend just 20 miles from where I live. So, of course, I had to go and since it was so close I also signed up for a class. For those of you who may not be quilters or even sewers, let me suggest that you should go to one of these shows. Besides just the amazing eye candy of the extraordinary quilts on display you can find new and unique products for just about any project you want to embellish. The emphasis of the actual show is quilt related but like many other crafters, quilters usually are up to more than just quilting and the quilting world today involves more than just the traditional blocks of prairies long ago.

The works were displayed in 11 different categories. Most of the works were quilts but there was also a fashion show case sponsored by Bernina. Because I was able to attend more than one day I noticed that the fashions changed daily which I thought was a little unfair to those who only get to come one day. The designs presented in the fashion showcase would put most Project Runway contestants to shame and would have been phenomenal to see all together instead of just a few a day. There was an official Fashion Show on Friday at a luncheon but unfortunately I had to work and was unable to attend. You can visit the website to see some of the exhibits on your computer screen.

Another special exhibit was the Journal Quilt Project 2006: A Page From My Book. I really enjoyed this exhibit. It was from the Internet-based QuiltArt group who challenge quilt artists to make a quilted/fabric journal. You can see selections of the projects on their website.

In the midst of the vendor section (which I will discuss shortly), was a special section from the people who bring you the Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazine. It was called Make It University and it was making its 2nd year appearance at the show. They provided workshops each day of the show for a lucky 25 people each. Because these were limited and so popular, a lottery was implemented before each session started. I did not get to participate unfortunately.

They also had mini-studios set up to see artists in action. I was able to watch and talk to Virginia A. Spiegel while she painted some very unique fabric pieces. There were items from two reader challenges also set up in this section of the event. One was a mixed-media accordion book and another featured paper quilts; both of which I wanted to run home and get working on. I have most of the accordion books shown in the one photo and I have chosen two others for close ups. The paper quilts were just too intricate and small to show how awesome they were in a big group so I have this shot of 4 very different ones.

Now I am going to get to the vendors. There were around 300 of them and I passed by all of them at least once but there was no way I could stop by each one. I think just about every quilt shop in the Midwest neighboring or in the state of Illinois was there. If you needed to get any type, skill-level or brand of sewing machine you would find it here. Many manufacturers were there as well. I met and talked with reps from Clover, Hobbs, Mountain Mist and Electric Quilt Company.

I also met with two fiction book authors, Jane Kirkpatrick and Emilie Richards of which I bought a book from each because they were so nice and seem to have quite the following of fans. I met a mother and daughter who were showcasing a line of metal embossing tools Ten Seconds Studio. The photo below is of monograms they were making while demonstrating. Although I wanted to buy their whole line I limited myself to the rub-ons that were developed especially sticky to attach to metal but can also be used on fabric. Look for a future article on these.

I also met with Jill Haglund of Tweety Jill Publications who has quite the collection of books dedicated to scrapbooking and papercrafts and will have two new books out soon, one on using fabrics and one on altered items. I have a stack of pamphlets, samples and business cards as well as a list of websites that was included in the show catalogue.

The class I signed up for was Threads of Imagination which really was a techniques class all about yummy threads and trims. The teacher was Cara Gulati and her basic philosophy is "organic" which is basically don't worry about being perfect just let the process flow. She was so much fun and I recommend anyone of any sewing level take this class from her. The most fun part of the class was taking those threads and trims and making your own piece of fabric from them. Anyone with a sewing machine can do this. You basically stuff a pocket of Sulky Ultra Solvy with threads, yarns and trims and sew the daylights out of it. No straight sewing allowed. You will end up with a one-of-a-kind fabric to embellish or use for whatever you desire. This is the one I made in the class.

For future reference; the best day of this show to attend if you don't like crowds is on Sunday. Although it may have been because of the nice sunny weather we were having, the aisles were much easier to get through than they were on Saturday. There were also a lot of bus tours that stopped on Friday and Saturday making the crowd larger more quickly, as well as the large number of classes that were available then. There were only a handful of 1/2 day classes available on Sunday. The majority of classes were offered Thursday through Saturday.

The Chicago show is actually a sister production of the International Quilt Market and Show held in Houston Texas the first few days of November. The first Houston show was held in 1974 and because of the popularity of the show a second offering for spring was developed for Chicago beginning in 2003. Next year, a summer version will begin in Long Beach, California, July 25-27, 2008. If you are interested in quilting or not you should treat yourself to one of these shows. You can check out the schedule on the website Quilts, Inc. The Houston show is much larger and much busier than Chicago. I have not been to the Houston show but it is on my list!