Quilt Expo – Madison, Wisconsin

Attending Madison’s Quilt Expo Show

What a great honor it was having my quilt – “Plates from the Attic” – in the 2011 Wisconsin Quilt Expo that was held in Madison, Wisconsin September 8 – 10th. No awards for my quilt – but a great big smile from me at the show.

On Friday I attended the quilt show with my quilting friends Sue and Marie. On Saturday several members of my family attended the show with me: my sisters Margie, Eileen, and Donna plus my niece Kristi.

I came across this booth – silverthimbleonline.com – and found the shop owners were retiring and having a sale – all fabrics $7.00 a yard. They are closing the shop so they can focus more of their time on quilting books they write and quilting patterns they design. The booth was busy, busy. I found some great batiks. When I stopped back later on Saturday every rack was almost empty! What initially attracted me to this booth was I noticed they were from Springfield, New Hampshire and as we are planning a trip next summer to the northeast I am always on the lookout for quilt shops to visit on our travels. But since they are closing, no such luck on this one.

Later I saw Jennifer Chiaverine signing some of her books. She is a New York Times best-selling author whose stories – The Elm Creek Novels – always have some quilting theme woven into them.

On Saturday I found Nancy Zieman, co-host of Quilt Expo and executive producer and star of the popular PBS show “Sewing with Nancy,” also signing some books and shirts. Great Show Nancy.

I took pictures of several of the winning quilts and are showing them in my regular web pages on the Madison Quilt Expo so go there to see them. Below are some of the floral quilts and landscape quilts I particularly liked. Some day I hope to do one of these.

Did you attend the show? If so let me hear how you liked it – see comments, start discussion, or reply below.

Jo – joquilt@gmail.com