QGBI AGM Nottingham - Buckets of fun!

I thoroughly enjoyed the QGBI Conference in Nottingham,  it felt I'd been away much longer than  3 days. A busy schedule: an all day class with Uta Lenk; a half day workshop with Laura Wasilowski;  the business of the AGM ( rather gloomy forecast  with the Quilt Museum under threat of closure yet again but launch of updated website), an afternoon on the CQ stand surrounded by mountains of book wraps and an excellent Gala Dinner. I even won  the  table raffle for the centrepiece - this bucket filled with all kinds of goodies.   

We were on the Jubilee Campus of University of Nottingham - fantastic architecture and lovely surroundings  with comfortable accommodation and it was great to have everything together on one site. Catering was  overpriced and a bit chaotic at times - only 1 coffee machine in action at breakfast for 400!!  but it was ok for a weekend.

I left the house at 5.30am in order  to get up to Nottingham in time for Uta's class but  very worthwhile. She took us through the processes of how she makes her wonderful quilts  concentrating on how she designs and makes templates. Lots of useful tips like putting a grid on the back!
We practised with an A3 sized (or bigger!) sample which demonstrated various techniques. I struggled a bit with the borrowed Bernina (finding out later that it had been set to zero stitch length which is why it ran on the spot!). Later we concentrated on our own designs, blowing them up large using an OHP projector.
Uta also uses a computer and 'beamer' (digital projector). I'm thinking more seriously of getting one if it has other uses than just giving talks, especially as just received some royalties from 'Growing Hardy Orchids'.

Excellent talk by Anja Townrow on Friday evening and after AGM on Saturday morning, time for  abit of retail therapy  at Art Van Go - usually at FoQ you can't get anywhere near the stand so it was lovely to have a more relaxed chat with Kevin. Coats were giving away threads to try and I was also able to stock up with some 'Soft Touch' in grey - my thread of choice for piecing.

The Gala Dinner was very enjoyable - good company and food  and an after dinner talk by the 'Chicago School of Fusing '( Frieda Anderson and Laura Wasilowski ) which was both instructive and hilarious.

On Sunday morning I had a workshop with Laura. We were given a generous amount of fused hand dyed fabric to play with and an excellent worksheet of tips . She had lots of samples at different stages to demonstrate techniques (like below) .  I  had to leave early for the train but learnt a huge amount in a short period of time, and it was great fun!

Than back home by train and off to Kendal the following day for a work meeting - not quite  such an early start but a long day and unfortunately they'd sold out of sourdough at the Artisan  baker at Oxenholme station! It's been a week of meetings -off to the WWT Wetland Centre this afternoon - but at least it's local and  it's  sunny!