Quilting By The Lake

Quilting By The Lake (QBL) is a 2 week long quilting conference that now takes place at Onondaga College in Syracuse, NY. It is mainly geared towards art quilters and the teaching staff includes a lot of the "big" names. You can take a course as short as 2 days or stay for the entire conference. Most people stay for a 5 day workshop. You sleep in the college dorms and eat in the cafeteria.

It is currently Friday afternoon and I am leaving Sunday morning and panic is starting to set in. I dread this part. Why did I sign up? What supplies do I bring? Will I be able to sleep? Can I focus for 5 days? (Probably not - my head usually starts to explode on Thursday afternoon.) What will I learn and is it worth being away from my family and studio for 6 days (including travel)?

The class I am taking is with Bob Adams and is called, "Color, Texture, Line and Shape with Free Motion Quilting". I am hoping that I will learn about how to use free motion quilting and different threads to add an element of design to my quilts.

The supply list is not that extensive, but I never know what fabric I will want to use. They do have a vendor mall, but I hate to buy something that I already have in my stash. Maybe I'll want to experiment with batiks, or maybe my luscious dupioni silks. Bob recommends hand dyes. Do you think I am bringing enough?

I will try to blog during the conference and give you a glimpse into all the different classes in addition to the one I'm taking.