Quilling Conference - NAQG, Day Two

Meeting Jane Jenkins!

It's past time to wrap up my visit way back in May to the NAQG conference in Nashville!  My first post on day one can be found here.

Weaving - Harder than It Looks.

Day two opened with a weaving class.  I've not done much but the most elementary weaving in the past, so this was very interesting for me.  I enjoyed the class, especially meeting Quilling illuminary Jane Jenkins!  Still, I don't think I'm going to be doing a lot of weaving in the future - not because I don't like it - but because I don't like pins!  So many pins!  I really don't enjoy keeping track of all those sharp bits of metal around my craft area.  Seriously, that's just one of my issues.  Every single line has two pins to hold it down.  If I'm going to be weaving, I need to find a new way to secure strips for the process.

My gifted quilled elephant!

Cards and gift tags I made in free time.

I spent the late morning and early afternoon in free quilling.  Just sitting around with other quillers and having fun.  I quilled some cards, name tags, and more, while new friends quilled other marvels.  One of which was a wonderful quilled elephant with dragonflies!  I loved it immediately, and was thrilled and humbled when the artist presented it to me to have, for my very own!  We also saw a few people from the general public come in, and they stopped by our table very briefly.  But we were no match for the draw that Jane and her husband Paul were making at a nearby table, quilling 'fluffy' teddy bears.

Buddha under Bodhi Tree

I spent some time wandering through the competition/display room.  This is a room where both competition and general display items were available for attendees to check out.  Any registrants for the conference could ask to have some portion of a table set aside to display some of their work.  And of course various competition categories also had work on display (although without names.)  This made it a little difficult to figure out who did what piece of work.  My favorite, a Buddha, was done by an artist whose name I still don't know!  That was one of the points of the competition that was a little frustrating - since winners were announced at the last minute at the banquet, one never really got a chance to find out who did what piece of art.

The evening entertainment was live music and a banquet.  We had a wonderful time together, listening to local music and enjoying the raffle.  I really enjoyed watching my table-mates root for one another as various pieces in the raffle came up.  Many classic pieces of quilling were donated for the raffle, and were given as gifts for each one of us!  These quillers were very generous.

Examples of pieces under judging -
my Halloween Sampler is on the right!

And then it was time to go home.  I really had hoped there would be more time after the banquet to peruse the art in the display room and figure out who had done what!  But the art was removed quickly ... I was not ready to go!  But the conference was over, and planning for next year has begun!

All in all, it was a great event, and I'm trying to see how I can fit another May trip (this time to Tampa) in my travel schedule for May 2017.

Image credits - All pictures taken by me at the NAGQ 2106 conference.

Quilling Conference - NAQG, Day One!

Now that the Summer edition of Quill America is out, the 'embargo' on the NAQG con is off - so I can finally post what I wrote back in May about the conference!  I've mentioned before that I think such an embargo is unnecessary, but alas.  Anyway, I submitted some pictures and text to the Summer 2016 Edition of Quill America, and many were selected to appear!  For that I am grateful and pleased!  Some of those pix could not be presented in color, however.  So now that they are there first, I don't have to worry about scooping myself :)  Here are a few more tidbits that don't appear in Quill America, and some of the images in color.

I've spent the last three days (May 2016) at the North American Quilling Guild's annual Conference, held this year in Nashville, TN.  It's been a whirlwind of quilling, classes, meeting new people, and sharing ideas.  I wasn't sure what to expect before I came, but will definitely be leaving tomorrow having had a very positive experience!

Day One (really Thursday evening as well as Friday) started with registration.  Host Judy (far right in the picture up top) and her associates checked us all in and gave us a bag filled with quilling goodies, as well as fun snacks (like Moon Pies).  I spent time in the 'hospitality room' meeting people and doing a bit of quilling (silver earrings with small crystal centers).  I was really happy to be invited along to dinner with some new friends (Michelle, Tracy, and then Mary), and in spite of spills and more, we had a very good time.

Friday was filled with classes, the morning was the vortex coil class taught by Sandy.  I'd never attempted vortex coils before, but the method shown was easy to follow, and by the end of class I was producing some solid coils.  Everyone extolled the class as both fun and useful.  Then it was on to the quilled roses class.  Roses have always, always been a challenge for me, and so it was really good to get more experience.  We were, for the most part, happily suffering together, trying to get our roses to look like ... roses.  I did manage to produce three that were at least recognizable.

After lunch it was off to the Chinese style quilling class where we learned various techniques to create flowing, airy quilling.  Our project was an elegant betta fish with sea grass and sea flowers in curving shapes.  I hadn't done much of this kind of work before, and but caught on pretty quickly to how to 'pull' the strips to separate the strands.  Everyone was focused on our projects and wished we had just a bit more time to get them finished.  Then on to the Quilling A-to-Z class with Kay.  Kay helped us with a variety of questions from accreditation to how to do alternate side looping.  She showed us her own accreditation pieces, along with samples used for teaching students of all ages how to quill.

After dinner with new friends, it was off to bed to try to get ready for the big second, and for me, last day of the conference!

Preparing for a Quilling Conference

I'm soon off to attend my first quilling conference!  This is the North American Quilling Guild's 2016 Con, this year in Nashville, TN.  I thought I wasn't going to be able to attend, but as it is, I'm on work travel not too far away just before the conference.  So I have the opportunity to pop on over and spend the weekend steeped in quilling.  I really hope it's as fun as it sounds, and that I get to spend time meeting new people who enjoy quilling as much as I do!

Still, it was difficult for me to figure out what I had to do to prepare for this conference, and even now I think I might not really be ready.  Not everything one needs to know as a first timer is in one place.  So many people are repeat attendees they probably assume everyone knows how long the con is, when you can register, if there are group events, if there are public events or demos, etc.  Now that the agenda is out, that information is all available, but I didn't know a lot of it when I was making my travel plans many months ago.

I realized rather late in the game that I needed to make my own thematic name tag.  I eventually managed to find a bit of time this afternoon to put one together, a little banjo with some musical notes.  It's pretty basic, but it will do.  The next time I can go to this conference I hope to be able to spend more time on the name tag.  It is a fun idea, and will make a nice keepsake. 

I registered for the contest, but was unable to complete the piece I'd hoped to bring.  So I'm bringing another one.  My fault entirely, I have no idea if I can change pieces at this late date.  But I'll bring a project and see.  Annnnnd then I realized I did not have new business cards for the blog, here!  My cards still have the old blog name.  So I quickly mocked up some cards and printed them at home on card stock.  Not as nice and spiffy as they could be, but hopefully they will serve the purpose.

I didn't even know I had to sign up for classes until it was almost too late to do so.  I blithely assumed I'd just show up and go to whatever classes floated my boat.  But it makes a lot of sense to assign people a priori.  That way there is a good balance, no one instructor is left alone or overwhelmed, and people can plan for how much and what materials to bring with them.  Oh yeah, the materials.  That's another interesting situation for me, since I never check bags when I fly.  But I'm going to have to check for this flight, what with all the quilling tools, scissors, pliers, and other odd devices I'm bringing with me.  Technically, they are all small enough to get through security, but I don't feel like trying to deal with that if someone is weirded out by my odd little paper craft.

Another last minute item that worked in my favor was that they were still looking for volunteers for Saturday afternoon to do demos and take-aways with the general public.  I love stuff like that, and am looking forward showing a few folks how great quilling is, and maybe making someone a quiller-for-life!

Image credit:  All my own stuff, and all my own pictures of that stuff.

Valentines and Maybe a Quilling Conference

Oh dear, I'm two days late posting my valentine, but no matter, here it is!  I hope you had a happy day and a chance to spend at least a few moments with a friend or family member.

I was lucky - I got chocolates, flowers, AND that framed commemorative stamp I've been going on about.  You know exactly the one I mean, of course ...

Now in addition to these pleasant ruminations, my mind has been taken up with a few other matters.  Such as pushing forward with my current WIP, the herb sampler, as I mentioned before.

But the big thing is trying to decide if I will take some precious time and funds and go to my first ever quilling conference.  The North American Quilling Guild is having its conference in Tennessee this year, not too far from where I will be at another meeting, right beforehand.  So it would be pretty straightforward to just hop over there and see what it's like.  I'd really like to go, meet other quillers, maybe pick up some new techniques, and see what the vendors have for sale.  But I don't have many free weekends as it is these days, so I just don't know.  Are you going?  What is it like, and what draws you there?  Are there any younger quillers?  I'm always interested in meeting the next generation!  I'm also considering offering a class about sharing your quilling online.  A lot of the quillers I know are not computer-savvy, and haven't really started connecting with the online community at all.  I think it might be useful and fun to show these folks what is out there, other than Facebook, like Twitter, say, as well as DeviantArt, Craftsy, and of course blogs!  What do you think?  Would you check out such a class?

Image credits:  My pix of my quilling, also my chocolates and my own new framed commemorative quilling stamp!