At the end of April, my friend Sharon and I made the pilgrimage to Paducah for AQS QuiltWeek.
We spent a good amount of time marveling at Janet Stone’s Best of Show “Crazy for Ewe.” We still don’t fully understand the process of how she quilted it. It is truly extraordinary!

Crazy for Ewe by Janet Stone

Details of Crazy for Ewe by Janet Stone
We thoroughly enjoyed Susan Carlson’s lecture. It was fun to see Stevie the 20′ crocodile again. Read all about her on Susan’s website.

Crocodylus Smylus by Susan Carlson
Sue Reich‘s lecture chronicled the creation of her new book, The Quilter’s Night Before Christmas. Each stanza of the famous poem was illustrated by quilters including our friend Barb Vedder!

Stanza 22 by Barb Vedder
I took a fun sit-down longarm class with Carolina Asmussen on the fabulous Bernina Q16. I’m happy to have Carolina’s “No Rules with Rulers” tool to play with at home.
In addition to shopping at the show vendors, we did a little shop hop around town.

All of the goodies I purchased in Paducah!
As planned, I purchased a Bernina 770QE from the dealer at the show. I’ll tell you more about this incredible machine soon.
A fun thing happened on day 1 of the show. I was interviewed by Meg Goodman for the Sew & So podcast. Here’s the link for the QuiltWeek episode. You can hear me gushing for a few seconds at about the 20 minute mark.
No trip to AQS Paducah is complete without strawberry shortcake made by Boy Scout Troop 200!
The biggest lesson we learned was to not fly directly into the Paducah airport. Next time, we’ll fly into Nashville and rent a car. We were not happy being at the mercy of limited flights, shuttle buses and the one taxi service in town. We are guilty of being fiercely independent east coast women!