Sunday, October 10, 2010

Men and the art of Quiltmaking . . .

I went to the AQS quilt show in Des Moines this weekend . . .

I had Friday off, and I busied myself shopping, packing, cleaning the litter box, and taking out the trash.  When I picked up Ed from work, we headed northeast.  We listened to the last hour or so of "Abarat, Book Two" by Clive Barker, then started on "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" by Stieg Larson.  We drove as far as Ottumwa, IA, and stopped for the night.

Saturday morning, after breakfast, we hit the road again.  We got to Des Moines in plenty of time:  we parked the car, got our passes, and found the hall where Joe Cunningham was gonna speak.  There were two other men present who were also included in Joe's book, Men and the art of Quiltmaking:  Mike McNamara and Erick Wolfmeyer.  The four of us did a round-robin of autographing each other's copies of the book, LOL!!  Then, we took the time for a "photo op."
Pictured above (from left to right) are Mike McNamara, Erick Wolfmeyer, Joe Cunningham, and myself.

Joe gave an interesting lecture, featuring many of the men in his book and their quilts, but it wasn't well-attended; there were less than two dozen people in the hall.  Afterwards, Ed and I went to see some of the quilts, particularly the display curated by  Joe of some of the male quilter's quilts.  This is me beside the quilt I had on display (which is also featured in the book).
Ed and I wandered around for a little while, looking at some of the other quilts, but I had seen who I came to see, and there were a LOT of other quilts to look at (it would have taken the rest of the day).  I still had a long drive ahead of me.  So, I had a twelve-hour drive for a two-hour visit, but it was worth it for me.

We headed back to St. Louis, stopping only for gas, and food (and chocolate).

I may do it again next year . . .

8 comments:

  1. VERY COOL RAY! It looks like it was a great time!

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  2. Awesome! So cool that you were not only featured in Mr. McNamara's book, but got to meet him and some of the other featured male quilters. Beautiful quilt too!

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  3. Thanks, Stephanie . . . yes, we had fun.

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  4. Actually, it was Joe Cunningham's book the three of us (Mike, Erick, and I) were featured in . . . Mike just happens to be holding a copy of the book, lol!!

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  5. Your quilt is simply GORGEOUS!!! You are so talented.

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  6. What a handsome group of men!! Glad you had a good time!

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  7. What a great group of quilters! Sounds like a great time!
    Micki

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