Sewing Expo- Things Bought and Learned

I thought I should share what I learned from the Sewing Expo, now that my brain has had a chance to absorb it all. I hadn’t been to an expo like this before, so it was a bit overwhelming. The classes were all over the expo center an occasionally difficult to find, but I did manage with some help from other attendees. The featured picture is this fantastic little stand that had all batik jersey and rayon fabrics. I really wanted to just roll up in them and nap, but I thought it might be frowned upon. Sadly, they were a little too pricey for my budget. 

This next picture was taken in the exhibit hall. Such a dangerous place with all the pretties! There were also multiple quilt exhibits with different themes. Those are the pictures I’ve been posting. 

I took two classses and attended a fashion show. I had a free class for bringing a friend, but my brain was too tired, somI skipped it to shop instead. 😄

The first class K and I took together and it was a pants fitting class with Cynthia Guffey.  She was an excellent instructor,  but a little terrifying. She had several tips for us, including how to readjust waists- basically rip off the existing waist and make a yoke that fit instead. She adjusted a participant’s in front of the class and it was amazing to see how it fit much better. 

She also told us that the smiles or frown lines in pants points to the parts that needs to be adjusted and how to adjust those parts as needed. We covered a ton of material in an hour. I’m glad there were two of us in the class because I’m sure I would have never gotten all the material on my own. 

The second class was a notions class and I now have an even bigger list of helpful things to use that would help with sewing. A couple of the neatest ones were a heat safe ruler, scallop maler, and prarie point maker. There were also some glue pens and this fantasitc glue you can iron. I had learned about that previously at a vendor stall and almost fell over when she stuck her iron right down over the wet glue. That might actually make me want to appliqué! 

Here are some of the notions I picked up. 

The famous glue, a washable tracing pen, and a glue pen for thin lines. I didn’t see the heat proof ruler at the notions stall because I got distracted by the next picture. 

There were two baskets of wide lace on the counter for $4 and $6 a yard! Since this type of lace would normally be around $15 (at the cheapest) a yard at Joann’s, I snapped up a bunch of two yard pieces. I may get brave enough to try undergarments! (Don’t worry, those won’t get posted on the blog!) I stuck to stretch lace as it will be more useful, but really I wanted all of them! 

I also found a lovely set of batiks and some Christmas fabrics. The batiks were from a shop that is close to my work. The ladies were very nice! 

The Christmas ones were from a variety of places. 

And these hearts were 25% off and too cute to pass up. The white has triangles and other geometric shapes. 

These were also from a mix of stalls. I’m going to use some of the dinos to make dino tea wallets. The white tone on tones are music and checkers. It can be hard to find whote fabrics that aren’t floral, so I’m always on the hunt for them. 

K and I made people crack up wherever we went, as we kept finding the “perfect” fabrics for each other that we absolutely had to have. And then blaming each other for our totals. 🙂 These were from Vogue fabrics. There was so much fabrkc there I think my brain simply shut down at one point. 

We also planned out what patterns we were going to use for each fabric and it made a lot of the vendors very happy to see “nice youg ladies” sewing. These adorable owl buttons are going to go on a cowl neck sweater, hopefully soon. 

The snowman is coming with me on our Christmas trip for something to do in the car, or on a quiet evening. 

There were a lot of interesting things there and I’m very glad we went. Next year, if it’s back, I might plan to just take two classes. 

We did see a fashion show featuring Kentaro from Project Runway, but alas, I am short and all my pictures had another lady’s poofy hair in them. It was pretty neat to see the details up close though. 

We saw a really cool new technique for quilting sith chenille yarn and learned about a very interesting new kind of leather, which I’m going to do a full post on later. 

Here’s a picture of the chenille quilting. 

I have to head out to work, but I hope you enjoyed a glimpse into the Sewing Expo! Have a great day!