Innovations - Machine Quilters Conference

A few weeks ago, I went with my cousin and aunt (who were visiting me from Portland, Maine) to see the quilt show at the annual Innovations Machine Quilters Conference in downtown Tacoma.

And, all I could say, in awe, was a sheepish, "wow!" when I saw all the machine quilting talent out there. This show includes any type of machine quilting - from your small domestic machine, to short-arm, mid-arm and longarm quilting.

Unfortunately, not all my photos came out well - some were a bit fuzzy. I tried to capture some of the quilting techniques and patterns these women had used on their quilts.

The one photo I wished had been better was the first prize quilt...it had a lot of micro-stippling, it was really heavily quilted, all on a small sewing machine. Kudos to that quilter!



The first photo of the elephants was really fun. You may not be able to see the detail, but the quilter quilted all the skin wrinkles, so it looked like real elephant hide.

This second photo was just a snapshot from a larger mariner's compass quilt, but I loved how she quilted the koi on the batiks. What a cool fish pattern!

The third photo is of a different mariner's compass quilt. I was trying to capture how the quilter quilted inside the compass. I've seen similar techniques before, but she did a wonderful job on her quilt.


The last two photos show beautiful quilting. The star quilt, based on a Jinny Beyer pattern, has wonderful feathering in the white spaces. I'm totally jealous. I like to do feathers, but - wow!

And the last quilt with the coffee cup fabric was just really neat. Again, there's gorgeous feathering, and if you look closely, coffee cups are quilted in the red space too.

My cousin has a Nolting longarm, one size up from my Proto. We were both taking mental notes of how we could incorporate some of these quilting styles into our own quilts.

I hope you enjoy these snippets of the show as much as I did in person!