Divas on the Road--QuiltCon 2025

Some of you said at the retreat to make sure we got lots of pictures so here's a post!

Syd and Jan flew into Phoenix the night before QuiltCon and I think it is safe to say that it was surreal for all three of us to be meeting somewhere other than Amishland.  We went to our hotel near the convention center, had dinner then headed off to get our badges and show merchandise.  It was good to get a lay of the land since Syd and I both had classes first thing the next morning.  Each of us had registered for a volunteer slot also.   Syd won one of the swag bags, too!

We spent Thursday, Friday, Saturday and part of Sunday at the convention center shopping the vendors, doing make-and-take projects, attending classes, volunteering and looking at the quilts on display.  Thursday was very busy and crowded but each day, the crowd was lighter and, by Saturday, things were practically sparse which made viewing the quilts much more enjoyable.

The vendors were fun to browse, as always.  There was a wide assortment of specialties, similar to what we see at the Expo at the I-X center but we thought they did a better job at QC spreading out the sewing and quilting machine vendors among the fabric, patterns, tools, bag making and other booths.

These are the classes we took (I think I got this right but Syd and Jan can correct me ...):

• Planning Improv with Dramatic Negative Space by Michelle Trimble (Syd)
• One Block, 4 Ways with Libs Elliot (Lori)
• Off the Grid Improv Design with Allie McCathren (Lori)
• Take Your Free Motion Quilting to the Next Level by Christina Cameli (Jan)
• Blueprint Quilting lecture by Anna Maria Horner (Parry) (Lori)
• Ordered Improv: Starting Small to Overcome Your Fear by Andrea Tsang Jackson (Syd)
• Chromatic Alchemy by Carolina Oneto (Syd)

We divided our time looking at the quilts into many sessions.  There were so many and it was (fun) tiring in an odd way taking in all of the work and reading descriptions.  I believe there were 600+ quilts divided into many groupings such as featured artist (Tara Faughnan), Native American, Community Outreach, Fabric Challenge, etc. in addition to the usual judging categories such as Minimalist, Youth, Use of Negative Space, Handwork, etc.

When the show ended on Sunday, we were pretty worn out--in a good way--from all of the over-stimulation of a convention event.  We packed up and drove to my house to relax.  We had some dinner and soaked in the hot tub.  It was good to take a pause from all of the busyness of the convention.  

Monday morning we headed north to Sedona, stopping at the Montezuma Castle National Monument and Montezuma Well on the way.

We stopped at a Navajo frybread stand after the sightseeing.

We got a room with a balcony facing the red rocks.  Even after dark, when we couldn't see the rocks, the stars were spectacular.

On our first day in Sedona, we took a Pink Jeep tour of Coyote Canyon.  It was just the three of us on the tour so that was a nice surprise.  Our driver gave us lots of educational information about the rocks, plants, and the evolution of the landscape.  Since it was just us, he had plenty of time to make stops and take some photos of our group.  :-)

After the jeep tour, we visited the Chapel of the Holy Cross to enjoy the views and architecture.  We had enough time before dark to do a hike at Bell Rock.

After our second night in Sedona, we drove south towards home, stopping in the copper mining town of Jerome on the way.  We started with some of the historical information exhibits and a tour through the short but well-done Jerome Mining Museum.  We spent the rest of the day shopping in galleries and gift shops.  I've been to Jerome a few times but had never been in these shops since I'm usually with my guys who have no interest in them or we are stopping for lunch with out of town visitors and want to press on to Sedona before sunset.  The shops were fantastic and each of us found something special to take home from one of the galleries.  We finished off our visit with a can't-miss lunch at the Haunted Hamburger.  

We headed home to relax and wind down.  Syd and Jan had early morning flights the next day and we all wanted to get a good start to the long day of travel and airport time.

We had a great time on this trip --sightseeing, eating lots of Mexican food (with some Cuban too), getting inspired and going to bed early to recharge each night.

Looking forward to seeing everyone in August!