trip to Paducah Quilt Show

Every year the American Quilters Society puts on a really big quilt show in Paducah.  It lasts several days and is known as "Quilt Week".

I've never been to this event until this year.
A quilt group that meets in Shelbyville had chartered a bus for a day trip to the show. They were looking for paying guests to fill up the bus, so I signed up to go.

It was an early start...7:00 am.  I got to the meeting spot at 6:45 and  nearly everyone was already on the bus.

The hosting group handed out goodie bags, with a bottle of water, granola bars, and candy.

They had us playing bingo to pass the time on the long drive.

I won this little foldable needle case!

We had a rest stop, then it seemed like we were at the event center in no time!

It was crowded...and spread out over 4 buildings.  You really would need a couple of days to see it all.

Of course there were lots of quilts. These are a few of my favorites.

The show booklet had a short write up about each quilt, but it would have taken forever to try to read them.

I'd like to try to make a quilt like this one...

Barn quilts are always the cutest...

There was also row after row of vendor booths... selling quilting related merchandise - fabric, thread, scissors, patterns, books, gadgets, kits...on and on.

There were demonstrations of special rulers, sewing machines, quilting machines, and sergers.

There were classes being held as well, but you had to sign up way ahead for those.

I nearly walked my legs off.

Here is a different building full or more  stuff. It was about a block away.   It was such a strange building...like an enormous plastic quonset hut.

They had food booths set up outside.  So many tasty looking items, barbecue, sausages, fried corn, baked potatoes, sweet treats... but I didn't want to spend money on food. I wanted to use it for buying stuff!

By the time the bus came back to pick us up (6:00 pm) everyone was glad to head for home.

A very enjoyable day. though. I'd like to do this again next year. 

Here is my loot....

It's a cute little wool pincushion kit ( a bunny) and 2 huge spools of thread.  

It doesn't look like much, but I was hesitant to buy anything...thinking I might come across something later that I liked better.