Working the IQF

I showed you a photo of the education office last week. I trained with Barbara Black to check in teachers. It was apparent the teachers are happy to see her and appreciate her smiling face and kind words when they arrive. She's been at it for a long time and it is obvious! Thanks for the great training Barbara. 

As part of the education staff we got to sign up for class/classes before the general public. I opted to take an embroidery class from Kaari Meng of French General. 

 I didn't have to bring one thing to class and that was another bonus! Look at this amazing pattern! And all the goodies too.

Here was her sample. I got a little done in class, but not a lot. I would do another class from her in a heart beat. She is pretty laid back and very encouraging, not striving for perfection.

After class I had a few duties and that evening I was to assist/observe check in of the Iron Quilter Challenge. (play on words of the Iron Chef)

 6 teams were shown fabric in the afternoon, but the fabric was revealed that evening in front of a large crowd. They had 2 hours to work as a team and make a quilt top!  Here we are seeing the fabric.

 The stations are set up around the large ballroom.

 It's loud! It's a wee bit obnoxious! And loads of silly competitiveness.

 Debbie Caffrey's team won the prize of the golden iron with this winning quilt!

 Gyleen has her chef jacket on! Whoa! What a pro!

 The audience voted by dropping a marble into a container of whose quilt they liked the best.  I believe all of the quilts were auctioned off at the quilt show for charity. 

Later in the week I helped set up the machine quilting forum and the mixed media forum.(2 separate events)

Each teacher had 10 minutes to present what they were going to be teaching to the whole group. If there were 6 teachers, that would be one hour. 

 Each teacher had a station and depending on your folder color you would move with your color group spending 20 minutes learning a technique.

 With life, we must keep a sense of humor. I guess bell duty (ring, ring every 20 minutes in the forum) was beyond my capabilities, so a more qualified person, (tongue in cheek) without saying a word, took it right out of my hands in the forum. This was me making a joke about it later and ringing the bell to my contentment!

 There were a lot of paint and dye classes and plastic needed to be put down and picked up several times a day. I got so good at it, I made up a song!

 Plastic! Plastic! Whose got the plastic?!

Foam core! Foam core! Whose got the foam core?!

It takes an army I tell ya! We got stats that I was amazed at. 468 classes and 4600 pre-enrolled students!

That's a look at that part of my job for the week.