MQX Fashion Show

Last night the whole family went to the MQX fashion show, where I modeled Bluebird of Happiness and had other garments of mine shown as the Featured Garment Artist for 2009. There were a lot of garments this year - more ensembles than any other year! The work shown was tremendous - many, many beautiful pieces with a lot of excellent quilting and details.

As usual, Gayle Wallace (a quilting/wearable artist in her own right!) did a fantastic job of organizing the fashion show and narrating. She is the one who receives the garments, organizes them, arranges for models, makes sure the room is set up properly and also helps to judge! She has a big job and every year has risen to the occasion with a wonderful show. Janet-Lee Santeusanio and Mary Schilke, the show founders, worked with sponsors for prizes for the competing garments and door prizes for those attending the show. One lucky young teenaged lady won a brand new sewing machine! Isn't that cool? She'll have a wonderful start to sewing. All of the volunteers and models that make the show run smoothly deserve a big thanks, too. It isn't easy making sure people are in line and on the cat walk at the right time, and that all the garments are rehung and that people can change in a timely manner to go back out! It takes many people to do that!

The first garment I modeled was Bluebird of Happiness, for the competition portion. Since I was #17 in the line up, I didn't have to be on the run way right away, so I could enjoy everything going on back stage.

Next, in my portion of the show, I modeled Midnight Garden. I had two models, one was already doing two garments and the other was dressed in American Beauty, so it was just easier for me to model Midnight Garden. I am very grateful for the models I got! They were very pretty young ladies who did a great job on the runway. It is hard to find models in my size, but Janet-Lee was able to find me a few models and everything worked out perfectly. I'm also thankful for the ladies who helped me get out of BOH into MG and then back into BOH!!!! My daughter was also a big help organizing jewelry, shoes, gloves and other accessories so that I'd have the right thing for the right outfit. She is one of the few people that knows what accessories go with which outfit.

My son was the last model in the show. He loves a crowd and did not disappoint when he went out. He did a great job and was as charming as usual, tipping his hat and showing off his outfit and boots.

I won a first place in ensembles with BOH. This competition is broken is categories: vest, jacket and ensemble. This is nice as it gives a chance for more people to win a prize and a vest won't have to compete against an entire ensemble. I surprised and pleased with the prize - there were some excellent garments. Then the discussion began amongst us as to who would win Best of Show while the final door prizes were being drawn and awarded. I'm talking to Kathy Knapp (yes, another fabulous artist) in this photo and we're trying to figure out who won Best of Show.

Since I already had a first place and was the featured garment artist, you can imagine my surprise when BOH was announced as Best of Show for the garment division. I'm still pretty surprised - again, there were some magnificent ensembles.

I do apologize for lack of photos of the other garments - I do not have permission from the other artists to show them, and I don't want to offend or surprise anyone with their picture randomly showing up on the internet.

Parting Shot: Jem Gold 2. Part of my Best of Show prize was a new sewing machine. This is a Janome Jem Gold 2. While it is not the faniciest sewing machine, this is a great little machine to have. Many people own one of these to take to sewing classes and guilds because of the size and light weight.