Quilt Show

I dragged the Ol' Man to the Pennsylvania National Quilt Extravaganza XVI. We didn't get to spend as much time as I would have liked because we got lost a couple of times along the way, and then we had to leave in order to pick up the boys from school. But, what we did see was absolutely amazing! My jaw just drops when I see the intricacy of some of the quilts, (best of show above) the volumes of fabric, notions, etc...what a paradise! I'll make sure to schedule my time better for next year's Extravaganza! I picked up a few flyer's for other quilt shows and shops, and I'm pretty excited, looking forward to checking them out. I think I've made some kind of cardinal sin with the quilt I'm making now. I started machine quilting it, but, that turned out to be a ginormous pain, so I switched to hand quilting...is that breaking some kind of rule...switching in the middle of a project? It's not like I'm going to enter it into any contest...it's just a quilt for one of the boys. The PNQE XVI did have this guy there that had this set up to turn your regular machine into a mini-long arm quilt machine...it was pretty slick (and, MUCH cheaper than a "real" long arm machine). I never really understood the long arm concept, but I got to see it in action at the show, and I was pretty impressed. I like hand quilting, but....if you wanted to kick out a quilt quick, that'd be the way to go.