A week ago, I was halfway into a delightful 5 days of QuiltCon Together. Originally, QuiltCon 2021 was supposed to be in Atlanta. Atlanta is about 4 hours from me, so I planned to attend. When 2020 hit in all its glory, the Modern Quilt Guild announced pretty early that they were pivoting to a virtual event for 2021.
While it was of course disappointing to not get to see & meet my online quilting friends in person, there were a lot of advantages to the virtual format. Not having to travel, no paying for a hotel, eating in my kitchen, no lines for the bathroom, all my tools and fabric with me--these are just some of the advantages. I took 4 days off work so I had a total of 6 consecutive days with QuiltCon as my main focus.
I registered for three classes and four lectures. The classes were pre-recorded with the ability to submit questions to the instructor and I chose to add live sessions with the instructors too. I added it up and my classes had a total of 303 minutes of instruction time. That's over 5 hours! And that doesn't even count the live Q&A with instructors. I plan to do an individual post about each class as I finish class samples, so I may be stretching out QuiltCon as blog subject matter for most of March!
The lectures were also pre-recorded though they were shown at set times, followed by a live Q&A with the presenter. The nice thing about this was that you could ask a question via chat during the presentation and the presenter could respond via chat. It also meant technical difficulties were minimized. These were the lectures I took:
The What Ifs...Working in a Series with Timna Tarr
Understanding the Rainbow: Applying Color Theory with Lee Chappell Monroe
Quilt Photography Overview with Julie Schoening
Walk and so Much More with Your Walking Foot with Jacquie Gering
I also attended both the announcement of the winners the night before the event started and the closing ceremonies. I wanted to get every moment of QuiltCon that I could! There was even a virtual vendor hall. They did an amazing job of capturing the quilts in the show and for some of them, you could hear an audio clip of the maker talking about their quilt.
The Modern Quilt Guild got a lot of feedback on the positives of a virtual event--did I mention they had attendees from 39 countries??--and in the closing remarks said that they heard loud and clear that a virtual component is in demand. I'm really curious how they will incorporate possible virtual events once the live event becomes the main focus again.
I hope you didn't mind this wordy post with no pictures! I look forward to sharing the details of my classes/workshops and what I made with the new techniques I learned.
Sounds like you had a great time, wonderful for this pandemic time. We do need to make those connections and get inspiration where we can these days.
ReplyDeleteSounds awesome! Now I wish I had signed up!! Glad you had a good time. And glad they heard that the virtual component was working well!! I thought about going to Atlanta next month, but since we have a trip scheduled the latter part of the month, I may not go.
ReplyDeleteInteresting to hear, Emily! I haven't read a report from anyone else yet, so I'm pretty interested to hear what else you have to tell.
ReplyDeleteSounds like they figured out how to do it right. I'm looking forward to hearing how you liked the classes and seeing your class samples.
ReplyDeleteIt will be interesting to see the format of the 2022 show. I'm glad you enjoyed your classes and were able to take the time to focus on them!
ReplyDeleteI did two classes....and enjoyed them. I wished the content was available longer. I think they did pretty well from hearing that some classes had 200 people in them! I did miss the interaction, and had a little time in the vendor room. I was really excited for Atlanta and am thinking about Phoenix, but just not really sure.
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