Houston - A Grand Week!

I’m still riding high on a fluffy cloud, pumped full of euphoria after a week at Houston Quilt Market. It has been my dream for years and years to someday be a designer in the Bernina Fashion Show. But as I said, it was a “dream” which pretty much sums it all up. So often our dreams remain just that…something we can only imagine but this time the dream was a reality. After years of thinking about submitting a portfolio, I finally did it.
This wasn’t something I decided spur of the moment. I set a goal about five years ago after finishing a jacket in a wearable art class taught by Vince Quevedo at the University of Nebraska. I was determined to sew one or two really great creations a year that could someday be a part of the portfolio that would hopefully get me into the show. Last fall I realized that my portfolio was now pretty sizeable and decided it was now or never. I nearly missed the deadline but managed to complete my portfolio in the “11th” hour and then overnighted it to Houston. I was beside myself with excitement to find out that I had been chosen to design for the 2008 show Rendezvous.
To say that this garment became an obsession of mine is an understatement. From the time I first found out I had gotten into the show, I thought about that creation every waking hour and even some of my sleeping ones. I had all but memorized every Fairfield and Bernina Fashion Show tape in my possession since 1992 when I first began ordering the fashion show tapes. Go to my website (http://www.designonawhim.com/) and read about the process of designing my garment. It was quite a process.
So to finally be sitting in the audience with eight of the favorite women in my life who had flown in from all over the country to join me for the week was a high I won’t come down from for awhile. Sunday night I watched the show with my 87 year old mom, sister Jan Sittler and Seattle daughter Ginger. I was so nervous until my garment came out. It was the biggest rush to see it parade down the runway with my name in lights on the screens on the side of the stage. The garments in the show were simply spectacular

and to have my design shown in the company of such quality work was the highlight of my sewing career! My friends from Sulky were appropriately rowdy and it was such fun to savor this incredible moment. Thursday night I watched the show with four of my closest Nebraska girlfriends, my sis, mom and New York City daughter, Dawn. As I watched the show for the second time I was able to relax and enjoy every single garment as it came out. After the show I went to a reception honoring the designers and it was such fun to meet some of the other women whose creations I admired. Then we were off to join my girlfriends who were waiting in the Hilton lounge for further celebration. My friend summed it up perfectly in her toast as she said, “Tonight I saw my friend realize a dream”. As we headed back to our room for the night, we met a crazy group of pajama clad women from Quilting Arts magazine who were partying the night away. They shared their laughs as well as their glow in the dark bracelets with us which was the perfect end to a perfect evening.
I took three incredibly inspiring classes in Houston. “Enriching the Surface” taught by Ginny Eckley was a fun filled day of dying an array of silks in various dye baths with the simplest technique imaginable. “Sheer Bliss” taught by Maggie Weiss was an ingenious use of layered, collaged sheers. And finally, Halloween was spent with Starr Hagenbring who treated us with “adult grapejuice” and her endless energy as we painted on fabric and learned some of the techniques that made her the hands down winner of last year’s Bernina Fashion Show.
Other show highlights included meeting my idol, Jay McCarroll (winner of Season One Project Runway), who remembered my garment from the Sunday night fashion show and gave me his autographed postcard which now hangs in my sewing studio.

My sister is an incredible quilter and earned the honor to have her quilt on display in the AQA pictoral quilt division. So we had the fun of celebrating her honor as well and I proudly gave personal commentary on her quilt with admirers any time I was in the area. And to have our mom with us who taught both my sister and I to sew was truly the highlight of the week for all of us! She was so proud of her two daughters.

Saturday was yet another fun day as I watched the informal modeling of my garment and had the chance to talk about the creation process in a “meet the designer” session. I got more great pictures for my already bulging scrapbook.

Special thanks to Mom (Tena Luebbe), Sister Jan Sittler, Daughters Ginger Gloystein and Dawn Luebbe), and friends Susan Ferris, Terri Huss, Kathy Schulz and Gail Miller who made the week so special by joining me in Houston for one of the best weeks of my life! And I couldn’t have accomplished this project without Lori Hampton, my sewing expert extraordinaire who helped me see this garment to completion and got me unstuck along the way!