Yesterday I did get some stuff done before Mike dropped off Marcie (and beer for Tom) when he came to "inspect" the new kitchen.  Linda wasn't far behind to pick up Marcie and me, and after popping over to Nyla's to collect her and Ann we were off to Mesa.  Leaving at 11 as we did got us there plenty early (noon, for a 2:00 program) because we'd heard parking would be tight.  But since we had planned ahead and all packed lunches, we enjoyed the glorious afternoon eating pool-side while we waited. 

When we arrived we'd gone into the ballroom to save seats (in the front row, natch) though that turned out to be a no-no.  

We were quite amazed at the sheer volume of seats set up in there - but as it turned out virtually all of them did end up filled!  When all the doors finally opened at 1:30 and the 'stampede' started, I still managed to end up with a good view (having learned from all those years at the PSIFF, I grabbed an inside aisle seat on one of the outer sections) and was able to take pix throughout.  

The quality of them isn't as sharp as I'd like since I zoomed in, and with no flash there is the usual blurriness associated with longer shutter times  - but the pix still work for my purposes.

Jenny is quite an entertaining speaker, eliciting lots of appreciative laughter while passing along wonderful information.  I've made disappearing 4-patch quilts 

and disappearing 9-patch quilts -

but was "stunned and amazed" at what variations she has achieved with her disappearing pinwheel and hour-glass blocks (both easily made with half-square triangles.)

Start with a simple pinwheel...

and turn it into this pinwheel in a churn dash

or this

or this

or this

or this.

Start with a simple hourglass block

and turn it into this block on point

or this star on point.

Notice that all of these blocks started out as half-square triangles.  While I've incorporated all of these blocks into a project, I never thought to assemble all of them into the same quilt. 

I had been planning on finishing up some UFOs at the upcoming quilt retreat... but no surprise that now I'm itching to start a whole bunch of new ones! 

However this is a quilt I was planning to whip up at the retreat (from one of the pics I've been collecting of scrap quilts) to use up some of my gazillion 2 1/2" squares...

and her method will save me a LOT of time and effort!!!

In addition, the landscape quilt book (which I ordered after drooling over Wanda's copy) of a method using strips arrived yesterday.  I've got a huge box of leftovers from trimming this and that, and it has been waiting patiently as I've continued to add to it over the years....so now there are even more quilts to think about starting!