Fantasia!

Italy was wonderful! The people, the weather, the food, the shops all so delightfully different.

The northern Italian city of Parma was the venue for the Textile Show. Our hotel was within walking distance from the city so we were able to explore it on foot in the evenings. There were these cool yellow trams.

And this one sported an advertisement for our show - the 5th International Forum for Creative Textiles. The show featured lace making and embroidery as well as patchwork and quilting.

The JUKI TL 98P sewing machine on our Art Quilter machine quilting frames generated a lot of interest! Most people asked us where the computer was that was generating the line designs. Our response was "Fantasia!" which means that the lines designs came from our own imagination. This was the first time many of the visitors had ever seen or tried a machine quilting frame.

Emily and I jotted down some of the most popular comments:

"Bellisimo!" - So beautiful!

"Facile" "Semplice"- Easy and simple

"Bello! bello! bello!"

"Mamma mia!" - yes, Italians really do say this, a lot!

"stupendo!" - Great!

"Meraviglioso!" - marvellous

"Ganzo!" - northern Italian slang for cool

"Io lo vuo!" - I want this!

We think they liked it!

I'll post more about Italy tomorrow.