Surviving the Runway Long Beach: The Fascinator

Pokey's latest theme for Surviving the Runway, at International Quilt Festival, was inspired by the hats worn for formal occasions in Britain, such as the royal wedding, called a fascinator.

All the participants were given a flocked black fedora to fashion into a fascinating head piece.

The Tim Gunn's for the event were: Jane LaFazio, Leslie Jenisen, Jamie Fingal, yours truly and Pokey as Heidi Klum.

Some serious creating going on, the pressure's intense because the prizes for this event are great.

Everyone has such a great time, it's too bad we have to keep the music down, most of the vendors nearby seem to enjoy the event, they always come round with big smiles on their faces. But I guess there are a few that don't like the distraction at the end of the day. There have been some years when we were louder and people really had a blast.

The runners up, some how I missed getting pictures of the 2nd and 3rd place winners. I guess that was because I was busy passing out prizes.

The winner, modeling her fascinator and giving her acceptance speech.

The fascinator group shot

Jamie and Jane

Pokey and Leslie

Surviving the Runway is always the grand finale at Festival for me. It follows several intense days of teaching, I always run straight to the show floor after my last class finishes up on saturday. It marks the time when I can really let my hair down, relax and dance to some fun tunes.

Then follow this up with a good meal, libations and a lot of laughs, hanging out with great friends. It's the perfect way to wrap up the week and in the morning, fly home.

IQF Day 5 Part 2: Surviving the Runway- Carmen Miranda Style

All the photos in this post are by Nina Perez

The Surviving the Runway Action League

Pokey, Melly, Me, Jane, Jamie and Leslie

While channeling Tim Gunn, our job is to pass out supplies to participants for creating their wearable item, assist in challenges and design consultation.

We take this job very seriously.

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Melly Testa

Jane LaFazio, Leslie Jenisen, Jamie Fingal

Me

Maggie Winfield

Kathy York

A security guard even came over to express how much he enjoyed working at Quilt Festival, he said it was the best convention each year.

 the judges in deep contemplation

The winners!

International Quilt Festival Long Beach: Day 3

Saturday I taught painted fabric for whole cloth quilts. This tends to be a very focused skills based class covering different painting techniques to create gradations of color, glazing paint, working with masks and painting fine details.

After my class finished, I high tailed it down to the show floor for the highlight of festival; Surviving the Runway! As a take off of Project Runway, this is always so much fun; with music, dancing and the challenge for participants to create a wearable item from a bunch of random supplies, like craft foam ribbon, glue and pipe cleaners in a very short amount of time.

photo courtesy of Don Strom

The theme this time was Life's a Beach. Pokey appropriately fills the role of Heidi Klum and Jane, Leslie, Jamie and I were the Tim Gunn's for this event.

The prizes were huge, each one totaling several hundred dollars, so the stakes were high. To thoroughly embarrass one's self is expected and part of the fun.

Surviving the Runway 60's style Chicago

Here's our lovely host Pokey dawning a daisy chain to get the festivities started.

As you know this event always has music that makes you wanna dance, Melly and I have to join in with all the other participants and get our groove on too.

The Winners

Peace, Love and Happiness was had by all!