Virginia and Creative Curves will be in Booth 907 featuring the Creative Curves Quilting System, the Creative Curves Kaleidoscope Ruler and the Multi-Angle, Wedge Ruler. 
Personal: Virginia Walton is a wife, mother, grandmother, quilter, teacher, author, and inventor. While she currently lives near Albuquerque, New Mexico, she left her heart in San Francisco. Born in Oakland, California, she grew up in the city by the bay and has lived and traveled “almost everywhere.” Her husband was a career military man and her business has taken her to far away destinations like Europe and Hong Kong, Still, Virginia feels that, “once you are from San Francisco, and around that area, it always holds a special part of your heart.”
How did you get involved with quilting? After spending close to seven years in bed with a misdiagnosed back problem and after a couple of surgeries, I started to look for something to do for myself (aside from three children and a husband). This was about 1976 and the bicentennial had resurrected all the ‘home arts’ including quilting. We were living in the DC area and I went from taking machine piecing classes to teaching classes within a couple of months. With the sewing machine I was able to fit my love of quilting and designing around my family life
What is the one quilting tool that you can’t live without? My Olfa straight-handle 28mm rotary cutter. Though I design quilting tools, I could make templates if I had to but cutting out the shapes to sew together would become a chore if I couldn’t do the cutting with this rotary cutter. It is truly the best one for cutting 4 pieces at a time accurately and is the easiest on my body (eliminating any potential carpal tunnel problems).
Virginia will also be teaching on Wednesday #3020 Serpentine Twist
What do you like best about teaching? It is the best part of my business! Seeing the light come on in a student’s eyes when they successfully start to have fun when they are piecing a quilt using my ‘no pins’ method of machine piecing – there is nothing so rewarding!
What is the funniest or most embarrassing moment you have experienced while teaching? I was teaching in France and was explaining how to do a rotary cutting technique when I used a word that clearly meant something different in French that it does when used in the U.S. After hearing many gasps and seeing hands come up to cover faces, it was pretty obvious I had said something wrong. However, trying to have one of the students tell me what I had done or said just met with a lot of head shaking. So I finally said that the class couldn’t continue until someone told me what I had done. After a rather long pause one of the students whispered in my ear what the problem was – I rephrased my statement, we all laughed and class continued.
What is your best tip for quilters? Relax, have fun and don’t get hung up on being perfect, especially when learning a new technique. Also, change the way you are cutting your fabric. Most quilters cut horizontal to the table. Instead, they should be cutting almost perpendicular to the table and look ahead of where the rotary blade is cutting. By cutting almost perpendicular, it helps to eliminate potential carpal tunnel problems. By looking ahead when cutting instead of at the blade of the rotary cutter, your eyes will look where you should be cutting and you will be accurate. This will also help reduce damaging the blades because you won’t run into the plastic ruler or tool.
You can find Virginia at: www.creativecurves.com
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