Windows Palooza 2011

I attended Windows Palooza yesterday. It was put on by the Chicagoland chapter of WCAA. What a wonderful day. In the morning I took a drawing class with Jackie Von Tobel. Now I can't hardly draw a straight line with a ruler so this was going to be a stretch for me. Jackie was so patient with everyone. She broke down the treatments into basic elements and then using graph paper we started drawing them out. I drew a pinch pleat drapery, a goblet pleat, a gathered treatment, swags, jabots and finally a side panel with a tieback. She also explained how our renderings would actually look in fabric. I have to say that my drawings really did look like the treatment they represented.
Then on to the vendor floor. We received a punch card for the vendors to mark off and when they were full they were placed in a basket for the big door prize at the end of the evening. I talked to lots of different reps and came home with tons of samples and ideas.
There was a wonderful lunch followed by my afternoon class with Deb Barrett. She had a trunk show of lots of new ideas for window treatments plus ideas of how to fabricate them. She just amazes me with everything she comes up with. Here is another photo of some of the things I saw.

Then it was back to the vendor floor with more visits and some short demos. Prizes were being given away throughout the day and then during dinner, which was also very good, the majority of them were awarded. I won a gift certificate to one of my favorite suppliers so I was very excited.
One last photo. Isn't this Roman shade adorable? I could just see this in a kids room.