(working backwards--skip to the end if you want to take a peek at what's next!!)
Spent a superfun day (and half that night) at the Sewing Summit in Salt Lake City last Saturday with Dana, Vanessa, Jeni, and Gertie; learned some life-changing tips and tricks for blogging, photographing projects, choosing fabrics, and even altering retro patterns for modern bodies. That cyber-train is rolling, and these gals are helping me catch a ride!
Met up with a gang of SL Modern Quilt Guild gals: Katie, Wendy, Colleen and a BUNCH of blogging Amys (AmyLouWho), (Amy, Amy, Amy) then met NEW blogging/sewing/knitting friends from all around the world! (Nice to meet you, Wendy, Claudia, Candice, Susan and Terry to name a few. After dinner, many of us hung out to chat, sew, learn and laugh in a room filled with 50 sewing machines whirring until 1:00 a.m. Bliss.
- Attended/taught at the Midway Heritage Quilters retreat in Altamont, (middle of where?) Utah last week. A beautiful lodge all to ourselves/sleeps 100. There were 19 of us, again staying up late just to sew some stuff. I taught a couple of workshops -- OWL pincushions and my Star Medallion Tree Skirt, then put together a quilt top, sewing until the wee hours of morning. Delightful!
Packing up the next day, a phone call came in from New Jersey. From my SOLDIER! Back on US soil, at Fort Dix for the de-mobilization process. I could hardly speak! Oh, my boy, oh my heart! Safe at last, and home in just a couple of weeks. Can't be soon enough for this Momma to wrap my arms around him. As it was, I had a group of dear friends there to wrap their arms around me as I shed such tears of relief. Grateful.
We didn't know when he would be coming home, all they could tell us was "soon", or "before Christmas". Now I must get sewing on that quilt for his return, A Soldier's Star. Plus I'll need an example of it for teaching the class at HMQS next May!- My friend Rachel is WAYYYY in to Civil War reinactment a week ago, and she stopped by to raid my closet for some quilts to hang in her Civil War quilt show. It was worth it, because all three quilts came home with a lovely ribbon attached to it! The "Stonewall Jackson" award went to the Carpenter's Star quilt for its precision and steadiness, Chelsea's little patriotic quilt won the "Battle Cry of Freedom" award, and my Civil War memories quilt came home with a Judges' Choice ribbon. Nice!
Had a wonderful time at last month's Quilt Festival with the Utah Quilt Guild judging the quilt show, taking classes, teaching my Bloomin' Blossoms class, and attending luncheons and lectures from Jill Finley and our National teachers, David Taylor, Sally Collins, and George and Virginia Siciliano. It's enough quiltiness to send a person spinning!
I ♥ the ←"quilt" I made that week! Now I just can't wait to "Catch the Quilting Bug" for next year's Quilt Fest in St. George. Yeah, I think I already have "Quilt Fever"!!
Sew, What's NEXT??
Well, this week,
- Midway Community Chorus
Directoral debut
SUNDAY!!
I may need chocolate... about a pound of it...
not sure which one makes me most nervous... wish me luck!
