Well, I'm back from my vacation. Quilt buddy Julie and I went to Ripley WV for 5 days at Zepora's Educational Quilting Seminar. It is an annual event held at Cedar Lakes Conference Center every October and has been going on for 23 years! It is so energizing to be surrounded by quilters. Everyone talks about fabric, thread, patterns, quilt shops they have visited, what they have made, are working on now, plan to make. You don't have to cook or get into your car once you arrive until you leave unless you want to. You can go back to your classroom after dinner & sew until midnight if you feel like it, or just socialize. There were studio classes offered where you could bring other projects to work on and the teacher will help you if you get stuck.
We arrived Sunday afternoon and left Friday morning. I took 3 classes, 2 one day appliqué classes ( I love the versatility of appliqué but hate to do it- I'm trying to learn to like it) and 1 two day class called Triple Threat Baskets. It was supposed to be triple treat baskets but there was a typo in the class list. Both names seem appropriate. There are 15-20 teachers and over 200 student quilters. Class size ranged from 6 up to 25 for the popular machine quilting class and the fabric painting & dyeing class.
Julie and I stayed in a double room in one of the cottages. The room was the size of a walk-in closet but we had our own bathroom. There was a small dresser, a built-in storage alcove with space to hang our coats and a couple of other garments and a shelf for each of us, 2 twin beds made up with sheets & blankets and clean towels fresh every day. There were 10 of these tiny rooms around a decent size lounge area with a microwave and a fridge and tables big enough to set up our sewing machines in the evening or cut fabric for the next day's class. Other room choices are a "dorm" room with
10 beds and you bring your own linens- I stayed in one the first 2 times I went. Five women from my guild went together and we each had a bed to sleep in and one to hold our "stuff". We did have to share 1 bathroom-not easy for
5 women. There is also a modern type hotel. I bought a meal ticket for 3 meals a day at the dining hall but Julie wants to keep her figure so she brought coffee, cereal bars, juice, fruit, and yogurt to eat for breakfast & lunch and just ate dinners at the dining hall.
Sunday evening is show & tell with people bring in things they have finished in the last year, especially those from classes they took previous years. Monday & Tuesday were free evenings to work on our projects, shop at the small vendors' mall or go into town to Wal-Mart and/or the local quilt shop that stayed open just for us. Wednesday the teachers showed their work and talked about workshops they would like to teach next year. Thursday evening we showed what we made in our classes this year.
The scenery is beautiful, hills surrounding the conference center buildings and the lakes in the center. A few men came. Some quilt and some fished, played golf, or hiked. One husband who came played the bagpipes for us. Last year he was just learning but this year he sounded good. The weather was warm & sunny on Monday and Tuesday then cooled off & started to rain. We didn't care, the power was on and we were warm & dry inside sewing. I came home with 3 more unfinished projects and a good idea how to proceed, if I get a chance to work on them before I forget what I was doing. West Virginia has the Powerball lottery so I bought a 5 weeks worth ticket when we left. Maybe I'll win and be able to retire & just go to quilt shows & sew instead of wasting good quilting time working. It was still raining when I got home, and my electricity was out Friday evening until 3am Saturday morning. I plan on going again next year. DH doesn't want to come with me, but that's OK, he stayed home to guard my stash.