As The Crow Flies . . .

Quilting Workshops, (the name we selected for our new venture) was so excited last Friday and Saturday to welcome Shelley and Jeanne from The Quilt Patch in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.

Sheila and I have been planning this for almost five months and once the day arrived it was everything that we had hoped it would be!  One of the gals that was helping us out had this perfect crow quilt to bring along to drape at the front of the room – thanks Gail!

What a great bunch of ladies to all converge on Brandon for the opportunity to learn and visit with others who are as passionate about quilting as we are.

Of course there was a bit of shopping to be done at the Trunk Show on Friday night . . . what a wonderful selection of fabric and kits.  I've already shown some of my goodies in a previous post and still have them sitting out so that I can look at them - plus I'm running out of room to store all my "stuff".

      

Jeanne and Shelley brought some wonderful quilts to show to the 115 attendees at the trunk show.  Some were from their book of course and others of of some of their Fall/Winter patterns and classes that they will be holding.  It was interesting to hear their story in how the book came to be and the processes behind the whole undertaking.

 

Flakey Friends is the name of this one and it's one of my favorites!  I’m pretty sure it is available on their website or give them a call and they'll know which one you're talking about.

  

  Here is a shot of everyone working really, really hard on Saturday at the workshop.  We had the most wonderful gym to work in with nice bright lighting and lots and lots of room for the 58 registrants.

 

There were seasoned quilters and really new quilters in the room that worked together to learn new things and pass on tips and tricks from previous projects.

Everyone’s version of the project was just a bit different from the next . . . some people used felted wool, some people used different colors for each stocking and someone even had blue trees for a more modern look to the whole project.  It was so much fun to see the different interpretations of the same project.  Unfortunately we did not get a photo of the whole group together . . . I’m not sure if I could have grouped 58 people all together and get them all in one shot!

 

Of course there was lots and lots of food for the trunk show and then for the workshop.  We had a wonderful quilter who catered the whole thing and everything was scrumptious.  The Saturday morning muffins and coffee were prepared by four very special quilters and I think that got the day off to a wonderful start for everyone.

 

This is my version of the quilt that was taught at the Saturday workshop – I’m sure you’ll remember seeing little snippets of it in previous posts.

 

This is another version of the same quilt, but I used some other appliqué patterns from out of their book ‘Tis the Season to make the top half of the quilt.  I call this one "Prancing With The Stars".

I love them both and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to part with them at Christmas as was the original plan.

And here we are: Sheila is down on the right end there, then Jeanne, Shelley and myself.  This was taken right at the end of the day and we’re still smiling so that is, as Martha would say: “A really good thing”.  We’re already planning for the Spring of 2011 and can’t wait to see what materializes for that one!

Have a great weekend everyone.  I’m going to be catching up on a few things that have been left undone for a little bit too long . . . wish me luck!!!