Educational Weekend

What a wonderful weekend I had.  I had been invited to join two talent longarm quilters in our area to join them at a longarm quilt conference.  Classes were offered for all levels of experience, which is good because I am not at the same level as these two ladies.  After registering on the first morning we were chatting with other students. One of our group asked a young woman (any woman than my 60 + is younger but as it happened she is my daughter’s age) where she is from to which she replied “Australia”.  We asked if she had come just for this event, which she replied “yes”.  Well we decided Catherine would not be by herself this weekend and we dragged her along with us. 

We spent a long evening at Seafood Restaurant learning about Australia. She learn probably more about America and us than she wanted. We all learn a lot in our classes and look forward to applying those lessons on our longarm machines.  Catherine had plans to stay one more day and travel the return trip on Tuesday.  I have heard she has been delayed as the flights have been cancelled by the winter storm.

I hope that we will meet again, maybe at quilting event somewhere. My husband would not mind taking a trip to Australia even if it’s to a quilt show.

January events

In the month of January I usually inventory my quilt projects. I count the number of unfinished quilts and the state of completion.  I try to use the rest of the month finishing quilt bindings or labels just to nudge a few of them into the finished pile. None of this has happened this year.

Most of the country is suffering from the coldest winter in years if not decades. We too in our ‘neck of the woods’ are cold.  Thank goodness we have a fireplace.  As long as we keep the wood box full the fireplace helps keep the house warm and with the added asset of keeping the electric heat bill lower.  So the year started out by moving a lot of wood closer to the house. Snow has greeted us several times and that means shoveling the drive and sideway.  But mostly it is cold, several days there was no school or work so the house had a husband and daughter making noises of some kind.

In middle of the month my mother-in-law had passed away. She was 86 and had been in poor health for several years. She led a full life the way she wanted and passed in her sleep.  This event had us flying to the opposite side of the country.  The weather was warmer there that was a plus. We returned to bitter cold again.

All this has led me to the end of the month with no inventory, no blogs written for the month and little time in my sewing room.  I hope this is not a sign of the rest of the year.