Baltimore on the Prairie

Last week I spent four days at the Mahoney State park in Nebraska teaching Baltimore Applique. On Wednesday I started the conference with a 412 mile road trip. We purchase a GPS a couple of weeks ago and this was the first real test and I made out just fine. I am pretty excited by that because my family was worried. However no one was available to travel with me so it was nice to have such an uneventful time. On Thursday a number of students and teachers drove to the International Quilt Study Center. This is an amazing place. The current quilt collection is now an exciting 3000 plus! We were fortunate to be able to spend time in a room where quilts prepared for exhibit, etc. The quilt laid out for us to see is called the Lucinda quilt. Check out the web sight for a look at this beautiful piece of art. It has a reverse applique feather border and lovely applique basket and more. In addition, we were able to go upstairs to the gallery for a really incredible look at beautiful crazy quilts as well as some wonderful pieced and appliqued quilts. What a day. Back to the Lodge in time to teach the first two hours of the workshop. In my class students marked the background fabric and began appliqueing leaves so the next day they could applique flowers. Essentially this was to be a three day workshop taught over four days. Students arrived early for class and inevitably stayed late. You can't get better that that. We all came together each evening for show and tell and door prizes. One memorable evening was spent with the incredibly funny lecture by Jan Carlson!! Of course we ate a lot of chocolate I am so looking forward to next year. I hope you are too.