maine quilts 2008 - day 3

today was an actually class! finally... not having to do anything "official". :) mom and I were taking the same class, and while we wanted to get in early to get a seat, we needed to get there a bit early anyway so that my mom could go over some admissions stuff (she's chair of admissions). once that was taken care of, I hung some more directional signs (my work is never done) while madre went and saved us some seats (which was good because there were some "I need to sit up front" type people in there). :) I helped out with unloading and bringing her stuff in (which is hard for her to do since her replacement knee is less than a month old)... so by the time class started, I was already ready for a nap! :) so the class we were taking was "small wonders" with pat speth. she uses this terminology not for quilts (you'd think minis or something), but rather the small blocks she creates from a large HST and the new block designs they ultimately create. it's a really fantastic and EASY concept to pick up and finish. it seems intimidating at first but really handy and useful since charm packs are 5" squares... so you just need to collect a few and you can make all her patterns. pat started out with about a 15-20 minute demo, then we were free to go at it! it was easiest that way, I thought, because everyone was choosing a different pattern to work on. she walked around and helped us out but other than that would really just stop the class every hour or so and say, "hey look at the design wall - it's another "small wonders" pieced border option." or something like that. she was a very good teacher who explained things clearly and simply so that you could understand what she was trying to show you. I completed a bit... not a lot... but enough that I could at least provide my adoring public with a sample! :) I did one with the flash and without...







so let me know what you think!! :) I'd love your input.

at lunch I found out that I won a door prize for the volunteers... which was a cute little fat quarter pack. also, with all this volunteering I am being entered to win the janome heart truth sewing machine... which was donated by one of the merchants to be used as a prize. how super cool is that?! not like I'll win it... but it's fun to dream, right? :)

lastly, we had the friday night gala dinner and lecture with emilie richards. my mom and I didn't attend the dinner but came back to volunteer during the dinner and attend the lecture afterward. I thought it was a good lecture... emilie is a very intelligent and articulate author and I thought she spoke well. while I have only read one of her books to date, I enjoyed it a lot (even though I was skeptical at first) and look forward to reading her other novels in the shenandoah series, plus her other mysteries. I liked hearing about her background and how she incorporates her life into her novels and where her inspiration comes from. it was too bad that some people were getting a little antsy toward the end of the lecture... or maybe just that many people had to pee. :) oh, and for the record, I'm not saying nice things just because she'd mentioned that she gets google alerts and already had one maine quilter blog about it... I really did enjoy the lecture. :) and at the end of the Q&A, before emilie did any of her book signings, there was a drawing for a janome 6600P (yeah, you read that right). it was donated by another merchant (how cool are they?!). the sweetest lady, at least 80 years old, was so shocked when she heard that her ticket had been pulled! I was so happy to see the utter surprise on her face. it was so cute.

ok... enough! off to bed. I'm tired!